Author: rainbow

On the 20 April after a great time at Bagan we flew to Heho airport and was picked up by our guide and driver to take us to Kakku. Kakku is shown in my blogg pictures no20, “Splashes of Colour”. Maybe more pictures of Kakku to come later but they are a bit touristy and I do like to show something different!

Anyway along the trip we saw this celebration taking place and it looked like a wedding. As you know from previous bloggs I am a wedding party stalker, so I yelled out “Stop the Car!”. The brakes were jammed on and we screeched to a halt. Actually it wasn’t that dramatic I politely asked “can we stop here?” It wasn’t a wedding but an initiation ceremony which is  a celebration of a rite of passage. The boys were going to a monastery for at least 2 weeks and live the life like monks. The whole village and friends come to celebrate.

We were warmly welcomed to join the festivities and invited to lunch. Then we met the parents and they allowed us to photograph the proceedings in their house. Everyone was very friendly and actually welcomed the univited intrusion.

it was very dark in the rooms and mum was very disappointed that her cell phone photos were too dark. My equipment worked better in the dark than hers so she asked for my contact details. Apparently in Myanmar facebook is the defacto communication medium, and not G maill. So the guide (Thwin) became her facebook friend (not me dammit) so I could send her photos via the guide. See gallery photo of Sally and the Guide exchanging contacts with Mum.

When on our trip around Inle Lake mum kept asking the guide are the photos ready yet. Thwin said to her to wait a bit longer as we were still in the canoe and not back in NZ yet.

 I managed to send her the processed images 3 weeks later. She was very happy with the results. Thankyou Nikon D3s.

1. 20 April 2018    Nikon D3s    iso 200    45mm    f4.8    1/125sec    Nikon 24-70mm f2.8

2. Nikon D3s    iso200    45mm    f4.8    1/125sec

3.    Nikon D3s    iso6400    52mm    f9.5    1/125sec

4.    Nikon D3s    iso 3200    38mm    f4.0    1/125sec

Our Burmese adventure started in Yangon and it was the beginning of the New Year. It is customary to have water placed over the head to cleanse the soul for the start of a new year. The Burmese have now taken this ritual to the extreme. I’m not sure whether it is for fun or they have a lot of sins to wash away. People load themselves in trucks and take turns visiting these stages placed around town. There is loud music pumpling out this consistent rap beat to which everyone is dancing to. The people on stage have various means of delivering water ranging from water pistols to water canons. There is not a dry person around but everyone is having a great time. I said to the guide that you Burmese are crazy-he just laughed!

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We had been walking around Kaifeng town and it was a pretty hot 33c so we decided to get a taxi ride back to the Hotel. The taxi was driven by a lovely lady called Li Shu Wen. Sally managed to strike up a good conversation with her so we decided to hire her (including the taxi) for the day. The following day she picked us up right on time, not “Chinese” time so to speak. Then she said in mandarin ” where to boss?”  or something to that effect.

So  we asked her if we could look around the outskirts and maybe visit a vilage to see how the real people live. Shu Wen suggested we visit her village. She lives in the city with her husband and her children are looked after by her parents in the village. This was a win win situation for her as she gets paid to visit her family! We were happy to oblige. It was a lovely ride along the Yellow river and visiting rural China.

In her village they grow a lot of maize (corn) for animal feed. Also they were drying lots of peanuts and I got to see my first peanut bushes. As you can see from the photos there were peanuts everywhere, especially in the house.

Her father also had an orchard and he grew Nashi pears for export. They were all individually hand wrapped during growth to keep the pests off. Labour intensive but truly organic.

We took the family out to lunch as well and had a thoroughly good time considering I didn’t understand a word they said.

Later back at the Hotel she was too embarrassed to charge us as she had such a good day as well. But we insisted as a deal is a deal.

We also arranged for her to take us to the airport on the day of departure. She arrived early on the day of departure as well and also brought us some gifts to take back to Hong Kong. She also brought her husband as well to drive. So in the end it turned out to be a couples outing leaving Kaifeng.

Yellow River    22Sept 2017    Nikon D3s    iso200    70mm    f19    1/250sec    Nikon 70-200f4