May 8th, 2018
For the second January in a row I spent the month in Myanmar. I am absolutely fascinated by the country, its amazingly open, welcoming and charming people and the sheer brilliance of the scenery. I figured since I had a hard drive full of pictures from that trip, I should share some sooner of later (although, it’s obviously “later”). I am in love with this country and will definitely keep going back.
December 14th, 2017:
I’m on my end of the year, pre-Christmas, mad push of editing right now; whilst in the middle of that, I realized I had these pictures I created last summer already put together in a blog post about Hong Kong. Figured I should share before the holidays hit and I head off to Myanmar for the start of 2018 and start creating even more travel images.
September 14th, 2017:
I spent the second half of July and the first half or August on the road this summer. It was my first circumnavigation of the world in a single trip; I bounced from Belgium to Singapore, onwards to work with a few NGO’s in Cambodia and Vietnam before wrapping up the trip eating my way through Hong Kong for a couple days. I shared as I went on Instagram, but (as has become the new normal) my blog is being updated after the fact with images.
My first stop was to spend a week in Antwerp with my friends John and Marianne. They were amazing hosts who kept me far too well fed, very full of fantastic beer, tried to keep me in shape cycling around the city and spent the entire week showing me around Belgium. The images in this post are from Antwerp, Brussels and Ghent in July.
I met Wilfred Van Bauwel while wandering Antwerp with John. John was excited and said he’d love to introduce me to his “shoe guy” who is super unique and friendly. We arrived at Wilfred’s shoe shop at 11am and were offer a cup of red wine and we chatted for a bit. Then, right before I left, he said “People think I am a shoe maker, but I am all kinds of things.”
He then rummaged around for his keys and walked us across the building to another room that housed 4 decades of his art work. John knew nothing about Wilfred’s second career and we talked art for a while and I shot a few images.
As we prepared to go a second time, Wilfred pulled out the last painting in this series, said “You like it?” Then rolled it up, and handed it to me.
I’m always dumbfounded when the world surprises me with it’s generosity of new experiences and new people.
My friends Marianne and John.
July 7th, 2017:
You might recall that more than a decade ago I made a promise to my nieces that when they turned 13, I would take them anywhere in the world they would like to go. A couple years ago I headed off to Ireland with Madalyn, and now, with Regan on the cusp of being a teenager she choose Iceland. We packed our bags with parkas, thermal underwear and hiking boots, and headed off to spring on this North Atlantic island.
My main goal with these trips is for these amazing young women to realize that they can head out at anytime to find an adventure, and not to be frightened by what’s out there in the world. I love sharing my passion for travel and the joy finding new places to see. Watching this discovery in their eyes when they get excited about all the little things, easily makes being an uncle one of my favorite roles in life.
The Icelandic weather lived up to it’s reputation, going from beautiful blue spring skies to 100mph winds with driving rain and back again in the course of a couple of hours. At one point the winds outside were blowing cars off the ring road and we got trapped in our (rather expensive) hotel for 36 hours. We quickly got used to wearing ALL our clothes and looking identical in all our pictures, buried under the North Face advertising campaign which we wore the whole time.
Thank you Regan for being a little badass, for teaching me how to take the perfect sullen Instagram photo, and for generally being up for whatever came our way. I can’t wait for the next trip!
June 28th, 2017:
Remember when I went to Vietnam in April? Yeah, I barely do either. Since I returned I have shoot a bunch of weddings and engagement sessions, went to Iceland for 11 days, spent 3 separate weeks in California and have already started planning a trip to Belgium, Cambodia and Hong Kong (odd combo, I know).
Anyhow, I decided to finally share a few more of my images from traveling around the northern part of the country. These are from Sapa, Hanoi, Hue and Dong Ha. Now it’s off to the computer for a morning of editing Iceland pictures; I’m trying to get caught up on those before 3 weddings in a row followed by another month on the road.
More to come!
February 24th, 2017:
Ko Kala, A local man who raises cocks for fighting. Yangon, No. 1 Ward, Myanmar.
After being home for a couple weeks, it dawned on me that I never shared any of my images from Yangon on the blog, although you my have seen most of these on Instagram. Anyhow, for posterity sake, I present a few of my favorites from my first and last couple days around Yangon, Myanmar.
Lately I have been busy starting the wedding season in Los Angeles and prepping for another trip to Asia. This time I’ll be off to Vietnam for 3 weeks to work with the Global Community Service Foundation again and document the work they are doing around Dong Ha. I also have a couple weeks in the country once I wrap up the work part of the trip, so I’m just going to have to see where it takes me.
More to come, very soon…
January 24th, 2017:
Between the NGO visits Mandalay was on the way, so I decided to do a couple days and be a proper tourist. As busy as I had been with the NGO stuff, I didn’t really research much, I just booked a room at a place that was recommended by a friend and showed up. You know those places that every kid has that latch onto their minds while spinning a globe? Mandalay was one of those for me (along with Kathmandu and Zanzibar), I think as a 9 year old Robbie just had a thing for 3 syllable cities.
When I arrived in town from the airport, it wasn’t anything like the young me imagined… It was a packed chaotic city with 100cc motorcycles racing everywhere and traffic you had to jump out of the way for. Not to be deterred, I spent the first day climbing the 700+ steps on Mandalay Hill, taking in the Royal Palace (which required me to surrender my passport in order to gain entry), literally checked out hundreds of pagodas and finally meet up with my friend Amanda for dinner.
Amanda had been here a few weeks back and we got to talking about all the places to see within an hour radius of the city, There’s the ruins if Inwa, the giant (and never finished) pagoda Mingun, the Mingun bell (which happens to be the second largest bell in the world), the bridge at U Bein and dozens of other spots I doubt I would remember the name of without looking them up. She recommended that I hire a motorcycle and driver/guide for the next day and try to see it all. She had done the same thing on her prior visit, so she pulled out Mg Mg’s number and after some broken english phone conversation, I felt like he knew to pick me up at my hotel at 8:30am – at least until his friend No No (with better english) called back 10 minutes later, clarified everything and I then followed that with a text of my hotel address.
So that’s exactly how I ended up on the back of one of the aforementioned 100cc motorcycles for 8 hours of touristing for approximately $22. Aside from some taint chaffing, a light sunburn and dust in all my crevices from the dirt roads, it turned out to be a fantastic day exploring. Although by 4pm I was beat and when Mg Mg asked “No sunset at bridge?!”, I replied “No.”
By that point I needed a cold beer, a nap and eventually some dinner.
Mingun
Lunch for Mg Mg and I ($4.07). Burmese food includes every dish in the kitchen and they bring the same amount to your table weather there are two of you or eight. Of the 15 dishes on the table, I am fairly certain I had a bite of them all and had a second or third bite of my favorites. Eating this at 1pm, probably was a major factor in me giving up pre-sunset.
The U Bein Bridge shadow. I am not totally in love with this image, but at least it’s not one of the thousand sunset shot you find on google images.
January 21st, 2016:
When I arrived in Kalaw it seemed to be a sleepy, quiet little town only known to tourists because you are allowed to trek in the surrounding hills and sleep in the local villages without a permit from the Myanmar government. The next day, sort of unsurprisingly, when the market came to town everything exploded with activity for 7 hours. The streets that were empty the day before filled with stalls and just about every inch if unclaimed ground had a tarp or old rice sack rolled out and whatever the local people’s land produced that week was on sale. After spending the last couple weeks in the Shan state, I will say that their produce is some of the most flavorful and robust that I have ever enjoyed. I’ll easily rank the quality of their veggies up there with California or France, the land just seems abundant with flavors and textures.
The reason I came to Kalaw wasn’t the trekking though; I was meeting up with Jim Connor and his family who run the Whispering Seed NGO from here, with projects throughout Myanmar. His organization is a blog post on it’s own, so for now enjoy my tiny town wanderings and I’ll have more images up soon.
January 15th, 2017:
I still have a couple other NGO projects that I worked on in the Inle Lake area to share, but I thought I would break that up with a few of my favorite travel images and stories from the 5 days I spent in the area. Other than the work I was doing there, there was a good amount of time spent on the lake, in the 5 day market (which happens every 5th day), and wandering the town of Nyuangshwe.
During one of the days I spent with Kaythi she took me along to a Novitiation Ceremony in Lae Thit Village. It’s a massive 4 day celebration for a young man who is about to enter the monastery to become a monk. The boy’s family will provide huge amounts of food and the entire village will eat, sing and celebrate for 4 days straight. The villagers will make donations to the family that will help cover some of the costs. When I asked Kaythi if this is like a wedding and she said “No. This is much larger!”
Below is Kyae Sin Lin, the boy who at the end of the 4 days will have his head shaved and will go into the monastery to learn about Buddhism and humility. The minimum time spent in with the monks will be 1 week, but it could last a month or even a year depending on the boys family. Kaythi guessed that Kyae Sin Lin was probably 9 or 10 years old.
Yoon Lei Ya Tee played the role of the Princess (below) for the celebration. I was later told by someone else that most girls acting as the princess would have also have there heads shaved at the end of the celebration and would go into the nunnery, but I can’t confirm this for Yoon Lei Ya Tee because I didn’t ask on the day I was there.
I woke up at 6am on market day to catch the early morning light and the crowded market while it was only locals doing their shopping and selling. If you have ever traveled you know many markets around the world become stops on a tourist checklist that end up swarming with other travelers. Not true here, I spent a solid two hours here without seeing another white face, just the inquisitive looks and smiles from the locals. It was the most colorful, alive, authentic and real market I have been to anywhere in the world, and I questioned even writing about it because now others will read this and seek it out.
Afternoon wanderings in Nyuangshwe.
One of my favorite mundane travel chores is to get a local haircut. Really, I never know exactly what my head will end up looking like, but I usually gesture to my scalp and ask for less hair. This one was complete with a scalp massage and a straight razor shave around my neck and ears. I have found Myanmar to have some of the most honest people of any country I have ever traveled in, but after the haircut when I asked how much I owed, the barber said “3000 Kyat. Regular price.” ($2.20)
Now I know that when someone feels like they need to clarify that what they are charging me is the “Regular price” it usually isn’t, but I didn’t feel overly scammed and I paid. The barber was still super friendly and at the end of the haircut I realized that he cut me in line in front of the two guys sitting behind me who I originally thought were just his friends hanging out.
A few days later I asked an American who has lived in Myanmar for 15 years how much a haircut should cost and he said about 1000 kyat ($0.75). Meh. I guess I should ask the price in advance next time.
One of the days I was there I heard that they city and Ministry of Tourism had decided to open a daily night market in Nyuangshwe so there would be some sort of evening activities (the city goes pretty much dead by 7:30pm). They kicked off the inaugural night with music, dancing and a Fire Balloon.
A Fire Balloon is a massive paper balloon, which is then filled with hot air using flaming bamboo torches before finally having a massive rack of fireworks attached to the bottom. The fireworks are lit and the balloon is release and it then proceeds to rain a fiery death from the sky. Seriously. A fire truck was present, but safety and burns didn’t seem high on the list of priorities as everyone scattered from the incoming fireballs.
I also learned that each November in Taunggyi fire balloon teams gather and compete with each other to see who can create the best balloon/fireworks display. I can only imagine the number of burn victims on that night.
January 9th, 2017:
For all those that follow me on Instagram, you know for the last 10 days I have been in Myanmar. The purpose of this trip is for some photography work I am doing for a few NGO’s, but of course I’ll get a bit of wandering around the country in too. The first six days were all mine and I spent two in Yangon (more on that another day), and then I headed up to Bagan to go temple exploring for 4 days.
Unfortunately on my flight from Yangon to Bagan I sampled the Asian Wings Airline danish I was given as a snack and within 5 minutes my stomach said “Oh HELL no!” The next 48 hours were spent in the fetal position in my guesthouse bed, my body relieving itself of all the extra pounds I had added over the holidays.
When I finally did come around and feel better, I had two days left to explore Bagan, so I rented an electric bicycle and set out to explore the 2200 temples in this 40 square mile area. At one point in the 13th century, there were as many as 10,000 temples present in the same area.
There was no way I could see all Bagan had to offer (I managed maybe 50 temples), but I did get to see a couple sunsets and a sunrise, and I ended my days here feeling exceptionally better than I arrived.
I am in the Inle Lake region as I write this, and I just wrapped up a packed 3 days of shooting/editing for the Global Community Service Foundation and have some stunning pictures and stories coming in the next few days from that experience.
The sweet electric beast that I paid $5.50 a day to ride all over Bagan. It maxes out at about 20 miles an hour and I’ve done faster on a bicycle, but it sure was a hell of a lot easier than pedaling.
Of course when I am in somewhere moderately dark I want to get out after dark and see what type of astrophotography I can pull off. Unfortunately there was a quarter moon in the sky, which outshone the stars leaving them less than spectacular.
