Myanmar

Some random pics from a recent visit, where among other things, a hot air balloon landed in a field near a village in central Burma.

Football Revolution

Hundreds of thousands of Hanoians filled downtown to celebrate a victory in the championship match of the ASEAN region against Thailand. It was the 1st time Vietnam has ever beaten Thailand for the title. No cars were flipped.

Etc.

Funeral for a Hmong Grandmother, Moc Chau, Western Vietnam Border Region

Hmong Village, Moc Chau, Western Border with Laos

Presidential Palace Banquet Hall

This is the best bust of Uncle Ho I've yet seen. Snapped this photo during a photo shoot for Bloomberg News.

At Babur's Garden

Babur's Garden is a public park located in Kabul. Women aren't allowed to visit the park but for a specific day of the week and then only for two hours. Without female companionship available, men openly and comfortably express intimacy with each other.

Refugee Camp

7 year old Maryam is in 1st grade at the primary school in Bene Warsak Refugee Camp. She came to the camp 3 years ago from Iran.



Barik aab Bene Warsak Refugee Camp is about 60km outside Kabul and just beyond Bagram Air Base in Parwan province. It was settled several years ago for internally displaced people who had been forced from their homes by fighting. When returning refugees from Iran and Pakistan were displaced by the current conflict or as a result of occupation, they were also sent to Bene Warsak.
The camp lacks infrastructure with no market, few jobs, and a school that occupies the empty front room of a private home. Many of the 425 families left for Kabul in 2007 in search of work and food. 125 families still live in Bene Warsak and do their best to live normal lives in a community that has disappeared.





Carrying water from pump to home.




Math class.




The teacher at the blackboard.




After school play.




A father and son return from begging in the streets of Kabul for food. They were given sheep meat to fill their sack.

Afghanistan

Two administrators at a local boys school in the northern province of Faryab.




Turkmenistan border.




Sisters wait for their afternoon meal at a nutrition center in Faryab province.



In Belcheraug Center a restaurant owner shows off the daily special of sheep. The meat is cooked in a pressure cooker with water and served with bread. Afghanistan is suffering a severe drought and many shepherds are forced to butcher their animals before losing them to starvation.

Mid Autumn Moon Festival

The Mid Autumn Festival is held during the full moon on the 15th day of the 8th lunar month. It is said that the family oriented festival came about when busy parents working in the fields during the bright harvest moon decided to dedicate this time to lavish their children with attention. There are dragon parades, games and food, but the highlight comes after dusk when lanterns with hand written prayers are launched. This happened just outside our apartment and made for a surreal night.

Vanishing Asia- The Khau Vai Love Market

Photos from a special section in the Wall Street Journal about a market located in the remote mountainous northern region of Vietnam on the Chinese border. The region is settled by various minority groups- Dao, Lolo, Giay, and Hmong people, who come once a year to the market above the town of Meo Vac where they can meet and drink and get to know people from outside their family group. Some come for the all night singing and dancing and drinking and others come for the lovin. With the opening up of the frontier region to trade from China and regional tourism the market is undergoing rapid and permanent change.





Khau Vai village, site of the annual love market that is famous throughout the mountain villages.





White Hmong women.




Hmong children living together in an extended family at the border of the frontier area.




A Hmong boy stands at the Ma Pi Leng Pass in Ha Giang Province, one of the poorest and most remote places in Vietnam.




A market stall holder sells imported cheap plastic Chinese trinkets to a Nung girl, in blue, at the Khau Vai Love Market. There is a distinct lack of authentic minority wares such as clothing and silver jewlery at the market.





A Hmong lower primary school grades 1-4, yellow building at left, in the Ma Pi Leng Pass in the Meo Vac District of Ha Giang Province, where the teacher is a self-taught Hmong speaking Vietnamese woman.

Vanishing Asia- The Khau Vai Love Market

Ruou and Hoa, a Hmong couple, both 20 years old from Ha Giang Province traveled an hour by motor bike with their daughter to celebrate their 5th anniversary since meeting at the Khau Vai Love Market.






The mountainous region beyond Meo Vac town, gateway to the Khau Vai love market, is one of the poorest and most remote areas in Vietnam.






Khen flute players perform a traditional flute dance, in which Hmong men must play their instruments without pause, with the best dancer attracting attention from the girls at the market.






Hmong women carry farm tools in the northern Frontier Area which borders China in the Ha Giang Province, about 150km southwest of the Khau Vai Love Market.






A Hmong couple from neighboring districts in Ha Giang Province reconnect at the Khau Vai Love Market after several years apart.






Tourists have left their mark on the authenticty of Khau Vai, where a Nung girl was photographed.






Tourists from Hanoi photograph a billboard at the boundary of Meo Vac city, a city rich in ethnic minority culture, as they make their way to the Khau Vai market. Meo Vac is the gateway to the market area about 20 km. above the city.