The itinerary changed numerous times, but in the end my wife and I managed to complete the following trip: Seattle > San Francisco > Kauai > Vietnam > Laos > Thailand > Vietnam > San Francisco > Seattle. Over the course of almost two months, numerous flights, lots of bumpy bus rides, cycling thru the hills of Laos and eating one or two questionable meals, we managed to only get sick once.
Related posts:
- Travel and Photography: A Taste of SE Asia The itinerary: Seattle > San Francisco > Kauai > Vietnam...
Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.
]]>- Things work differently in Saigon, Vietnam. Think he has a license?
Related posts:
- Monday Musing – Sea Kayaking Bai Tu Long Bay, Vietnam When one thinks of traveling in Vietnam, you’re more likely...
Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.
]]>Nothing can really prepare you for the streets of Saigon, Vietnam, where crossing the street is truly a risky venture. There really are no rules of the road here. Everything goes.
The below video clip was shot with a Canon G9, which was a great back-up camera by the way
No related posts.
Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.
]]>After maybe a week traveling through the Mekong region and southern coast of Vietnam, I realized something about the food there. It’s all extremely fresh. I mean really fresh, as in it was killed that day (maybe the day prior) or pulled from the garden that morning. It’s kind of funny really, because here we are, in the great old innovative USA, thinking we’re all leading the charge in eating local & buying local. The reality is, we’ve got nothing on the Vietnamese (or anywhere in SE Asia really…or the rest of Asia…or maybe the rest of the world even…) Nearly every meal you order from a restaurant, big or small, is going to be ‘made to order’. (That being said, I can’t necessarily say the same thing about the thousands of movable food stalls dotting the streets and alleys…some were very good, while others, such as the vegetarian buffet in Prabang, Laos, were really really bad.)
There is a routine to getting the food as well. If you’re not growing it yourself, than most likely your marching down to the local market and buying it fresh, everyday. From the tiny villages of central Laos to the acres of stalls in Saigon and Hanoi, every where you visit, you’ll find a market. And these aren’t your Saturday Farmers markets.
This photo was shot at a locals market in Luang Prabang, Laos. (Yes, in certain places the tourist markets differ from where the locals shop.) Besides the mounds of colorful spices, rows of vegetables, tubs of fresh-caught fish, there is the meat section. It is here where your senses will be overloaded (if they haven’t been already) with the pungent smell of the living and the dead. There are the external parts – legs, feet, heads, skin, and the internal – organs, hearts…and liver…covered in blood. In some odd way I already miss it.
No related posts.
Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.
]]>Ok, so I’ve been a bit behind on updating the site with photos and harrowing travel stories from SE Asia. The truth is, there haven’t been any harrowing stories (thankfully) except for one minor motorbike accident in Dalat, Vietnam, and a small mountain bike crash Jeannine suffered on the dirt roads of Koh Phangnan, Thailand. Oh, my digital Canon SLR died a couple weeks ago. So, nearly half the photos were shot with a Canon G9 point and shoot. Not ideal, but better than many of the options out there.
Until I arrive home, here is my parting shot from Saigon. We ended up spending about three weeks in Vietnam, traveling via trains, planes and automobiles, south to north, before wandering west into Laos. A couple days bike touring combined with more bus rides brought us to northern Thailand about a week later. A bit overwhelmed by the pressing heat and humidity, Jeannine convinced me the beaches of southern Thailand were worth a visit. I obliged and will admit it was a great choice.
With a day to kill in Saigon before hopping aboard the plane for San Francisco via Seoul, South Korea, I watched the city scream by. While enjoying the madness of hundreds of motorbikes race between stoplights, I snapped this image of a tuk-tuk driver sleeping during the late-afternoon rush hour, a sole monk (one of the few I ever saw in the city) slipping by amidst the chaos.
Thoughts diverge on the streets of Saigon, Vietnam
No related posts.
Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.
]]>Until I feel comfortable snapping photographs at will of this downright crazy (I mean that in a good way) part of the world, I thought I’d share one photograph and one short video (if it can upload) that, in some respects, capture the essence of this captivating city in southern Vietnam.
Safety concern? As long as it all works right?
No related posts.
Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.
]]>After a week acclimating to sea level, and work, I’ve begun the enjoyable but tedious task of sorting through the 500+ photos I took from last weeks road trip to Steamboat. I’m curious as to what others do to organize photos.
The first two steps I typically take are pretty straight forward: download all the images onto my external hard-drive and then load them into iPhoto on my Mac. Using iPhoto I can scan through all the images very quickly, deleting those that are junk and noting the others that are keepers. The ones I find worthy, I open in Photoshop for any necessary post-processing, which I really try to limit because this is where hours, days even, can fly right by; time I’d much rather spend outside taking photos! Some of you may ask why I just don’t view and sort in Adobe Bridge. Good question…I do…sometimes. iPhoto just moves faster, that’s all.
Here’s one photograph from the trip, a frigid evening in Steamboat Springs, Colorado – “Ski Town USA”. I placed the camera on the railing of a foot bridge.
Steamboat Springs, CO. "Ski Town USA"
camera metadata:
- ISO 400
- 3.2 second exposure at f/18
- Canon Rebel XT w/ 17-85 IS lens
No related posts.
Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.
]]>Below is a short list of landscape and nature pictures available as panoramic prints.
Fine art prints are available as 5×15, 9×18, 10×20, 12×24 and, when possible, 10×30. Please contact me if you are interested!
CLICK HERE to watch a slideshow of these panoramic photos
To view print pricing, see our Pricing Page
No related posts.
Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.
]]>I was just going through some old photographs and came across some scanned sea kayaking pictures from a trip back in 2000 with the Outdoor Program at the University of Oregon. The 17-day paddle, from Loreto to La Paz in Baja, Mexico, was truly an epic. This was probably my first big adventure. For the most part we were completely self-contained, carrying all supplies for the entire trip. We were able to pick up fish from local fisherman every couple days but otherwise this stretch of pristine coastline on the Sea of Cortez was vastly empty. Starkly beautiful, aqua waters collided with the dusty desert mountains. Towards the end of the trip we were so low on food, one our members, an exchange student from Japan was eating his powdered milk and cheese…straight from the bag!
Disclosure: these photographs were scanned a while back from a small point and shoot camera. I have yet to uncover the originals, so these are unfortunately very small digital reprints
No related posts.
Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.
]]>Tomorrow it’s back to the USA after a two week European travel blitz. Although I didn’t take as many photographs as I would have liked, I should have some good travel photography up in about a week. In short: Munich, Germany to Prague, Czech Republic to a small ski area, Dolni Morava, in the northeast corner of the country near the Poland border. From there it was back to Prague and then south to the St Anton, Austria for some unforgetable skiing, followed by three days of sun and steep skiing in Engelberg, Switzerland.
Photographs should be up very shortly…
No related posts.
Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.
]]>