Classic travel photo

[The_Traveler]

Back and loading lots of pictures while trying to fight through really bad jet lag.
Left hotel and after train trip, two plane trips totaling 22 hours in the air and two car rides, arrived home, 31 hours later at 11 on Thursday morning just wrecked.
33 degrees centigrade when we left Bangkok and 22 degrees Fahrenheit when we arrived in DC.
Slept all of Thursday and Friday.
Now trying to load and backup all the pictures.

Here is a typical woman in a long-neck sub-division of the Karenn tribe, also called Padaung. Perhaps too warm but fighting sleepiness also.

 

[Designer]

Welcome back! I'm glad you could sleep for two days. I would probably "detox" for a couple of days, and then max out on certain dietary supplements.

Oh, and sleep of course.

 

[JustJazzie]

I am so happy to hear you had safe travels! A lovely shot as usual, I'm eager to see more!

 

[The_Traveler]

Safe travels. sort of.
Lots of bruises from hard travel and one almost-frightening interaction with animist hill tribes.
More on that later.
Still loading and backing up images.

 

[tirediron]

Welcome home Lew.

 

[Rick50]

Yes, welcome back and I'm looking forward to the pics....

 

[mmaria]

waiting to see some more pictures, read some stories

as for this one, I do mind her eyes half closed

 

[The_Traveler]

Thanks, MM, and happy birthday.

The long neck people are supposed to have originated in Mongolia and then migrated south where they, as a tribe, were incorporated as one of the Karen peoples so that her eyes may just be an Asian look rather than half closed.

Specialists are largely in agreement as to the ethnolinguistic classification of the ethnic groups of Laos.[1] For the purposes of the 1995 census, the government of Laos recognized 149 ethnic groups within 47 main ethnicities.[1] whereas the Lao Front for National Construction (LFNC) recently revised the list to include 49 ethnicities consisting of over 160 ethnic groups.

In a population of 6 million+, non-Lao make up 60% of the people and everyone speaks a couple of languages and several dialects. Lots of the minority tribes look very north Asian ( what we think of as Chinese) while some are more Khmer looking ( darker skinned, not so Chinese looking)

 

[The_Traveler]

Their religions are equally diverse. Many are Buddhists, many are some kind of Animist and the variety of beliefs is just staggering.
We had an interesting incident in an Akha village where my travel partner was accused of letting in evil spirits and a ceremony was needed to purge the affected person.

 

[sashbar]

Safe travels. sort of.
Lots of bruises from hard travel and one almost-frightening interaction with animist hill tribes.
More on that later.
Still loading and backing up images.

Sounds like a perfect journey! Good to see you back safe and sound, can not wait to see the pics.

 

[mmaria]

Thanks, MM, and happy birthday.

Thanks LL

 

[DarkShadow]

Nice shot,Love the colors and the framing. Interesting what ever is around the neck,it looks uncomfortable but perhaps not.Kind of reminds me of after market Automotive car molding that comes in a roll.

 

[The_Traveler]

Difficult shooting conditions - brilliant sun seemingly directly overhead from dawn to dusk and lots of people who actually avoided the camera and our touch so lots of bad frames.
Out of 4000+ images hope to salvage 25% for I-was-there pictures and perhaps 10 good ones.

We were in Akha village 25 miles on dirt road at 6000 feet.
The Akha people are are hill people who live at the highest elevation possible and farm the steep slopes with corn and 'broom' trees.
They are animists and reject any other culture so only very few of the elders, who do speak Lao, go into 'town' which is a slightly larger village partway to the main road.
Many of the children have never seen a westerner and when my travel partner got out of car (he is 6'1" with lots of white hair) all the children ran. One little girl actually got so hysterical, the parents accused him of letting a ghost into her. The headman and shaman had to perform an exorcism before she calmed down. It was tense for a while.
Even after that, the older children wouldn't come close to us.

 

[oldhippy]

Glad your back Lew, enjoying your post. Ed

 

[DanOstergren]

Difficult shooting conditions - brilliant sun seemingly directly overhead from dawn to dusk and lots of people who actually avoided the camera and our touch so lots of bad frames.
Out of 4000+ images hope to salvage 25% for I-was-there pictures and perhaps 10 good ones.

We were in Akha village 25 miles on dirt road at 6000 feet.
The Akha people are are hill people who live at the highest elevation possible and farm the steep slopes with corn and 'broom' trees.
They are animists and reject any other culture so only very few of the elders, who do speak Lao, go into 'town' which is a slightly larger village partway to the main road.
Many of the children have never seen a westerner and when my travel partner got out of car (he is 6'1" with lots of white hair) all the children ran. One little girl actually got so hysterical, the parents accused him of letting a ghost into her. The headman and shaman had to perform an exorcism before she calmed down. It was tense for a while.
Even after that, the older children wouldn't come close to us.

What a fascinating experience! Were you able to photograph the exorcism at all?