L A O S - Luang Prabang


Stevepow, I actually missed seeing these distilleries... :bsmilie:
Maybe if I had seen them I may think thrice about buying my bottle of red Lao wine for US$3... haha...

How after drinking got POWER or not .. got stay up late at night "exercising" :bigeyes::sweatsm:
 

How after drinking got POWER or not .. got stay up late at night "exercising" :bigeyes::sweatsm:

Yah. Very powerful.
Whole night cannot sleep in New Daraphet Villa doing.... Post Processing. :bsmilie:.
 

Yah. Very powerful.
Whole night cannot sleep in New Daraphet Villa doing.... Post Processing. :bsmilie:.
Hi LowLights, he's not Post Processing. He's actually mass producing...:sweat::sweat: Keke.
 

WA !! ok ok :bigeyes::bigeyes:

I shall stop asking :sweat:

Heng ah...I didn't take. I was staying alone at LPB. My roommate was Imran in Vientiane.... :confused: :bsmilie:

And I didn't bring along my laptop, don't know how to do .....post processing if stay up all night....

Btw, to highlight a bit, the water level was quite low because of dry season.
 

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Did anyone try this one? I heard it has even more "power".

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May end up looking like this if you take too much though...

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:bigeyes::bigeyes:
:bsmilie::bsmilie: Damn good lah you, toolbox22!
The whole afternoon I saw you creeping quietly up on the cobra stall...
... didn't know what you were up to...
... until now...!
 

Did anyone try this one? I heard it has even more "power".

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May end up looking like this if you take too much though...

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Haha...keke...toolbox22, best pictures! :bsmilie::thumbsup:
Man out there. Beware!:devil:
 

T R A V E L O G U E - Continued

Day 2 - continued
Still on Day 2. This Day 2 has been so fun, it felt like it never ended.
After toolbox22 discovered the Cobra potion, we hastily left Ban Xiang Hai village and slowboated towards
Pak Ou Caves.
The words 'Pak Ou' literally means 'The end of River Ou'.
This Pak Ou Caves contains thousands and thousands of Buddha images that have been placed here over time.
From afar, it looked like this (hazy day lah... don't blame the photographer):
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Another Boat Landing.
I sprinted up across and started up the steps leading up to the cave.
Turning back, I saw Euterpe, KH, LowLights, Stevepow, Imran, james (far away squatting down taking photo) and Rudy (adjusting his three camera bodies around him) walking slowly up...
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From higher up, the river looked like this. Quite a scene...
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For those who, like me before coming to Laos, have been wondering how on Earth Pak Ou Caves look like, here is a record shot of the main cave. Big not big, small not small. But full of Buddha images...
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I identified Buddha sculptures from various geographical distribution dated from various centuries...
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This one is most likely of Indian continent origin, dated from the early 13th century style.
 

From what I can see here... Indochina, most likely Khmer in origin.
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Both SereneXMM and I climbed to the edge of the ledge to try to capture this view from outside in.
Luckily we were here first, for after that came a group of tourists...
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Here at Pak Ou Caves, I saw everyone shooting silhouette shots.
So I also shot silthouette shots. (That's how I learned from the experts on this trip... I see one, I do one... keke..)
Whatever silhouette I could lay my eyes on I simply fired away...
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Before I started my climb down the stairs, I spied a quiet diety perched high atop one of the walls...
He appeared to be like the Guardian Diety of the Caves...
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On our Slowboat trip back to our Villa, I happened to see this young, energetic Laotian man playing one-leg on his sampan with his fishing partner...
(I haven't seen one-leg being played in Singapore for years already lor...)
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WOW...

Laos will soon be in my list of travel holidays-cum-IR photography :)

Best of regards.
 

Day 2 - continued

Afternoon we took a nice bumpy minivan drive towards the famous Tat Kuan Si waterfall, about half an hour from our Villa.
The trip took us through some of the higher hills (LPB itself is already of altitude 700m above sea level), but for some reasons,
the minivan that we were in decided to spew hot air instead of air con... so we kena fried a little bit... haha...

Here we are. Tat Kuan Si waterfall reserve. Saw some bears in an enclosure.
Hey ladies and gentlemen of the team, I know many of you all have much better pictures of these bears...
....please show and share can? My this picture really cannot make it one...
...but thought it is interesting that it was cleaning its own paw.
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Here is my record shot of the main waterfall. I am still looking forward to all the fantastic shots of our fellow shooters.
vngks, LowLights, SereneXMM, Stevepow all have shown theirs already.
Mine is a record shot only. But heck - just show it lah..
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I am sure everyone of us saw this brave gentleman with the tripod-mounted Canon 5DMkII+70-200 f/2.8L,
his whole set-up partially immersed in the third waterfall....
... doing what? Shooting pictures of his children swinging from the vine and plunging into the waterfall!
I got nothing to say...!
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Our ever-courageous Stevepow was much cleverer - he didn't go under the water, he climbed up the trees (almost) to do the same job! Kekeke....

Time past too fast. We had to rush off from Tat Kuang Si at 4:45pm because we needed to catch the Hmong Village in time for the Golden Light.
This village is about half an hour away from Tat Kuang Si.
Another frantic drive brought us to this little village off the road.

Erm... ahem... the first thing I saw upon arriving at the village was this pair of c*ck and hen.
I squatted there for a good 15 mins studying them closely.
Apparently the c*ck had too much of a Cobra-wine the night before and was feeling the effects of the power. Thanks to toolbox22's enlightenment, now I understand why.
My picture does the pair no justice...
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The Hmong Village.
Wow... all of us went wild here. This village was a great place for photographing children,
Hmong people of all ages, elderlies....
Adrian's principle always - photograph them in their native environment but without displacing them from their natural surrounding and always shoot with respect.

A cute young Hmong lady in her tribal wear.
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A cute young Hmong man doing what he does best - pipe smoking, Hmong style!
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Every one of us was busy at work, looking for the Golden Light.
But due to some unforseen circumstances, the Golden Light eluded us.
However, that did not dampen the spirit of the SgTrekker team.... we just fired away.
Again, ladies and gentlemen - you guys have many good photos of the Hmong tribe, I know that because I spied on all your LCD screens. Share ok?

Just for the record, I wish to state that aside from my usual duty as a record photographer, I happen to like shooting portraitures.
So just in case all my good friends here decide to condemn me and banish me to the land of records (keke...),
here is my contribution of a beautiful, weather-lined-face, old Hmong lady.
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I am sure she was a real beauty in her younger, better days.
 

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We were all shooting and shooting.
Little did I know that these few fellows here (read, Rudy, AlexK, toolbox22) were under the influence of the potent
Cobra-wine. No wonder they don't tire like I did. Hey fellows, own up.... or better yet, put up more of your photos here...
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We were Santa Claus for a while. AlexK distributed stationary, I took polaroid photos of the people and giving the photos to them,
SereneXMM distributing chocolates and biscuits. We did virtually everything except gave them money - strict instruction from Adrian... haha...
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Toolbox22 was was the billboard top Santa Claus of the season.
His heroic act of generosity was captured from all angles by all the third party photographers.
Here is my angle. I am sure you guys out there have some more angles you all want to share...

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(er... pardon that unsightly rod sticking through his head... sorry...)
 

To add to limwhow's log, sometimes along the Mekong you get to see ppl panning for gold:
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and at the Pak Ou caves, pay some money to the locals to release bird for good karma:
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I took polaroid photos of the people and giving the photos to them
and here's a pic of the boy holding that polaroid proudly...in anticipation of the moment when the picture "appears":
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:thumbsup::thumbsup:Well done GUYS/GAYS, keep the TRAVELOGUE COMING!
 

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