Jake Catlett Photography

Leaving Luang Prabang

So after basically a solid week of awful weather it was time to leave Luang Prabang.  There was actually one day that was perfect from dawn ‘til dusk, and I made great use of it by shooting most of the day at Wat Xieng Thong, which is arguably the most beautiful temple in Laos.  On my final night there I met two other photographers, a guy named Branden who I met on top of Phou Si hill at sunset, and another guy, Paul, who’s living and selling photos in Luang Prabang.  We hung out and talked cameras and photos for quite a while, but before too long it was time to head back to my room and get some sleep before the long ride back to Vang Vieng in the morning.

Vang Vieng is 206 kilometers from Luang Prabang, if I remember correctly, but it’s a long 206 kilometers.  For those of you that must think in miles, that’s roughly 130 miles.  However, it is, as I said, a long trip due to the quality of the roads, and the fact that basically the entire journey is through mountains.  Added to that it was raining on and off the entire way, and I was often literally driving through the middle of clouds that were draped alongside the mountains.

As I did on my way in, I stopped in Kiewkacham on my way out, but this time only for lunch and not to stay the night.  I wandered around the village and snapped some photos, and talked to the village chief again, this time asking him for information on Hmong New Year’s celebrations.  He informed me that it falls on November 27th this year, and said that the celebrations are best in Phonsavan in Xieng Khouang Province, near the famed Plain of Jars.  Big check mark in my book for that one…  I’m DEFINITELY going.

The entire way on Route 13 there are Hmong, Khmu and Lao villages hugging the edges of the highway, and almost without fail kids in every village waved and yelled “sabaai dii!” (“hello”) as I drove past.

In the afternoon as I was just about to leave Luang Prabang Province I saw a Hmong girl in traditional festival clothing standing by the side of the road in Lak Ha Village.  I pulled over quickly to ask for a shot, and then I noticed 2 or 3 other girls coming out dressed in the same way.  After they let me take a few posed portraits a Lao woman came up to me and started telling me that this was a “Cultural Village”, and that they were having a celebration that day.  A “Cultural Village” in Laos is basically a village where they produce some kind of traditional food or crafts and they promote it for tourists to come and take photos.  She invited me to come down into the village and check it out, and so I pulled my bike off the highway and walked further down into the village.

There was a great big party going on with long rows of tables set up with plenty of food and booze for everybody.  In the center of the village they’d set up a stage where old Lao men were dancing with young Hmong girls in traditional costumes.  The men seemed to be having the time of their lives.  The girls looked absolutely miserable.  I was invited to eat and drink, which I did for a while, but things started to get odd for me.  Somebody went and fetched a young Hmong lady and basically ordered her to sit down next to me and serve me.  Every man eating at the table had a girl feeding him and serving him drinks, the girls basically looking bored and dejected.  I was the only foreigner there, as they were “celebrating” the fact that the “Cultural Village” would be opening to tourists soon.

Put bluntly, it’s kind of like a human zoo where tourists will stop off on their tours through Laos so they can snap pictures of the colorful little people.  While I did get a couple of nice shots while I was there, that kind of situation just really isn’t my scene.  I like natural interaction with people that leads to natural looking photos, and I want the context to be honest, unstaged, genuine.  And I just simply felt bad for the girls there.  Some of the younger teens seemed to be having fun, but the others, sitting and serving the men Lao food and dancing to Lao music (in the Hmong cultural village…), just looked depressed.  I had to get out of there.

And so I did.  From that point it’s about 90 more kilometers to Luang Prabang, and during that stint of the trip I got stung by a bee in my hand and had to pull off the road to find shelter from torrential rain twice.  And thank Gawd I did, ‘cause hiding from the rain in another Hmong village I got my favorite portrait since I arrived in Laos.

I spent 3 more days in Vang Vieng, sitting in a little hut by the river, watching the almost relentless rain we were plagued by.  Laos is a slow place with little to do on a sunny day – on a rainy one, well, there’s pretty much nothing to do but sit around and stare at the rain.  Maybe play cards.  Or drink too much Lao whiskey.  Which is what I’m going to write about in my next post!