First of all, as I've mentioned in the other thread, It was my first experience overseas... I have been to Hong Kong and China as a wee tacker, but I can't recall any of that. The furthest I have been that I can recall is QLD... and that is also quite a faded memory since I was about 7 at the time. So for the most part, it was my first experience on a large passenger jet, and first experience arriving in a different country. All felt pretty much like normal procedure until I we found our driver to the hotel and actually stepped outside of the airport. The heat an humidity immediately hit me. To be honest my first thoughts were, "How the hell am I going to deal with this for 4 weeks trekking around!?" (as a side note, the water bladder I bought for my camera bag was possibly the best thing I bought for my trip). The driver helped us into his van and I was relieved to jump into something air conditioned. We set off for the hotel which was about a 40 min drive which I'm pretty sure he managed to make in 25. Everything was so different... It hits you like a tonne of bricks, and you really feel like you're in another world. Once we got into the busier areas of Bangkok, my eyes were glued to the outside world and I felt wide awake even though I hadn't slept at all on the plane and it was 4am. I was completely compelled by all the craziness and tuk tuks everywhere. The city seemed to be so alive and hectic even at such an early hour of the morning. When we reached our hotel, we still had to wait quite a long while to check in. I think they told us 12pm. We waited a little bit for some daylight and then head out with the cameras, which is where the first few photos I'll post came from as well as the following day we spent there before the tour started into the north and Laos. Luckily when we got back from our walk we were able to check in early. For anyone who knows Bangkok, this is where I was. http://g.co/maps/gg3uh" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
In no particular order...
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During the first walk around the hotel area we where approached by a chatty friendly guy, who was a teacher at the local school, or so he told us. He asked us where we were from, and chatted about Australia, and then what we should go and see.. This carried on for quite a while, and I didn't want to be rude, but wasn't all that interested in where he told us we should be going either, as we were having a good time walking around taking some shots. As he went on, I could tell he was trying to scam us into something... But when you aren't used to this situation it's hard to ignor what you have grown up and learnt as rude behavior, so you sort of try to end the conversation as politely as possible. This particular time we even had his mate pulling up from out of nowhere in a tuk tuk about to take us all over town. I said no thanks and walked off feeling quite bad, even though I know he was trying to scam us. I got very good over the next couple of weeks at saying no and walking on. You learn very quick.
The first day of the tour actually started in Bangkok, and our guide (Nai) took us around the city and showed us some of the touristy bits (grand palace) but also some of the out of the way markets and always knew some great places to eat that you never would have found, or trusted, by yourself. It was a good way to see the city. The following shots are mainly from around the grand palace.
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There was 11 of us in the tour in total, Kelly and myself, two aussie guys, one from Adelaide and the other NSW, and aussie chick, 4 kiwis, a pommie girl, and a guy from Switzerland who was hilarious. His passport photo was a dead ringer for Michael Schumacher. His name was Michael as well... and he could speak German... well Swiss German anyway. Everyone on the tour was fantastic, and through the whole journey, everyone looked out for one another almost as if we were family. It was a great size group to travel with and we had some great nights together. The first place we headed to from Bangkok was Chiang Mai. I loved Chiang Mai.. even though we were only there for a day/night... It's definitely somewhere I want to go back to. The city itself is beautiful, and it just seems that little bit more laid back than hectic Bangkok. Theres a few pics here from the night markets... one of which was purely accidental... carrying the camera along awkwardly and pressed the shutter button by mistake... looked at the back of the camera.... fuck me, that's actually not bad.
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After our night in Chiang Mai, we were off again North... We did stop at Chiang Rai, but really only to transfer to a local bus, which was basically open air, and a hoot to travel in. We were on our way to the border of Thailand and Laos, and It was our last day with our Thai guide. I was actually a little sad about that, he was a great guy and really easy to chat to, we got along quite well. I do have a lot of photos off my P&S that I might post later on, but it's mainly of people from the tour, and nights out etc. There's some of the river crossing into Laos etc as well. I mainly used the dSLR when I had time to get out looking for shots. The P&S was used as a handy camera, so it actually took some interesting shots, but just not the same quality. The next images are mainly from Luang Prabang in Laos... we stayed there for 3 days, and it was definitely my favorite city/town of the trip. A lot of these images are from early morning where we went to see the monks collecting arms. People line the street with rice and other offerings for the monks. It was an amazing sight. There were literally hundreds of monks. After that we headed to the morning markets which was an eye opener. Frogs on skewers for breaky sounded lovely, but I thought I'd hunt around for somethings else.
This is almost in reverse order, but you get the idea...
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The next images are possibly my favorites from the trip... The were taken from some very remote villages along the Mekong river called Hauay Pha Lam and Khokaektai. The people who lived in these villages lived very basic lives. They have no shops etc near them, all their food and other basics come from trade along the river. Our Lao guide didn't speak their language either. The first one I visited I was gob smacked. For that moment I actually felt quite embarrassed for some reason... Walking in with expensive clothes and camera equipment. Their level of poverty was not something I had seen in the flesh before... However at the same time they seemed to be such happy people. At Khokaektai, the kids made little friendship style bracelets and they all came running up to us to sell them. I did buy one for Kelly, it was a little confronting, as soon as you showed some interest you had 10 kids all standing around you showing you handfuls of these colourful bracelets. There's a few other random images thrown in as well, some of the types of things you see along the Mekong, and one of some of the slow boats. The boat trip (2 days down the Mekong) was my highlight of the trip, It was 7 hours each day, and I literally sat back and watched every part of it go by. Some people on the tour played cards, napped, or read a book... but I just didn't want to miss a thing. There are also some photos of some old Buddha statues, from around the 16-18th century. These were in a cave along the Mekong that we stopped at.
Landscape or portrait for this one??
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I reckon I'll leave it there for now... Still more images to be edited.. and I'll try and get them finished off and put up in the next few days.
