A fisherman comes in with his catch in the early morning fog, Indawgi Lake, Myanmar. They still use this traditional method of fishing with these boxes, I’m not totally sure how they work, but they do work! This lake was pretty interesting as it was definitely off the beaten bath, the only way to get there was taking the train (that I mentioned before), hopping off at some small town, and then getting on the back of truck for a few hours. There’s one guesthouse you could stay (average was one tourist per day) and if you tried to go anywhere down the road past the lake the military would turn you right around. People were super friendly and there was a cool temple in the middle of the lake you could kayak to, good stuff.
Walking around the Carbon Market in Cebu, Philippines. This guy wanted me to take his photo so I obliged. I liked how it turned out, plus great shirt. The neighborhoods around the market are pretty rough, and you can tell this guy has had a rough go of it too. After two people told me not to walk around there with my camera out I put it away, but I loved how many people wanted their photos taken. I think out of every country I’ve been to, Filipinos enjoy being on camera the most, by far!
An evening bike ride just outside the main plaza in Granada, Nicaragua. It’s a very pleasant colonial city, super colorful, nice to walk around, plenty of churches to stop in, with a few that you can climb their bell towers. A good place to relax for a few days. Of course you can say that about lots of colonial cities in Latin America!
Mt. Nemrut, a mountain mausoleum built in the 1st Century BC in Southeast Turkey. This guy named Antiochus wanted both Persian and Greek gods to protect him in the afterlife so he erected their statues outside of his tomb, and there’s even more on the other side of the mountain. At some point the heads had fallen off their pedestals that you can see behind them, and now they rest on the ground. Supposedly this was one of the most ambitious projects of the Hellenistic period. I had no clue this place existed before visiting!
Some llamas at Las Cajas National Park in Ecuador, near Cuenca. It’s a highland region with lots of lagoons and scrubby plants, people generally compare it to the Scottish Highlands. I wanted to get in a good 7-8 miles of hiking, so the park ranger pointed out a trail to me on the other side of the highway (not the sissy 2-3 mile trails 95% of the tourists do), but never in a million years would I have expected this place, out of all the places in the world, to be the one that had me panicking that I might have to stay the night in hyperthermic conditions without the proper gear. At one point I was surrounded on all sides by steep dropoffs, no idea the where the trail was, with a steady cold rain, totally soaked, my poncho all ripped up from squeezing through brambles and branches and shit, legs bleeding and scraped up. fuck. But I did eventually find the ‘trail’ scooting down some slippery ass rocks, and I made it down out a few hours later still alive.
Of course that wasn’t the end, I got out so late that I had to hop the park gate, over the barbed wire, ripped my shirt, and landed in a patch of those hairy leaves that make you burn like crazy when you touch them, and I was wearing shorts with cuts on my legs… Then it was 2 miles to the highway, which normally in Ecuador you can flag down buses no problem. But this was a 2 lane mountain highway, no shoulder, so it was another 4 miles down the road to the next village to catch a bus. Raining the whole time. I found the right bus stop finally got dropped off somewhere in town but had to walk a while to get to my hostel, where all the lights where completely off. dafuq?! Some sort of gas leak, so instead of crawling into bed, which was all I wanted to do, I had to go pack up all my shit and go find another hotel, what in the everliving fuck. That hotel would be whatever hotel was closest, price be damned. Found one a block away, they put me on the 5th floor, elevator is broken, sure why not? Flopped into bed and passed out for the next 12 hours. So that was a hell of day in Cuenca.
Some friends gather on this dilapidated concrete structure that juts out into the bay in the Seaside neighborhood of Cape Town. This hunk of concrete seemed weirdly off brand for this wealthy part of town. Cape Town might be the most beautiful city I’ve ever seen, but the wealth disparities and social dynamics are definitely pretty off putting. Here’s the view looking inland with Lion’s Head in the background
Ho Chi Minh City right before Tet celebrations. Lots of street stands switch over to festive holiday decorations and you’ll see people dress up and take photos in front of the those stands. This girl was waiting for her family to get their shit together for a group photo, and I think this composition worked out pretty nicely. Vietnam has been under-repped ITT
Hiker for scale. I had my hiking partner go run up on this hill so I could snap this photo, somewhere on our trek up to the Everest base camp, Nepal. He was in better hiking shape than me at the start of the trek, but once we got up to the high elevations I was moving at a nice steady pace and he was sucking wind badly, ha!
We hired this sailboat (called a dhow) to take us to a small island from Vilankulos, Mozambique. The boatman apparently had a nice catch while we were away!
Some train travel in Sri Lanka. The country was really heating up for tourism a couple years ago, most of the trains were booked solid around Christmas and NYE, but not this one departing at 4am! Kandy → Ella.
Well thanks! I do think the people you interact with traveling really do make the experience that much more interesting.
As for people shots in interesting locations, here’s one from a fire festival in Gokarna, India. I kinda liked the sly smile this guy gave me taking his photo. As a not-very-religious person, it’s pretty wild to see such intense spirituality on display during festivals in some other countries, and especially in India.
First month of teaching in Guizhou, China in winter. Pretty awful. The sun NEVER comes out, it’s overcast all day everyday and cold, and there’s no heat anywhere. People are just in jackets all the time and the old dudes wear these PJs, which I was kind of jealous of. It was weird seeing so many people hanging out outside in this weather, because it wasn’t any warmer inside! For us teachers, our only heater was above our beds, so we were bundled up everywhere else in our apartment. One teacher from Florida left after 2 days lol. It would get better!
Maravilla cenote near Playa del Carmen. From above ground it looks like nothing, a small lagoon with overgrown brush. Once you get below the surface it opens up into a giant underwater amphitheater. Assuming the sun is out it casts this huge beam of light all the way down, well over 100 feet. In the movies when god casts a single beam down to talk to some chosen person, it kinda feels like that. Or the beginning scene in Independence Day when the ship opens up over the welcome party lol.
An absolutely ripping sunset on Cape Maclear, Malawi. Best one of the 3 month trip I think. Those dugout canoes get put on bigger boats that take them further out into the lake, where they fish all night, and then bring in the catch at sunrise. I arrived at this place just in time for some one day music festival that was headlined by a popular UK DJ, so all the Peace Corps and NGO workers from anywhere nearby in Africa were all in town for this event, which was very randomly cool. It also meant everything was booked up and I had to camp on the beach for the night heh.
A woman holding her baby overlooking the nicely restored ancient mosques and madrassas in Bukhara, Uzbekistan. Her neighborhood was not so nicely restored…
