Lao New Year in Kham District

This past week has been devoted to Lao New Year. I've been up in Xieng Khouang Province, where most of my Lao friends live. I enjoy making the rounds of relatives, parties at the offices of Lao development partners, attending very ceremonies, etc. This often involves eating a lot and drinking BeerLao.

The skies threaten rain, a bit early and a bit heavy for this time of the year. The mornings start off very foggy, followed by clear skies in the late morning/ early afternoon. In the late afternoons, the thunderclouds roll in, followed by a storm for several hours.



Thunderclouds moving in.



We climbed partway up the mountain to make offerings to Am's parents and clear the area around their monuments (which contain the ashes). We hurried back across the fields as the sky started to get darker.



We stopped at the Buddhist temple in Mun Village, where Am was born. During the war, the B52s made daily bombing raids. Am remembers running across the field to take refuge in this temple. One day, a plane dropped a 250 lb. bomb, which landed next to the temple - but did not explode. The villagers revere the Buddha image in this temple for its ability to protect people.



View from the back of the temple, past a prayer flag.



The roof and monument were replaced on the temple six years ago.

We returned to Phonsavanh, meeting the thunderstorm along the way

That's my contribution for Skywatch Friday - other pictures from around the world can be found at Skywatch Friday.

A few skies from Laos

It's been a while since I've posted. I've been on the road, doing work for various projects. Just returned to Vientiane today after three weeks of travel. The weather has also been uninspiring sky-wise - constant rain and extremely cold temperatures for most of March, which is really unusual for the hot season.



One of the few evenings when the sun was out.



Sunset in Vientiane. The government has been renovating the whole waterfront area by the Mekong, part as flood prevention, part for beautification. Many people are drawn to the river, to walk out on the sandbars during the dry season.



Just the past few days, the weather has returned to normal, reaching 100 F during the day. The water buffaloes only venture out in the late afternoons.

That's my contribution for Skywatch Friday - other pictures from around the world can be found at Skywatch Friday.

Sky Watch Friday - 5 Nov 2010

The rains have finally stopped and we're now into cool season. I enjoy the weather a lot - about 10 - 15 degrees C in the mornings. It's nippy as the houses don't have heating so it's great to get out for nice morning walks.

Another benefit is the glowing later afternoon light. I don't know why the light takes on this characteristic but it's beautiful. A week ago, I was in Pakse and took the above photo of an abandoned house, with a wisp of cloud over it. 

For the past eight months, Vientiane has been working on the waterfront park. It used to be a mostly untended strip of land by the river, maintained by vendors who built small temporary shacks for cooking and selling food and beer to enhance the experience of viewing the sunset over the Mekong River.

This year, Vientiane is celebrating the '450 year road,' of its existence so the park is part of the beautification of the city. Earlier this week, the eight-meter tall statue of King Anouvong was placed on its base. Like anything out of the ordinary, lots of people came to the park to watch the workers weld the King to his pedestal. Well, I was there too!

And under a threatening sky, a family of five people all on one motorcycle.

Hope you enjoyed my photos. This is my contribution to Skywatch Friday, whose members post pictures of the skies around the world.

15 October 2010

The end of the rainy season puts on quite a show - dramatic clouds over the Mekong River, looking towards Nakorn Phanom, Thailand.

This little boy was looking out towards Thailand as well. I think he was looking through the wrong end of the toy field glasses. I captured him at a temple fair. The end of the rainy season is also the end of Buddhist Lent. All along the Mekong, people from villages and cities celebrate by holding boat races.  Temple fairs and gathering of merchants selling everything accompanies the boat racing.

There still are periods of rain. I went out to some villages near the Lao - Vietnam border this week. There were floods in those areas last week - in fact, the other side of the border on the Vietnamese side had some of the worst flooding in years.

Buddhist Lent ends with the next full moon. People are watching the moon and counting off the days.

Hope you enjoyed my photos. This is my contribution to Skywatch Friday, whose members post pictures of the skies around the world.

Sky Watch Friday - 20 August 2010

I was a bit occupied with things before traveling to Vietnam. These photos are from the week before last, when we traveled to Salavan and Champasak Provinces. After a late start to the rainy season, the rice fields are filling up, people are transplanting seedlings and the rice is starting to grow. Here are a few highlights:

The brown in the foreground is not a road but the edge of the field, under water, which has not been planted yet.

Behind the Dept of Health while we were talking outside. A few moments later, the clouds started to move in on our part of the sky.

Early in the morning in Pakse. The ground is starting to warm up and the ground clouds are starting to make their morning rounds.

Hope you enjoyed my photos. This is my contribution to Skywatch Friday, whose members post pictures of the skies around the world.

Monsoon skies 30 July 2010

The rains are finally coming in - though too much in some places. We drove up to Xieng Khouang last Saturday and passed about 10 minor landslides along the way. None of them blocked more than half the road, though some big trees did fall down; however, the hardy local villagers had already cut up the trees and carried most of the remains away.

Yesterday, after some meetings, I suggested we drive up to one of the highest hills around Phonsavanh. Recently, a road appeared on the hill; I thought it was neat until I realized that something would be built up there. As we enjoyed the view, we looked down on the foundations for a new hotel. The top two photos are from the top of the hill.

Yesterday, I joined my staff for a special blessing ceremony for our truck, which was in a minor accident a few days ago. No one was hurt - a motorcycle hit the side of the truck and fortunately, the rider was wearing a helmet. So we went to a local temple for a ceremony - however, the special bee's wax candle, which the person measures around the head, the length of the forearm, and the collar bone to the belly button, didn't light. So K. drove back to market and I walked around the temple. The monk performing the ceremony took a moment to contemplate the view.

Near my house - the rice is starting to take root.

Hope you enjoyed my photos. This is my contribution to Skywatch Friday, whose members post pictures of the skies around the world.

16 July: Some rainy season views around Vietnam

I just finished two weeks of field visits in Vietnam. On our last day, we drove up to Lao Bao, the Vietnamese side of the border crossing to Laos. Both sides of the border have big markets so people, even if they're not crossing over, go for shopping, to see what kinds of deals they can find.

The town itself is pretty ugly and there wasn't much interesting in the shops. However, the scenery outside town is beautiful.

The other side of this hill is the Sepon River, the border between Laos and Vietnam. Not too far from home.

We traveled to Hue, in Central Vietnam, with a rain storm to the west of us. We didn't get wet.

The central provinces are very poor. Many of the communities upstream were wiped out during Typhoon Ketsana last year - and now they are suffering drought. During our trip, we saw many fields which were brown and rock hard, with blades of green rice plants standing up. I hope the rains got to those fields.

We reached our destination on Saturday - Hue, the site of the ancient city which was destroyed during the Vietnam War. The bridge on the Perfume River is lit up at night with lights that change colors.

Hope you enjoyed my photos. This is my contribution to Skywatch Friday, whose members post pictures of the skies around the world.

9 July - Around central VN

Did I really miss SWF last week? I thought I had some photos, but in my frenzy with this evaluation, I guess I spaced it out. Well, here are some photos around Vietnam this week.

I arrived in Hanoi. Usually I stay in the old quarter but the organization I'm consulting for, has moved their office to south central Hanoi. Less crowded (though you wouldn't know by this photo) but there are many small neighborhoods filled with quiet and trees.

 We traveled to Dong Hoi, along the central coast. Like much of central Vietnam, it was bombed during the war. It's a very peaceful city now - off the main roads, it's hardly like being in Vietnam at all; no traffic and noise! However, construction projects still unearth unexploded ordnance.

Dong Hoi is at the intersection of the Nhat Le River and the ocean. Nhat Le means 'tears of the sun,' not sure of the legend that contributed to this name but it is beautiful. The ocean beach itself is very nice and we had snacks there one night. When we sat down, we decided it was worth the risk that it might rain. We didn't didn't expect that it would rain, but five minutes later, it really came down. We huddled under large umbrellas while we gulped beer and ate squid. Five minutes later, it stopped.

 We went out to some remote areas after that, to interview villagers about the impact of the program I'm evaluating. The town itself was not very impressive - but the sky!

The town lies in a river valley surrounded by limestone cliffs. I could have stayed there for several more weeks, but we had to move on....

Hope you enjoyed my photos. This is my contribution to Skywatch Friday, whose members post pictures of the skies around the world.

25 June 10: a week of skies

These two weeks involve a lot of traveling. I took the night train up from Bangkok on Sunday and arrived in Vientiane on Tuesday. The photo above is the bends of the elevated train, known as the Skytrain, in Bangkok. It's a very convenient and low-cost way of beating the traffic in Bangkok.

You can just see the Skytrain rounding the traffic circle (under the Canon sign) around Victory Monument.

I arrived in Nong Khai on Monday morning and enjoyed relaxing in this quiet town on the banks of the Mekong River. I talked to someone who has lived in the town for ten years and we reminisced about the town in the past. The waterfront has been restored, with a nice walking park on top of the bank. I watched some kids skateboarding and also, this couple who were having an intense conversation with frequent attempts to call someone on their cell phone.

Later on, I went to a waterfront restaurant and saw the moon in relation to these light chains. Took a few shots but I enjoyed the outcome.

The following morning, I woke to the sound of rain. The sky was coming down, drop by drop. Some friends came by and picked me up to bring me back to Laos.

I hope that next week, I'll be able to find a wireless connection to send some photos from the skies of Vietnam.

Hope you enjoyed my photos. This is my contribution to Skywatch Friday, whose members post pictures of the skies around the world.

18 June: Fog on a clear day

It's been a while since I've been able to take pictures and post. My Nikon stopped working, just about the time that things started to heat up in Bangkok. I decided to wait until things quieted down, and then we had our own program evaluation so I had to wait some more. Happy to say, I've been re-united with my camera. It was a model which had been recalled because of a defective part, so the service center took care of everything and I had the camera back the following day.

But these pictures are not taken with my newly restored camera. I took these about two weeks ago in Pakse, Champasak Province. I kept the air con in the hotel room on all night and the camera had dropped down to the ambient temperature so when I took it out into the moist hot air the following day - instant fog. The sky had a few morning clouds, but everything was clear by the ground. The fog was in my camera's perception.

I took these pictures near one of the bridges on the Sedon River.

I walked around the back of the Buddhist wat, into a tiny graveyard (well, the ashes are placed in those monuments). The fog still had not lifted, so the effects were weird. The picture above is of benches, where relatives can sit and enjoy the view.

This is my contribution to Skywatch Friday, whose members post pictures of the skies around the world.