M n M - keep reading to find out why

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I thought I better get out a quick "blog" to let everyone know what I am up to especially since I am a bit far behind on my emails (I thought a blog would get me a bit more up to date). Yesterday reality set in. I will explain what I mean via the captions in the first few photos.

So, you may be wondering what i am up to - I am also wondering. I left Vietnam at the end of March and traveled back to Thailand via Laos. Laos was a relaxing experience after Vietnam. No damn horns honking all the time and no constant battle trying to get an "honest" price (whatever that means). In Laos they are up front - For some transportation they will post the prices; one for foreigner and one for locals - ok, no problem. In Vietnam at times it feels like whatever they can extract from your wallet they will. Just today i took a local "bus" in Thailand and I didn't have to even ask the price before I got on it knowing that I would be charged the same price as a local. But I do miss the people of Sapa - as usual I've digressed.

So what have I been doing? Nothing really, just taking photos, enjoying Thai food and hitting the gym. I have several thousands of photos that I need to go through and maybe in a later blog I will include some of them. Right now this trip is looking like all I am photographing is minorities and monks (thus the title - M n M). For this blog I just grabbed a bunch of photos that I took in the last two days as well as a few from before that. The purpose of this trip was not to travel (and I really haven't) but to try and "earn" a living day trading - well I have fired myself from that job and now I need to find a source of income and am not looking forward to going back to the US and trying to find a job in the current economic situation especially given the fact that I have really been out of the "real" work world for, oops - 15 years. I guess I better learn how to say, "would you like to super size your order today?".


hmmm - I just saw a few more comments that some of you left on my last blog - thanks for the kind words on my photographs. Now I feel "obligated" to dig a little deeper into what I shot and post some "more" shots. I just realized that I had already put over a 100 photos in this blog so I will only add a few more which means I will be sending out another blog shortly - maybe after I call the airlines and change my flight back to the states. ok, this is taking longer than expected, time to grab some shut eye.

I just woke up and now I realized that I haven't posted any shots of Laos. I really didn't take too many shots while I was there. Let me rephrase that, I only shot on a couple of days that I was there and when I did shoot - I shot a lot. I spent two days on the Mekong river and shot over a thousand photographs. Most of the pictures were of life on the river - men and boys fishing and women "panning" for gold. I also photographed a few monks - keeping with the M n M title of this blog. Back in Luang Prabang I shot two days of morning Alms which starts at 6AM and lasts about 15 - 20 minutes.

Well that about wraps it up - hope all is well and I hope all are surving the economic financial tsunami (it isn't over by a long shot).

Cheers,

Dave / David / Yogi

ps check out this video - it kind of sums things up: Be Informed

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Photos

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Yesterday I decided to get out of town so I went to a little town nearby called Lamphun. I had a few opportunities for some good environmental people shots but all of them turned out soft (read - out of focus) So on my way back to Chaing Mai we passed by a wat and I saw a monk wearing an interesting straw hat which I thought might make for an interesting picture. Well I was just going to let it go but then somebody hit the buzzer for the drive to stop and I thought it must be an omen so I got out and walked about one or two Ks back to the wat where I had seen the monk. oh, this is a photo of the road I was on

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As I walked into the wat grounds this girl gave me a nice wave (photo out of focus)

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this is the monk I saw which made me decide to go back (photo out of focus)

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then I saw this Monk (photo out of focus)

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Next I discovered what was in those white bags that the previous monk had on his cart

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I couldn't let the Monk unload all those tiles by himself so I helped unload the bags (I didn't unload all these)

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I also helped stack the tiles

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notice the monk is happier now. or maybe he had this little "smirk" because it was the last batch and the boys loaded up a bag that was able double the weight of the average bags (no wonder my back is killing me).

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my new friend and I share a kodak moment together

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what does any of this have to do with me finding a job? well if i have to find a job that does manual labor - I am screwed (lazy American)

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another out of focus shot from yesterday - this is one where I wished I could say "do over"