South East Asia

Once Up the Irrawaddy

Buddhism, Burma, Landscape Photography, Landscapes, Life, Myanmar, People, Photography, Portraits, Reflections, South East Asia, Street Photography, Travel Photography, Trekking, Uncategorized
Pinch me, I’m beautiful
Late lunch by the banks of a slow-moving river
Who says that there’s no glamour in selling street food?
I am going to hector you until you break, you flunky!
Zen and the art of selling nothing
Who’s a pretty boy?
Sometimes i lie here and think, and sometimes I just lie here.
Blind man’s blues.

Street Life

Chiang Mai, Pai, People, Photography, Portraits, South East Asia, Street Photography, Street Scenes, Thailand, Travel, Travel Photography

At dusk the main street of Pai, North Thailand, comes to life in a menagerie of buskers and vendors, tourists and hawkers. Sizzling aromas share the air with the sound of laughter and banter in two dozen languages. The colours are so vivid, what else can the photographer do but shoot black&white?

Barking Up the Right Tree

animals, dogs, South East Asia, Street Photography, Thailand, Travel

A great dane would be a fitting side show if he wasn’t so central to the nightlife of Pai, north Thailand. The dog, seen here with his white-haired owner, put in a command performance in the cause of receiving doggie treats. After wooing the crowds, the big fella trotted off none the wiser that he had become the local celebrity.

Thailand Under Nature’s Spotlight

Chiang Mai, Landscape Photography, Landscapes, Pai, Photography, South East Asia, Thailand, Travel, Travel Photography, Trekking, Uncategorized

 

From peasants tilling fields at the close of day to ribbed hillsides breathing out vapour at the break of day, the countryside of northwestern Thailand is serene in its majesty. After decades of widespread hunting the forests may have fallen eerily silent, but no man armed with bow or rifle can bring down the tropical sun. Where birds once cawed and monkeys once howled, it is the dawn the makes all the noise nowadays.

Please click on image to enlarge. Trust me, it’ll be worth your while.

Ban Rak Thai

Burma, Chiang Mai, Landscape Photography, Landscapes, People, Photography, South East Asia, Thailand, Travel, Travel Photography

There’s a village about as far northwest as you can go in Thailand before you hit the fortified frontier with Myanmar. Its name is Ban Rak Thai, which translates as “Thai-Loving People”. There’s a story in how it came to be. That village with its signs written in Mandarin and its slopes lined with oolong tea shrubs was founded by Kuomintang soldiers, themselves escaping Mao’s Communists across the hills from Yunnan Province in 1949. While the mainstay of Chinese nationalists fighting under warlord Chiang Kai Shek fled to Taiwan, this faction of history’s losers found sanctuary in Thailand where they brought a little taste of home with them.