Water Buffalo
Vietnamese people believe that the water buffalo is a god. Long ago, the water buffalo god lived in the sky, and he was sent to earth with two gifts: grass and rice. The god of the sky told the buffalo to plant the rice first, and the grass second. But the water buffalo forgot the order when he reached earth and planted grass first. The grass grew quickly, and filled up the available land. Then the water buffalo planted the rice. But because he planted it second, it only grew in a few places, and was more difficult to cultivate. The sky god was angry with the water buffalo, and as punishment he was turned into his present form and had to stay on earth forever, helping humans with their work and farming.
Jeeps
Some of the roads in Vietnam, especially in the more rural areas, are not so good. The answer? These vehicles right here.
Lensbaby, f2, probably 800 ISO, don't remember the shutter speed. Not quite fast enough, I think.
Last of Sapa
Thought I'd give you two images for my last post about Sapa. If you ever have a chance to go, I would highly recommend it. It's just stunning, and the people are so friendly and wonderful.
The Dance
A quick snap of some children dancing we saw in Sapa. The girl on the right is wearing a traditional Hmong jacket, which they make by hand from hemp they grow themselves, and dye with indigo they grow in their gardens. And then the sleeves are embroidered painstakingly by hand. Although 'progress' happens everywhere, the hill tribes in Sapa seem to keep to their old traditions, while incorporating new conveniences, like cell phones.
In Sync
Maybe it's just that I'm more of a city girl than a country girl, but I've been amazed at how Vietnam seems to be bursting with new life. Everywhere there are babies: human, animal, new shoots of green in every crack in the concrete and along every road. You'll hardly ever see a barren area, except on the sheerest of mountain sides, and even there you'll see a few hardy souls struggling to make it.
Anyway, I thought these baby ducks (ducklets?) were too cute not to share, especially considering their pose.
Nesting
I was tickled to see this mother and her chicks in a Red Dzao village in Sapa. The arrangement makes it look like they just popped out of her and ended up on the ground.
Rice Harvesting
These are Black Hmong hill tribe villagers harvesting rice in Sapa. As far as I vaguely understand, from the many times it was explained to me, the steps of rice harvesting are as follows:1. Cut the rice (what you can see they're doing here in the picture).
2. Let it dry a little.
3. Thresh it (shake the rice from the stalk).
4. Lay the kernels of rice in the sun to dry for a few days.
5. Remove the outer shell from the rice (by tossing it in the air from a large basket repeatedly).
After that I think the rice undergoes further processing, but these are the steps I've witnessed personally. If anyone knows more about rice processing, please leave a comment. I'd be interested to know more, as so much of the planet depends on rice daily to keep hunger at bay.
Lake
This is the Hoan Kiem lake in Hanoi. It's very popular with tourists, but also with locals, as a place to wake up with Tai Chi at dawn, or sit and talk with friends in the afternoon.
It's also popular with couples, as a place to sit and cuddle. Which is a pleasant change from Thailand, where you're unlikely to see any public affection, even holding hands is uncommon.
Sa Pa
In the mountains along the border with China is Sapa. The high elevation keeps it cool, and we spent two days there trekking from one hill tribe village to another. It was incredible.
Traffic
Traffic in Vietnam is a blur. It comes at you, honking, from all directions. Stop signs, traffic lights, which side of the street to drive on, these are all irrelevant. It is a ceaseless flow, like ants it crawls around and over any impediment.I know this is only one bicycle, but believe me, there is so much more.
Ha Long Bay
Located in Northern Vietnam, Ha Long Bay has to be one of the most beautiful places in the world. It's a bay full of sheer, rocky limestone karsts (don't worry if you have to look up that word, I did). We spent two days and one night out on the bay, and slept on our boat. It was amazing.
Some Beach
Is it dreary when you look out your window? Do all the skies you've seen recently seem gray?
Just for you, a slice of beach. Enjoy.
About A Year Ago
I took my class on a field trip to Mission Dolores in San Francisco. And took this shot quickly while we were inside the church. If you've never been there, you should go. It's beautiful.
Can You Give Me A Hand?
I know you've been missing the tiger pictures, so here's another for you. I love their paws. Tigers often weigh over 200 lbs, but they jump and land so lightly, and their huge paws help enormously with this.
Blurry
We were having drinks one evening, and I was attempting to surreptitiously take photos of the other patrons of the bar. Pretty much all the photos ended up blurry and unusable, but this one I took a shine to. I think it captured the relaxed mood of the evening pretty well.
Simian
This lady and her monkey were on the street one evening enjoying a banana, so I asked if I could take a picture. She seemed less than thrilled (which is why I wasn't brave enough to include her face, although the picture might be much better with it), but she said I could.Using my very broken Thai I managed to ascertain that this little fellow is about 8 months old.
Boyfriend
Yep, this is mine. Constantly attached to the computer, even when we are vacationing in the beautiful Thai islands.
Just kidding, he really isn't that bad. Perhaps slightly addicted to modern technology, but then, who isn't?
Baby Tiger
The face of a two month old tiger. Still kind of fierce, though. About the same size as a housecat at this age, and they are very well socialized so that you can play with them in about the same way. We fed them from a bottle and played with them.Tigers attack from behind, so these little guys kept sneaking up on me and attacking my skirt. So now I can say that I've been attacked by a tiger and lived to tell the tale.
(All these tiger pictures were taken at the tiger temple in Kanchanaburi. You can go live there for a month and work with the tigers if you take the time to fill out an application. I would love to!)
Moss
A tree outside our bungalow on Koh Chang. As I was taking this picture, I got a couple of those 'What is she taking a picture of?' looks, I think you may know the looks I mean.
Before the Storm
We were outside Kanchanaburi, on our way from the last waterfall to the famous Bridge Over the River Kwai when the light suddenly became amazing. And it started to rain. Since we were in the back of a songtaew, which has uncovered sides, our driver got out and started to roll down the rain flaps.Spurred by Evan's encouragement, I hopped out of the songtaew and grabbed a couple of shots. This doesn't even do justice to how beautiful the light was for that 15 minutes before the rain started to pour down in buckets.
As the sky was a lot lighter than the grass, I lightened the grass in Lightroom, but I think it is too noisy to make a print of. Wish I had an ND grad filter!
(Evan would like me to ask you all a little question. He also took a stab at processing the image in Lightroom, and he thinks he did a better job. For your viewing pleasure, here is the original where you can see how dark the grass initially was, hence the noise, and Evan's version, which is certainly more dramatic than mine. Feel free to tell me which one you like best, and if it isn't mine, I won't hate you. I would like to add that the sky was really quite orange, and both Evan and my versions are closer to the what we saw than the raw file is.)
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