photos of burmese refugee village

i love this. i have always wanted to know the way to a peachful mind.
pretty sun brolly
pretty clouds
more pretty sun brollies
weavings hanging up in the market
kids of traditional burmese refugee village w/brass rings around their necks to elongate their necks (supposedly the tradition originated w/ trying to protect women and girl children from tiger attacks. somehow the usual painful-decoration-as-subjugation seems more likely to me...)
woman wearing traditional neck whosiwhatsit

photos of hanging out with village kids

i love that they're standing around having a conversation and the little girl on the left is trying to hook her leg over her head.

thai hill-village barbie!

photos of heffalumps!

photos of semi-camping in the jungle

photos from chiang mai - monks and monsters

dragon!
lion-dragon cross!

it's a little hard to see, but this is a carved dragon with great big fangs (the photo is looking down its enormous throat). i was mostly just tickled by the fact that there was a sign underneath it saying 'mom'. i assume that means something in thai.

monks coming down the hill
bells at the monastery
temple under renovation
jade buddha

pics of people doing interesting things

flame dancers at traditional dancing thingy

dude carving flowers out of soap
soap flowers
sculpting a nephrite buddha

carving a teakwood table
teakwood table design up close, with paper pattern still attached

harvesting palm sugar

this one was my favourite, and unfortunately the pic doesn't do it justice. i was in the market, this old lady zooms up to one of the fish stalls on a moped with her apron and (you can just see them) bright orange rubber boots, and unstraps a bag from her back. she dumps the bag, which has in it three big, still very much alive tilapia in it into the metal bowl (which was immediately covered by the net that the lady with the dark blue apron is holding, so they didn't escape, except one did anyway and had to be scooped off the floor where it was making a pretty convincing getaway attempt) and then the first lady hopped back onto her moped and zoomed off.

bike ride through the ruins of the old capital city of ayutthaya

1950's clunker bike that weighed about a hundred pounds and stayed upright pretty much by itself.
seventeenth century stupa

buddha draped in seasonal fashion attire (they change his clothes three times a year, apparently)
buddha face carved out of tree roots
heffalump ride! more heffalumps to come... (a lot more...)
dusk at ayutthaya

more dusk at ayutthaya
sunset over ayutthaya. sadly i don't have photos of the ruins lit up at night from the river, which was quite stunning, because i managed to leave my camera at the hotel, thinking (duh), well, it's night, there won't be anything to see. stoopid. next time.