time to move on ...

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Well it is my last day in Sapa and I am trying to get a blog out. I have been spending the better part of the day trying to get it written, the photos uploaded (kept losing my internet signal) and stuffing all my belongings into my carry on size backpack.

I’ll try to keep this short (with that said, I have uploaded quite a few photos). A lot has happened but I will write about something that happened recently (since I sent a mini blog out to fellow photogs so I can cut and paste). Here’s the story: ok, I can’t connect to the internet to cut and paste it from my email so I will write about something else for now. I will be leaving Vietnam this Friday and start to head back to Thailand where I will have to do some serious soul searching as far as where I go from here.

Thanks to the global financial meltdown my little investments are even smaller and worse yet, not earning any interest. As a result I am eating into the principal which is a no-no . I am a realist and I know there won’t be any social security when I become eligible for it. Those of you who think there will be S.S. better start learning the facts (watch the movie I.O.U.S.A.) that we (the US) will have a $50,000,000,000,000 - $80,000,000,000,000 liability by the time I am eligible. We can’t borrow that much money and if we did, the money would be worthless. So I knew that Social Security would be there but I didn’t count on the “bankers” destroying capitalism (and then being rewarded for it). A lot of people are wondering what is going on in the financial markets. It is very simple – a few very large “banks / insurance” companies used their strength to get laws changed which allowed them to basically get away with murder. In the US in some states you can go to jail for life for being busted with marijuana 3 times yet we bailout the crooks that have caused millions of people to lose their jobs, homes and money. Now what is wrong with this picture? A good article to read about what “happened” can be found here: The big take over

The reason I am including this in a travel blog is because I can’t travel anymore because of what these jackasses did and I am not too happy about that.

Ok, I have a connection so on with the story: “… Anyway I left on Tuesday for a 3 day shoot. I wanted to get to sin ho and see which minorities were there. I left at 8am and got to sin ho around 3:30pm without stopping to take a photo. The town is a bit of a dump and trying to find a hotel was tough. I heard there was a "rustic" place to stay but couldn't find it. I did find a nice hotel and they wanted $25 a night. They had an "uncleaned" room without bath for $10 - it looked like a "brothel" room so I said screw it and drove 50k back to lai chau. Photos taken - 0. In lau chi I thought that was stupid, now I have to drive back in the morning. I headed back towards sin ho knowing that there were about 3 minority groups that I hadn't "seen" before. There were some different black dao just outside sin ho and there were two different Hmong groups, one with very large red "yarn headdresses".

I was lucky to have a guide who speaks Hmong! Anyway I got a few shots off of some Hmong on the road and stopped at a village where the big red heads lived. a man invited us into his home to talk ... I asked if I could take pictures of his wife and she said yes and started to put on her headdress. She had a daughter who wanted to have her photo taken too and I said great. Anyway, I get the old tripod set up and begin shooting the wife when a few people start to gather. I need to remember to tell the husband or whomever to keep people away until we are done. Anyway I used my new 24-105 lens and I left the IS on (I forgot when shooting on a tripod you need to turn it off!). I did get a few images that were sharp luckily. By the way, the women wanted $2 each for taking their photos. I normally wouldn't pay it but I agreed. The daughter after seeing the mom get her picture taken now wants $3. I say no, we had a deal. Anyway, I drove to sin ho where there is a little market with black Dao and like a fool put on my 50mm thinking I would get some portraits in low light. Well they would have nothing to do with it and demanded $3 each. I said no way and put on my zoom but they just would let me take any photos. It was a small market - I was basically the only person in it and the center of attention.

I drove 50k back to lai chau and was thinking man that was stupid not to pay the "big red head" girl $3 so I decided that I would drive back the next day. I have never seen the "big red head” (I’ll find their real name) before and heard that they dress like the Yao (sp) in china. I get up early the next day to drive 38k to the big red head village. I go to the house where I was the day before and the father said that his daughter went out to plant corn. Figures, so I found a couple of other local girls and agree to pay them $2 each and they start to do their hair up. Right before the first one was ready two Vietnamese pull up on a motorbike and start acting like big shots. My guide is starting to freak out and says they're the police. I am thinking they are just some government officials and wanted to tell them to F#$#$ off. They harass khu my guide and she is scared and wants to leave. I am like no way. They call another guy who shows up and he was much calmer and I told him that I would spend an hour there taking photos and then head back to sapa. He agrees but in the mean time the girl doesn't want to have her picture taken, khu my guide wants to get the hell out of there and I am like great! The reason the "police" came buy is they said that I had been there the day before and how did I know how to find the village, and how can the Hmong woman speak my language....

I was able to get the girl to let me take her photograph and it took me a lot of effort to get the other girl to do it. I really wanted to take the two of them together and up front told them and their husbands that I would pay $3 each if they would allow that - they agreed. As luck would have it, the girls didn't want to have their pictures taken together unless I paid more. Not to be cheap but $3 is more than what the average laborer makes in a day and to get $3 for 15 minutes is a lot of money. So I got back on the bike and drove for about 7 hours back to Sapa. In the end I had a few photos, spent "a lot" of money and had a soar ass.

In the end, if I wouldn't have been too cheap to pay $25 to stay in the hotel I would have had about 2 hours of light the first day to shoot. I would have had about 2 more hours the next day, maybe the police wouldn't have shown up since I wouldn't have been driving back and forth. Also if I wouldn't have been so cheap to pay the daughter an extra $1 I would have been able to photograph her and her mother together. Another lesson learned is that up front I need to tell the models if they try to change the modeling fee midstream that they get paid $0. Lessons learned!!”
Well not so fast, another lesson is doing scrimp on hard drive capacity! I haven’t been shooting too much lately because my hard drive and external hard drive are full! Now I have to spend time going through and deleting photos and it is taking forever! Oh well lesson learned (I know my next lesson will be I should have got a Mac!).

Hope al lis well!

Dave - Yogi
ps, sorry but I noticed that due to my internet connection issue I accidently uploaded some photos twice.

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Photos

binh lu February 20, 2009 8
ah, the binh lu smile