tiabunna's photos with the keyword: People

Maybe you enjoy the spice known as Cardamom? It is grown in various tropical parts of Asia, including Laos. Once harvested, in the form of pods, it needs to be dried. There are various means of doing that, but in this Lao village it was done the traditional way. This lady is working on a shelf above a smouldering fire, drying out the seeds taken from those pods hanging on the sides of this special purpose hut. It was fiendishly hot (she was bathed in perspiration) and very smoky inside: how she could look so cheerful for the camera was beyond me! I really had to feel for the people of rural Laos, living such hard lives compared to our western world, while in one of the world's lowest income countries. View this large on black and spare a moment's thought when next buying spices! I'm very flattered that this image has been selected for inclusion on the Ipernity Homepage.

Down the road from the school, these village men were busily repairing a net. Nets such as this are used to capture birds for eating and, in that regard, it must be recognised that these areas largely operate on a subsistence economy.

Amazingly, not only were we invited to visit the school (see earlier images), we were allowed to take photos in the classrooms. This young girl looked somewhat inattentive in class - probably distracted by the "farangs" (Lao term for westerners) with cameras. In the PiP an image of the early primary classroom.

If the morning markets in Luang Prabang are largely about fresh food, the evening street markets are about fabrics and clothing (PiP 1) and "ready to go" food (PiPs 2-4). Stand aside Maccas and Colonel, there's more variety here!

Today we were reminded that it was exactly 75 years since the surrender of Singapore. Some years ago we visited the restored "Battle Box" (the name for the military headquarters - see note) where the underground bunkers had been refitted as original and with very lifelike mannequins of the military personnel. It felt a little spooky! That's Lieutenant-General Percival on the right, who was forced to surrender the island and nearly two hundred thousand military personnel became war prisoners. Courtesy of the Japanese , a very high proportion died before the armistice. .

These men in the village of Xay Oudom were repairing a weighted net used to catch birds. It's a subsistence lifestyle in the highland villages of Laos. See the note to meet some of the village women. Well, this seems an appropriate musical link.

Selfie tip: ...it's important to have the right background. :-)

We had our group reunion dinner in a local restaurant (opened specially for the event), where Narelle was our charming and very efficient host. As if putting up with our noisy crew was not enough, she very kindly agreed when I asked her if she would participate in my 'portrait of a stranger' project.

This picture is 28 in my "100 Strangers" project. Two ladies were staying in the unit beside ours in Forbes. They were there for the camel races and, when their husbands were unable to go along, decided to have a "girls' weekend". They were fascinated by my little red Renault (see earlier shot) and wanted their photos taken with it - that seemed a good opportunity to ask them if they would be in my "100 strangers" project, to which they agreed. Two further shots in notes. Robyn had a brilliant laugh, which I managed to capture by reminding her of a joke (2nd note). I hope you like these shots, Robyn. Come to a point, there is a fence in the background, so HFF!

This picture is 27 in my "100 Strangers" project. Two ladies were staying in the unit beside ours in Forbes. They were there for the camel races and, when their husbands were unable to go along, decided to have a "girls' weekend". They were fascinated by my little red Renault (see earlier shot) and wanted their photos taken with it - that seemed a good opportunity to ask them if they would be in my "100 strangers" project, to which they agreed. Second shot in the note. I hope you like these shots, Kerry. Come to a point, there is a fence in the background, so HFF!