At the base of a statue dedicated to a local Mae Hong Son hero, people left offerings of horses and elephants. I was tempted to play horsey with them but after some thought, I figured it was inappropriate.
Mae Hong Son was my favourite place in Thailand. This is a picture of it just as night was falling. Chilled vibe, lovely people, markets and food stalls by the lake every night. Brilliant! (Did I say chilled vibe? I feel like my capacity to speak has been taken over by a 20 year old hippie... WHAT IS HAPPENING TO ME?!)
This is Malon, we met her in her village on the Burmese border. She was lovely and Ruth and her chatted for a while. (There's a long dialogue that goes here about the politics of visiting hill tribes, military check points, the dispossessed of Burma, refugee camps and the incredibly complex situation of the Thai/Burma border but... ahh another time.)
Malon then rocked us to our very souls with a beautiful folk song.
Being in Thailand, we felt we had to ride an elephant. Yes, animal lovers, we enslaved a magnificent beast for half an hour to get our tourist thrills. How was it? Kind of uncomfortable and that the elephant demanded food every three steps was kind of annoying. Sadly none of the shots of us on the elephant turned out that well but here's one of Ruth feeding the little beggar post ride.
The three Buddhas of Guantanamo, Chiang Mai.
One thing I loved about Thailand was there were dogs everywhere. They sleep in the middle of intersections; they follow you around; they roam free without fences and boundaries. Frankly, the dogs of Thailand don't give a fuck and I love them for it. I was going to put lots of pictures of dogs up but its seems a bit excessive. I'll save that for slide night when I get home.
Although I couldn't resist this one for some reason.
Anyhow, onto Siem Reap, Cambodge. The obligatory tourist shot in front of Angkor Wat. You know you love it even though its a terrible photo!
Some shots of Angkor Wat... urm great.
The pictures above are from one of my favourite temples. Each section represented a different level of being. The lower level was hell, the middle being earth and the top one was heaven. Heaven consisted in a bunch of rectangular columns with a huge head on each side. Impressive much. Haven't got my handbook so don't know what its called but it was pretty.
This temple is famous for the tree roots pushing through the buildings BUT also where Angelina Jolie shot Tomb Raider and no doubt adopted fifteen children at the same time. I don't know what was more exciting, these amazing temples or that I was walking in the footsteps of Angelina!
You might think the life of an international jetsetter is all glamour, photo shoots and cocktails at sunset. But we work hard for it. One day at Angkor plus sunscreen and mosquito repellant produced this level of filth on our feet.
Sunset over Siem Reap. Where's my frickin' cocktail biatch?
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In Saigon. Leaving soon.
4 comments:
Hi Jon,
I posted the 1st comment for this new entry.
Cheers,
Zac
how cute is that little peaches lookalike?? cutie patootie! glad you can't escape reminders of us no matter how far you run...
Hi Jonathan
The cute little dog reminded me of the time we dogsat when I was staying with you in Sydney. Remember the little dog that wouldn't walk in a straight line unless someone walked in front of it.
Remember walking in single file through the back streets to get it back to your place and then making someone who is not overly keen (to put it mildly) on dogs walk through a dog park!
Andrea
Hya Jonathan
Chilled Vibe! jeesh I haven't heard that since before Maggie's 'Greed is Good' Era. Its kinda nice to hear again for an ex-sixtie's hippie. Well mainly when Top of the Pops was on, Scot Mackenzie was going to San Francisco and the Beatles were doing the Maharishi/fancy dress stuff. New days, new places and new skies. Nice pics.
Alan
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