Chinese new year

Hanoi March 2009

Pakse Feb 2009

It's the Year of the Tiger!!
This time last year we were in Pakse, Laos, eating noodles as the new year dragon entered our restaurant with drummers, dancers and a big paper mache-faced man bringing good luck to the premises.
It was a hoot as they let off fireworks & streamers in the street and celebrated in front of the Chinese businesses in this small Lao town.
The Chinese shops all had beautiful potted trees, decorated with gold & red envelopes filled with money - the dragon came and ate them - their good luck for the year was measured by how much they gave, as was the time the spent drumming up a storm in their foyer.

in the apatu mountains, laos, february '09

perched near the peak of the mountain, we stopped to take in some fresh air and decide where to eat and sleep.  the air was cool and misty. it was about 5 in the evening and girls were washing their long hair on the street, using drums filled by hose with cold water.  this house looked grand in a tiny town where the main economic activity seemed to be making grass brooms. the mountains were so steep there seemed to be nowhere to grow food or raise stock.  chickens and pigs roamed the street and steep mud tracks led to plantations of pineapples and tea in impossibly hard to reach terraces on the mountain.