December 8, 2008
E-mail from Vey Lav
Dear Leah and Jacquie,
I received the box of books from Rithy two days ago. How nice to get those beautiful stuff in. All are very nice and interesting. One of the most interesting books is under the title "Don't Know Much About the American Presidents."
The clothes fit the kids in the afternoon class whose pictures you took. They were so happy and held your cards.
The pair of red striped colored trousers was given to an 18-year-old student for his birthday.
We got around 30 clothes, books and two boxes of pencils and two bedspreads, etc.
Leah, please say ''hi'' and thank to the book contributors Louise Roberts, Jill Mahnane, double thanks to Anna Honda. Clothes providers Louise Roberts, Fran Navarro, and the Lyon family: Millie, Larry, Megan, Mason and Logan; and school materials, Fran Navarro and let them know we got them all.
Kids said "hi" to you and happy birthday to you with all their wishes.
All very best,
Vey
Monday, December 8, 2008
Tuesday, November 25, 2008
Birthday Karma and Christmas | Thanks to the Lau Clan
November 25, 2008
As my birthday approached, I meditated on what the past year had been like, where I was headed the following year, and how I wanted to celebrate my life's journey.
Considering how meaningful the work with the Cambodian children has been, and that I didn't want my family spending money on me, I asked for them to help with the Cambodian Children's Book Project in lieu of traditional material presents.
That meant anything from actually making book, clothing and school supply donations to helping with research, logistics and organizing the project.
My family's overwhelming support and enthusiasm was a wonderful display of love. Infinite gratitude to the Lau clan: Alliey, Cathy, Eric, Grace and Marcia, May Young, and Anthony and Holly Haraguchi. For my birthday and for Christmas, they showered me in children's and teenage clothing donations, children's and young adult books and school supplies.
Grace also generously paid for the carbon offset for my long distance travel to and within Southeast Asia. www.carbonfund.org.
As my birthday approached, I meditated on what the past year had been like, where I was headed the following year, and how I wanted to celebrate my life's journey.
Considering how meaningful the work with the Cambodian children has been, and that I didn't want my family spending money on me, I asked for them to help with the Cambodian Children's Book Project in lieu of traditional material presents.
That meant anything from actually making book, clothing and school supply donations to helping with research, logistics and organizing the project.
My family's overwhelming support and enthusiasm was a wonderful display of love. Infinite gratitude to the Lau clan: Alliey, Cathy, Eric, Grace and Marcia, May Young, and Anthony and Holly Haraguchi. For my birthday and for Christmas, they showered me in children's and teenage clothing donations, children's and young adult books and school supplies.
Grace also generously paid for the carbon offset for my long distance travel to and within Southeast Asia. www.carbonfund.org.
Tuesday, November 18, 2008
Greetings From Students Thei and Srey Peak
November 18, 2008
Hi, Vey!
How are you? Thank you very much for sending the update about the new classroom construction. That is very exciting news! Will the school be able to accommodate more students with the new classroom or is to spread out the existing students? How many students total are at Elma?
Thank you also for the update about Rithy and the Angkor Hospital for Children. It's always great to know where help is needed. You never know when the right person or resources might be available.
Please say "hi" to Thei and Srey Peak for me. I cherish my experiences with all of the children and especially the little girls I photographed in front of the school. That is so sweet that they remember me.
I think about them all of the time. It is their beautiful faces and eyes that have truly been the image representing Cambodian children to my family and friends at home and around the world. I would love to receive a message from them someday in English.
I hope that this most recent box of books arrives alright. I have many more donations of books, clothes and school supplies at home. When I can afford the shipping to send another box, I'll let you know when it's enroute.
For my birthday, I told my family that I don't need anything new for myself. I asked my family to give me more donations of books and clothes for the ELMA students for my upcoming birthday and Christmas presents.
All my best,
Leah
Hi, Vey!
How are you? Thank you very much for sending the update about the new classroom construction. That is very exciting news! Will the school be able to accommodate more students with the new classroom or is to spread out the existing students? How many students total are at Elma?
Thank you also for the update about Rithy and the Angkor Hospital for Children. It's always great to know where help is needed. You never know when the right person or resources might be available.
Please say "hi" to Thei and Srey Peak for me. I cherish my experiences with all of the children and especially the little girls I photographed in front of the school. That is so sweet that they remember me.
I think about them all of the time. It is their beautiful faces and eyes that have truly been the image representing Cambodian children to my family and friends at home and around the world. I would love to receive a message from them someday in English.
I hope that this most recent box of books arrives alright. I have many more donations of books, clothes and school supplies at home. When I can afford the shipping to send another box, I'll let you know when it's enroute.
For my birthday, I told my family that I don't need anything new for myself. I asked my family to give me more donations of books and clothes for the ELMA students for my upcoming birthday and Christmas presents.
All my best,
Leah
New Classroom Construction | Rain and Flooding
November 18, 2008
E-mail from Vey Lav
Dear Leah,
Nice to hear from you, and thanks for your kind email.
Am doing fine but still busy at Elma new classroom construction which is almost done. I can not take an eye off the new building for now.
Besides this we also have to monitor the new students who just drop in the school and evaluate how much they stay with their grassroot English level.
It has been a horrible rain for few days in Siem Reap that made the road to the Elma School overflow. These infrastructure and bridges are under the government responsibility. It used to be much better condition when Elma began.
I met Rithy a few days a go and he told me that he is going to speak with the Hospital Mission and the ladies who are in charge of the international volunteer workers to Angkor Hospital for Children. Now I wait for his answer. Rithy plays a very important role for Elma shipping equipment, thanks for his work. Please tell your friend just keep up her hope.
Leah, the kids in the afternoon class were saying "hi" to you as they have your beautiful cards. Your presence at Elma became remarkable memories of Cambodian children. This is one of the ways to motivate students to learn foreign language. Thei and Srey Peak, the girls whose pictures you took, remember you the most, your name and age. One day they will send you an email in English.
I look forward to seeing your books.
All very best,
Vey
E-mail from Vey Lav
Dear Leah,
Nice to hear from you, and thanks for your kind email.
Am doing fine but still busy at Elma new classroom construction which is almost done. I can not take an eye off the new building for now.
Besides this we also have to monitor the new students who just drop in the school and evaluate how much they stay with their grassroot English level.
It has been a horrible rain for few days in Siem Reap that made the road to the Elma School overflow. These infrastructure and bridges are under the government responsibility. It used to be much better condition when Elma began.
I met Rithy a few days a go and he told me that he is going to speak with the Hospital Mission and the ladies who are in charge of the international volunteer workers to Angkor Hospital for Children. Now I wait for his answer. Rithy plays a very important role for Elma shipping equipment, thanks for his work. Please tell your friend just keep up her hope.
Leah, the kids in the afternoon class were saying "hi" to you as they have your beautiful cards. Your presence at Elma became remarkable memories of Cambodian children. This is one of the ways to motivate students to learn foreign language. Thei and Srey Peak, the girls whose pictures you took, remember you the most, your name and age. One day they will send you an email in English.
I look forward to seeing your books.
All very best,
Vey
Friday, October 10, 2008
Hello From Your Cambodian Kids | Thank you to Judy Ahrens, Rick Arruzza and Anna Honda
October 10, 2008
E-mail from Vey Lav
Hi Leah,
How are you? I am very busy at the moment with year three, year two, and more new students who just enrolled last week while one new classroom construction is started.
Reading this letter you still remember Cambodian children, you personally have left such strong memory in Cambodia by afternoon students asking for you, you and your pictures are printed on their mind and heart. I could not believe that the kids still remember you and your name well. Some off them have brought your cards to show their families too.
I have told them that you are one of their study resources. Why? Because she donated books to all of you and she has forwarded messages to many people in the world who travel to Cambodia to bring the books to ELMA and let them know about this foundation too.
She always builds up your fate and fortune for yourselves, families and Cambodia. This is the right points to bring you luck.
Leah when getting this message please say "hi" to Rick Arruza, Anna Honda, Judy Ahrens and your colleagues from me and Elma Cambodia.
Judy Ahrens sent such as nice and expensive books to us. Many thanks from us.
All with my best,
Vey
E-mail from Vey Lav
Hi Leah,
How are you? I am very busy at the moment with year three, year two, and more new students who just enrolled last week while one new classroom construction is started.
Reading this letter you still remember Cambodian children, you personally have left such strong memory in Cambodia by afternoon students asking for you, you and your pictures are printed on their mind and heart. I could not believe that the kids still remember you and your name well. Some off them have brought your cards to show their families too.
I have told them that you are one of their study resources. Why? Because she donated books to all of you and she has forwarded messages to many people in the world who travel to Cambodia to bring the books to ELMA and let them know about this foundation too.
She always builds up your fate and fortune for yourselves, families and Cambodia. This is the right points to bring you luck.
Leah when getting this message please say "hi" to Rick Arruza, Anna Honda, Judy Ahrens and your colleagues from me and Elma Cambodia.
Judy Ahrens sent such as nice and expensive books to us. Many thanks from us.
All with my best,
Vey
Saturday, September 20, 2008
International Resources for Cambodia | Thank you to Anna Honda and Paul Emmert
September 20, 2008
E-mail from Vey Lav
Dear Leah and Anna,
Thank you for your kind messages. I am so glad to hear from both of you. It took very short time to transfer your materials from U.S. Those books received are very interesting. The pictures of equipment are attractive for young kids who live in the farms.
The river overflowed up to the road leading to Banteay Srei. We had to walk over the uncomfortable wooden bridge for 15 meters. That bridge was not strong enough to carry more than five people, suddenly it had broken down.
I definitely want to help support Elma that benefit Cambodians, this is my goal.
We certainly understand that education is an international social civil rights issue. Everybody needs this. Cambodia is one of the youngest countries in education development, so a part of tourism is to help people with right education build up their future.
You know that Cambodians feel hopeless. This is the government's burden and our task too.
Your works, books, all your help is priceless for the people.
All my best,
Vey
September 19, 2008
E-mail from Jacqueline Lawrence
Dear Leah,
Thank you for the update and thank you so much for all the work you do on behalf of the Foundation and Elma School in particularly. Your photos are beautiful. Thank you for letting us use them on our Web site, which will be constructed in the very near future.
My cousin, Sheree, is enroute to Siem reap to assist and teach at the school. She has seen your photographs and found them inspiring!
All very best wishes,
Jacqueline
September 18, 2008
E-mail from Anna Honda
Leah and Vey,
I’m so glad to hear that the students like those books. It is my great pleasure to be a part of this effort to bring English books to the children of the Elma School. My friends and I will continue to collect interesting books and send them your way.
Best wishes,
Anna
September 17, 2008
Dear Anna,
Thank you so much again for all of your wonderful children's books donations from you and your friends.
For one batch, I selected the educational books like that adorable atlas and the sharks book and things like that and sent them off with a former Schwab colleague, Paul Emmert, who just met up with one of the school's founders, Vey, in Cambodia.
The books arrived safe and sound and you can read Vey's note below.
Leah
September 16, 2008
E-mail from Vey Lav
Dear Leah,
I got your beautiful books from Paul. Those rare books are very interesting with the pictures and vocabularies. I strongly think that the kids will admire them the most. Those are types of books we really need for young aged students or even adults.
Please send all my thanks and regards one again to Paul who took care of those.
All my best,
Vey
E-mail from Vey Lav
Dear Leah and Anna,
Thank you for your kind messages. I am so glad to hear from both of you. It took very short time to transfer your materials from U.S. Those books received are very interesting. The pictures of equipment are attractive for young kids who live in the farms.
The river overflowed up to the road leading to Banteay Srei. We had to walk over the uncomfortable wooden bridge for 15 meters. That bridge was not strong enough to carry more than five people, suddenly it had broken down.
I definitely want to help support Elma that benefit Cambodians, this is my goal.
We certainly understand that education is an international social civil rights issue. Everybody needs this. Cambodia is one of the youngest countries in education development, so a part of tourism is to help people with right education build up their future.
You know that Cambodians feel hopeless. This is the government's burden and our task too.
Your works, books, all your help is priceless for the people.
All my best,
Vey
September 19, 2008
E-mail from Jacqueline Lawrence
Dear Leah,
Thank you for the update and thank you so much for all the work you do on behalf of the Foundation and Elma School in particularly. Your photos are beautiful. Thank you for letting us use them on our Web site, which will be constructed in the very near future.
My cousin, Sheree, is enroute to Siem reap to assist and teach at the school. She has seen your photographs and found them inspiring!
All very best wishes,
Jacqueline
September 18, 2008
E-mail from Anna Honda
Leah and Vey,
I’m so glad to hear that the students like those books. It is my great pleasure to be a part of this effort to bring English books to the children of the Elma School. My friends and I will continue to collect interesting books and send them your way.
Best wishes,
Anna
September 17, 2008
Dear Anna,
Thank you so much again for all of your wonderful children's books donations from you and your friends.
For one batch, I selected the educational books like that adorable atlas and the sharks book and things like that and sent them off with a former Schwab colleague, Paul Emmert, who just met up with one of the school's founders, Vey, in Cambodia.
The books arrived safe and sound and you can read Vey's note below.
Leah
September 16, 2008
E-mail from Vey Lav
Dear Leah,
I got your beautiful books from Paul. Those rare books are very interesting with the pictures and vocabularies. I strongly think that the kids will admire them the most. Those are types of books we really need for young aged students or even adults.
Please send all my thanks and regards one again to Paul who took care of those.
All my best,
Vey
Wednesday, September 3, 2008
Alphabet Games and Books | Thank you to Judy Ahrens and Rick Arruzza
September 3, 2008E-mail from Vey Lav
Dear Leah,
I just received another bag of children books from Rick Arruzza via my friend Rithy yesterday afternoon. It arrived safely. Please say thank you to Rick and your colleagues who always consider about Elma, this books will be very helpful for filling in our library space.
I feel amazed about you, your friends, colleagues and Rithy who work hard on this. This project is working because of all of you too. Thank you so much for all your help and active cooperation.
All very best,
Vey
August 31, 2008
Dear Judy,
Thank you so much for being so kind and generous in sending the box of books and alphabet board puzzles. The children are very lucky to have such loving people in their corner.
Vey,
Thank you, Rithy, and Rithy's colleagues for all of your help delivering the books and resources to the children.
All my best,
Leah
August 29, 2008
E-mail from Judy Ahrens
Hi Vey,
My friend and yours Leah Lau told me about your school.
I just sent my first box (23lbs.) of books to you. All are for young children + some really nice alphabet board puzzles. I sent them to the Mr. Yam Rithy at the Angkor Hospital for Children.
Hope the children enjoy them.
Judy Ahrens
Tuesday, August 26, 2008
Call for Medical Supplies | Angkor Hospital for Children
August 26, 2008
E-mail from Vey Lav
Dear Leah,
I am fine thanks and you? Thank you so much for your kind message and all your helps related to our basic need in education and health. I am so glad that you could possibly do these hard works for our children. They are now staying with hope because of ongoing support.
Yes, sending the materials to Cambodia is costing to much from the U.S. and taking long time to deliver as well, I agree with you, we need somebody who can take care of those books along with their journey to Cambodia. I will find out if someone travels to Cambodia and kind enough to fill those in the free the space. It would be nice if someone can work this out on this long way.
I have spoken with Rithy about your medical scrubs. He said that his hospital need them and any types of medical supplies from U.S. and Europe. They are happy to have your supplies and other equipment for the Angkor Hospital for Children.
Did you know that MILLIONS of children have been sent to the hospital to be treated in one year? Despite the hospital does not cost anything but some families still CAN'T afford to come from their isolated village and the hospital need to figure out this such difficult task. Do can not stand and open our eyes to see them with such horrible tragedy and keep them staying in this condition.
Besides offering the English lessons we also motivate them to take care of their health every day. They strongly need very good care from their families too.
All very best,
Vey
E-mail from Vey Lav
Dear Leah,
I am fine thanks and you? Thank you so much for your kind message and all your helps related to our basic need in education and health. I am so glad that you could possibly do these hard works for our children. They are now staying with hope because of ongoing support.
Yes, sending the materials to Cambodia is costing to much from the U.S. and taking long time to deliver as well, I agree with you, we need somebody who can take care of those books along with their journey to Cambodia. I will find out if someone travels to Cambodia and kind enough to fill those in the free the space. It would be nice if someone can work this out on this long way.
I have spoken with Rithy about your medical scrubs. He said that his hospital need them and any types of medical supplies from U.S. and Europe. They are happy to have your supplies and other equipment for the Angkor Hospital for Children.
Did you know that MILLIONS of children have been sent to the hospital to be treated in one year? Despite the hospital does not cost anything but some families still CAN'T afford to come from their isolated village and the hospital need to figure out this such difficult task. Do can not stand and open our eyes to see them with such horrible tragedy and keep them staying in this condition.
Besides offering the English lessons we also motivate them to take care of their health every day. They strongly need very good care from their families too.
All very best,
Vey
Monday, August 25, 2008
Alleviating Cambodian Suffering | Dependencies on Foreign Aid
August 25, 2008
E-mail from Vey Lav
Dear Leah,
Thank you so much for your kind message. I am so glad to hear from you. Please do not rush on this, I know, it is hard to work out on many things in one time.
I also received another letter from Jacquie, a founder of Elma Cambodia from the United Kingdom this morming. She interested about your help donate books to our school, I definitely need to give her your contact address but you have already sent a letter to her, so I do not have to do it. She is going to write to say thanks for all your help, your hard work on our projects.
We also plan to build other connecting rooms close to the existing Elma School, according to the increasing numbers of students in coming years. By the end of next month we will have other new classrooms.
We would like to enlarge other Elma to different areas according to the need of students who really to learn English in the term of families are so poor enough to pay for their education. We would like to help raise up their living through education which is not drying out in the whole life.
The most important goal is to help Cambodians as much as we can, our Buddhist and country citizens want peace, require good life, and education. We the people and Elma in this generation should take action to compete all their first need to benefit their living and reach their final aspiration.
Did you know that more than half Cambodian children are not educated in public schools and less than 1% have opportunity to attend English classes in the village? This is the government burdens some and Elma too. Cambodian children are very hungry for education.
In this case only Elma can work out in this matter and resolve our deep concern. We are terribly sorry that Cambodians have lived in the horrible time and lost the opportunity in education. In the last 20 years no one considered about this important path.
Cambodians got killed and died from starvation, hunger, disease, poisonous foods and our works. Further more they died in the minefields. The survivals are now so poor, the poverty is still last for years till now.
We the people in this generation can work out to resolve the problem, please put your effort on and do not give up. Their hopes and expectation on better lives is our task.
I will speak with Rithy, a friend at Angkor Hospital for Children about your medical supply.
All with best regards and wishes,
Vey
E-mail from Vey Lav
Dear Leah,
Thank you so much for your kind message. I am so glad to hear from you. Please do not rush on this, I know, it is hard to work out on many things in one time.
I also received another letter from Jacquie, a founder of Elma Cambodia from the United Kingdom this morming. She interested about your help donate books to our school, I definitely need to give her your contact address but you have already sent a letter to her, so I do not have to do it. She is going to write to say thanks for all your help, your hard work on our projects.
We also plan to build other connecting rooms close to the existing Elma School, according to the increasing numbers of students in coming years. By the end of next month we will have other new classrooms.
We would like to enlarge other Elma to different areas according to the need of students who really to learn English in the term of families are so poor enough to pay for their education. We would like to help raise up their living through education which is not drying out in the whole life.
The most important goal is to help Cambodians as much as we can, our Buddhist and country citizens want peace, require good life, and education. We the people and Elma in this generation should take action to compete all their first need to benefit their living and reach their final aspiration.
Did you know that more than half Cambodian children are not educated in public schools and less than 1% have opportunity to attend English classes in the village? This is the government burdens some and Elma too. Cambodian children are very hungry for education.
In this case only Elma can work out in this matter and resolve our deep concern. We are terribly sorry that Cambodians have lived in the horrible time and lost the opportunity in education. In the last 20 years no one considered about this important path.
Cambodians got killed and died from starvation, hunger, disease, poisonous foods and our works. Further more they died in the minefields. The survivals are now so poor, the poverty is still last for years till now.
We the people in this generation can work out to resolve the problem, please put your effort on and do not give up. Their hopes and expectation on better lives is our task.
I will speak with Rithy, a friend at Angkor Hospital for Children about your medical supply.
All with best regards and wishes,
Vey
Photos of Cambodian Children at the Elma School
August 25, 2008
E-mail from Jacqueline Lawrence
Dear Leah,
THANK YOU so much for the photographs. (www.leahlau.com/cambodianchildren)
They are amazing....and very well timed as we are putting together a website about the Elma Foundation.
Thank you also for the book donation initiative. My cousin is going to teach at the Elma School in September and will take some books over.
All very best wishes and good luck for your future projects.
Jacqueline Lawrence
Chief Executive, Elma Foundation.
Friday, August 22, 2008
The Mother Lode of Book Donations | Louise Roberts, the Angel of Antioch
I was lucky—stars shining on me lucky—to meet Louise Roberts, mother, philanthropist and all-around kind soul. For years, Louise has been collecting children's books and clothes to donate to third-world countries. When I met with Louise, she donated upward of 300–400 children's books and dozens of children's outfits.
Her staggering generosity and kindness truly turned the Cambodian Children's Book Project from almost a figment of my imagination to a living, breathing, and transformative part of my and so many other people's lives.
Indispensable thanks to Sandeep Bhatt and Sujata Mody for lending me their car—again.
Friday, August 8, 2008
Rick Arruzza's "Sparky's Adventures" Children's Books
August 8, 2008
Hi, Vey!
How are you? Thank you so much for letting me know that the first box of books arrived for the children. I am so relieved! It's such a long way for the box to travel. I was getting worried that it might not make it. I hope that the children enjoy them! Please let me know if they have any favorites.
Also, please thank Rithy Yam for his help in delivering the books to you. It is very kind of him.
My friend, Rick, mailed a large envelope with 10 books in it, so I hope that arrives safely, as well. He writes books about a dog named Sparky. (http://www.sparkyswalk.com) They're very charming.
All my best,
Leah
Monday, July 28, 2008
Preparing Photos of the Cambodian Children: A Lau Family Event!
July 28, 2008
E-mail from Vey Lav
Dear Leah,
Thank you very much for your quick response and preparing some photos for our young kids. I am going to say "hi" to them and let them know you are thinking of them too.
Every body still remembers speaking with you. They have left very nice hand written letters in English at the library. Some of the letters will be sent in to the school web page for next generations and motivate others.
All the best,
Vey
July 28, 2008
Hi, Vey!
How are you? Thank you very much for your kind update. I love to hear how the children are doing.
I think about them all of the time, and am happy to report that, with my loving and talented family's support, we were able to finish turning the best film photos into digital versions today.
My siblings, Alliey and Eric Lau scanned them for me, with logistical support from my sisters Cathy and Grace Lau, and my brother-in-law, Anthony Haraguchi—a real family event! We worked together to save them in digital format. The photos turned out beautifully, especially the ones of the young children outside.
The next step is for me to have them uploaded to my Web site. My designer, Olivier D'Arceaux (http://www.odxcreative.com), was kind enough to donate the build time. Once the photos are ready for you to see, I'll send you the finished Web page (August 25, 2008 update. The link is live: www.leahlau.com/cambodianchildren).
Please say "hi" to the children for me, and tell the younger ones that their photos turned out beautifully and that I'll be sharing with you soon.
Thanks again for looking out for the books. Hopefully, they will arrive at for Rithy at the Angkor Hospital for Children soon.
All my best,
Leah
Sunday, July 13, 2008
The Cambodian Children's Book Project Begins!
July 26, 2008
Dear Leah,
I am doing fine and you? I hope you are good. I have been busy for few days a Elma and at work. Kids are doing fine too, they have so happy at Elma school. They have left handwritten letters of thanks to school, teachers, donors and materials.
The young kids who have outdoor pictures taken wanted to see their pictures.
Your picture books sent to Elma have not arrived yet, I will let you know when they reach my friend, Rithy's mail box at the Angkor Hospital for Children. Anyway thank you so much for your donation and kindness to our people.
All very best from Elma Cambodia,
Vey
July 21, 2008
Hi, Vey!
How are you? I miss the children a lot and think about them all of the time. I would like to get back to visit someday when I can save the money. Angkor was so beautiful and the visit with the children so meaningful. Meeting them was a highlight of my trip.
Many of the photos that I took outside turned out beautifully because we had enough sunlight. I'm working on making digital scans of the film so that I can get it ready to send in a Web page to you. I will keep you posted on that progress. The photos that I took of the younger girls outside are so precious. They are so beautiful and joyful. Those photos are really special. (August 25, 2008 update: www.leahlau.com/cambodianchildren.)
I mailed the first box of books last week to your friend Rithy Yam at the Angkor Hospital for Children. I hope they arrive alright. Could you please let me know when you receive them?
This first box of books is mostly from my personal collection. I love children's books and used to work at a bookstore so I learned about a lot of children's books then, in addition to ones I knew about from when I was a child. I hope that the students like them.
All my best,
Leah
July 18, 2008
Dear Leah,
It is so nice to get your kind message, I am always glad to hear from you too. It is true, sending materials from US is costly, every thing is charged in US dollars and they follow US policy system. Please do not rush, if you find a shipping company that costs much lower please take it. I do not mind if it is taking long time.
The kids are happy to hear from you, they said thanks you so much for spending time with them. The small kids were so excited when they spoke with you and had pictures taken. Finally they wished you good luck but they missed speaking with you and look forward to seeing you back.
Thank you once again for helping with my web page and gathering books for our library.
All very best,
Vey
July 13, 2008
Hi, Vey!
How are you?
I think about the students all of the time. Please tell them "hi" from me. I spent all last week getting a box of books to send to them and went to the post office to mail it last Friday.
The cost for international shipping has gone up recently and I was shocked at the high quotes that I got. I went to a few different shipping places to find out different price quotes ranging from $112 to $521! They all turned out to be very expensive because of how remote Siem Reap is but I'll return next week and mail the books from the least expensive place.
I'm sorry that, because of how expensive the shipping turned out to be, that it is taking me so long to ship books, but I'll have them headed your way. I've asked people here in the United States to donate books and told them that I will be responsible for paying for the shipping to Cambodia so book donations will come in to me at different times, including into the future.
All my best,
Leah
Sunday, July 6, 2008
A Guide to Photographing Angkor, Cambodia
Dear family and friends,
As many of you guessed, Angkor, in Cambodia, was my favorite site during my three-week photography shooting expedition to Southeast Asia from June 11–July 2, 2008.
Angkor refers to the hundreds of Buddhist and Hindu temples spread across a vast stretch of Cambodia. Angkor Wat refers, specifically, to the giant star of a temple that everyone has heard of—the largest religious monument ever built.
Under the leadership of a succession of kings for 200 years, Angkor was designed by the most brilliant philosophers, astrologers, architects and engineers who merged art and science to create monuments of vision, harmony, symmetry and balance, which incorporate solar orientation.
Special thanks to Vey Lav, who was my cultural guide during my first few days at Angkor; Mr. Savay, my ever-present tuk tuk driver; and Dave Perkes, photographer and owner of Peace of Angkor Villa, in Siem Reap, http://www.peaceofangkor.com/, who shared with me his guide to "Angkor Obscura."
Because the Angkor site is so vast, it would take months to visit all of the excavated temples (hundreds more have yet to be unlocked from the jungle overgrowth) and learn about them.
Of my nine days in Cambodia, I spent seven focused on scouting and shooting Angkor.
It was the beginning of monsoon season which, like anything, has its blessings and its shortcomings: fewer tourists, more dramatic light, more mosquitoes, more rain, lower rates for accommodations. Did I mention fewer tourists?
Next time, I'd like to visit at the end of monsoon season, when the pools are more full. This will yield more reflection options. That timing is September through December.
According to Dave, November offers the most beautiful light. (A magical month in that part of the world. The Himalaya is also supposed to have the best light in November.)
Be sure to pick up a detailed map of not only the main Angkor complex right around Angkor Wat, but of the smaller temples within the main complex and of major outlying sites like Banteay Srei, the Roluos Group, Kbal Spean and Beng Mealea.
The guidebook snapshots won't go into that level of detail but if you fall in love with the entire Angkor site, like I did, you'll be glad to know about all of the possibilities. The free "Siem Reap Angkor Visitors Guide Map Supplement" is a good place to start.
Hire a private tuk tuk driver, motorcycle or car (whatever suits your budget and physical comfort level).
My tuk tuk experience was really positive. Just be sure to always wear sunblock and sunglasses, plus use a handkerchief over your nose and mouth. They'll protect your face from the inevitable dirt, dust, insects and flying pebbles of open-air travel. (I learned the hard way.)
To have Angkor almost to yourself, start your days early, presunrise or at sunrise. The temples are a sanctuary at that time.
You'll have peace, quiet, and fewer people to shoot around before the group tour buses unload at 8 a.m. Once your surroundings are flooded with hundreds of point-and-shoot camera-wielding tourists wandering into your field of vision, composition after composition will slip away.
The jungle also starts to get unbearably hot around 8 or 9, so you'll be thankful for the relative coolness and more forgiving humidity of that early start.
At the Angkor entrance, you'll need to buy a 1-day, 3-day or 7-day pass. Angkor merits at least a 3-day visit but if you only allot 1 day, stick to the most spectacular, and yes, popular sites.
If you're doing some serious photography, give yourself seven days minimum. I could have stayed there for a month and can't wait until the year I return.
Once you get your entrance pass, hold onto it throughout your visit and keep it easily accessible. You'll need to flash it to the Angkor staff as often as your passport during overland border crossings and international flight check-ins.
Given these basic timing parameters, here are my recommendations for must-see temples.
1-day itinerary
Angkor Wat
Start with the star, Angkor Wat, a small city which took 37 years to build. Get there early in the morning, though for only one day, I don't recommend trying to catch sunrise unless you have a guide with you.
The temple is so huge, it's easy to get lost during your first, or even second, visit. Spend an hour or two exploring the hallways, rooms, shrines, staircases, levels, lookout points and adjacent sandstone libraries.
South Gate of Angkor Thom
While you still have some morning light, go to the South Gate of Angkor Thom. There, two rows of sculptures will line the entrance.
On clear days, the morning light illuminates these perfectly, and the river forms a perfect backdrop.
The Bayon
Go through the South Gate to the Bayon. Easily one of my favorite sites ever, hundreds of giant, serene portraits are carved into the multifarious pillars.
Close-ups of the portraits are world-famous. Equally dramatic are wider shots of the temple itself. Designed with wonderful symmetry, it's beautiful from all angles.
Take a walk around the temple through the surrounding forest and watch the light dappling through the bark onto the stone. It's a magical way to spend the morning.
Coconuuuuuut
By this point, you'll probably need a break. Be sure to drink plenty of water no matter the season. The jungle's going to take it out of you unless you're used to living in that environment.
Better than plain water is something with electrolytes, like Gatorade or Gu.
I ran out of my own stash early into the trip but found the juice of fresh green coconuts a more refreshing and natural supplement.
Local Cambodian merchants sell these at stalls throughout Angkor. For $1 USD, they'll wield a butcher knife with lightening precision and present you with a self-contained drinking vessel.
Place a napkin across the top opening to keep the bugs out.
I was up to four coconuts on some days, and I swear they saved me. It makes sense to have jungle juice replenish what the jungle air is taking out of you.
Lunch at Khmer Village Restaurant
For lunch, drive to the small Angkor village of Srass Srong. A handful of restaurants line the river.
Khmer Village restaurant was by far my favorite restaurant of my entire time in Cambodia. I ate lunch there almost every day and the English-speaking Cambodian kids were kind, smart, gracious and charming.
They accommodated my veganism, they remembered my special order (I always got the vegetarian noodle soup and also made up my own dish of stir-fried rice noodles, tofu, morning glories and lemongrass), and they never gave me food poisoning.
On my last day, they even gave me a present! Care like that made me feel whole again.
Khmer Village Restaurant
House No. 045 Group 3
Srass Srong Village
Telephone No.: 012 390 583
Open daily
Ta Prohm
Now that you're refreshed, go to nearby Ta Prohm. This is the most famous site of giant Sponge Tree roots growing around the temples. Otherworldly images.
Give yourself an hour to walk all of the way through the site. It truly feels like divine forces are at work.
Apparently, some of the scenes of "Tomb Raider" were filmed here. Several of the male Angkor guides waxed poetic about what it was like to see Angelina Jolie in person.
Phnom Bakheng
The highest point (altitude-wise) in all of Angkor, this is the most popular spot to watch sunset.
It's not a great place to shoot from because, at this high vantage point, the temples are so far away and tiny.
But it's an experience to climb the many ultrasteep staircases (a common Buddhist architectural feature throughout Angkor) and get a birds-eye view of the site.
Brace yourself for the crowds.
Dinner at Borey Sovann
You'll be staying in Siem Reap, the congested city hub for Angkor. Restaurants with varying quality abound.
Within Siem Reap proper, my favorite was Borey Sovann. I didn't grab the business card and address but it's a major restaurant situated on one of the few main streets.
The cuisine is authentically Cambodian but with its superbly trained English-speaking Cambodian staff and heavily decorated air conditioned dining, the management definitely caters to western tourists.
On the one hand, that didn't sit great with me but on the other, I ordered delicious vegan meals with ease and they, like the fine folks at Khmer Village, never gave me food poisoning.
This simple fact is worth gold when you're in a third-world country with limited infrastructure.
*************
3-day itinerary
Now that you've scouted your way around Angkor Wat, brave it in the dark to catch sunrise. Get there 30–45 minutes before sunrise and have your tuk tuk driver drop you off at the main parking lot before the causeway.
You're going to walk for a good 15 minutes up the long causeway and around either the left or right entrances around the temple. It'll be dark. Carry a flashlight or wear a headlamp. Be ready to show the guards your pass. Hope that a monsoon doesn't start.
Walk along the causeway until the five towers of Angkor Wat are visible in the early dawn. Actually, you'll probably only be able to see three from that vantage point but they're unmistakable.
In front of the temple to the left and right are reflection ponds. The left one is full most of the year and the right one is only full at the end of monsoon season.
Plant yourself in front of the left reflection pool and, if it's clear enough as the light starts to make its way through, you'll see a stunning graphic image of the Angkor towers reflected perfectly in the lily pond at your feet.
Heaven. I spent the better part of five mornings watching sunrise from that vantage point.
For the sixth, on the morning of the summer solstice, I walked around to the back of Angkor Wat to catch the sunrise light illuminating the temple. The compositions aren't as clean from the back; it's not as visually dramatic but if you have a lot of time, it's a lovely way to witness an alternate view.
Ta Som
After sunrise, walk through the forest to this small temple.
When you hit the dead end, turn around and look at the doorway in the tree you just walked through.
It is shrouded perfectly, almost unbelievably, by a spindly Ficus Tree that neatly frames the doorway.
Through this keyhole, you can see the forest for hundreds of feet. Provided you are there early enough, you can get a clear long-distance shot of the forest without people walking through your composition.
Preah Khan
In Buddhist architecture, the aesthetic goals of symmetry and balance permeate many of the temple designs.
One of the most beautiful effects is the infinite doorways which are seamlessly aligned so that you could look through 50 doorways in a row and see clear through from the first to the last.
Preah Khan, a less-visited neighbor of Ta Prohm, dramatically achieves this effect. And, because it receives fewer visitors, you have a greater chance of getting a long depth-of-field shot without people walking through.
In its thick jungle enclosure, Preah Khan also benefits from the Sponge Tree root growth that gives Ta Prohm so much of its otherworldly ambiance.
Take some time to walk around out back and visit the stone library. If you climb to the top of the adjacent stairs, you can get eye level with the roof.
Thommanon
The tiny, ornate Thommanon temple doesn't show up on overview maps. As such, it was one of the "obscure" temples that Dave recommended to me.
In the late afternoon, the early sunset light will hit the most beautiful side of this temple perfectly. Hardly anyone else will be there.
Pre Rup
After you've gotten your requisite Phnom Bakheng sunset out of the way, climb to the top of red lava rock Pre Rup in the late afternoon to watch the towers and pillars aflame and stick around to watch the sun set from the highest lookout platforms.
On a clear day after sunrise, the light will illuminate the front of the temple. Tough to get a clear overview shot without people milling around, though.
The adjacent East Mebon is, architecturally, an earlier and less impressive version of Pre Rup. The elephants in the corners are lovely, though.
*************
7-days or more
With this luxurious amount of time, you'll really feel Angkor become a part of you, rather than feeling like one of the thousands of tourists blasting your way through too many locations.
You don't want to see the temples so quickly that they become an indistinguishable blur of sandstone and carved bas reliefs.
Each one is unique and you'll definitely feel yourself more drawn to some than others.
Banteay Srei
Thirty seven km north of Siem Reap, Banteay Srei, or the Temple of Women, is a Hindu temple constructed of pink sandstone.
Of all of the temples in Angkor, this one has some of the most ornate details and intricate carvings.
The most beautiful times of day to visit this site are at sunset and sunrise. Sunrise would hit the opening gates perfectly. Most people can catch sunset here but on account of its more remote location, sunrise would be a bit tougher.
To be that early bird, you'd likely have to stay with a local family in the surrounding village.
The Roluos Group
Southeast of Siem Reap, the satellite site of the Roluos Group holds sentimental value for me.
It was here, while photographing sunset light on the Bakong Pyramid momument, that a little deaf girl joined me and gave me ring and flower that she'd made from grass. Together, we sat on a rock and watched the warm light show.
Circumambulate the pyramid and reach the back corner where the late afternoon light hits. If you position yourself just so, you can get an outline of the elephant statues silhouetted against the sky.
The small temple, Preah Ko, has nice brick details that would be lovely in the sunrise light.
Ta Keo and bridge
Another less-crowded neighbor of Ta Prohm is Ta Keo. It's a lovely, dramatic open-air temple that gets nice light in the late afternoon before sunset. The drama of the pillars and climb to the top reminded me of Pre Rup.
Adjacent to the bridge, a charming pair of trees with long, overgrowth roots surround some ancient keyhole-looking doorways.
This tiny, gorgeous spot is deep in forest cover and doesn't get much light so you'd need a tripod and long exposures to bring in enough ambient light. It's still a beautiful spot to walk through.
Neak Pean
Adjacent to Preah Kahn, this meditative spot would be even more beautiful at the end of the monsoon season when the intended pools are full. With animal sculptures anchoring north, south, east and west, this is a beautiful area to walk and enjoy some peace. Few tourists come here.
During my visit, I encountered older Cambodians who had come to meditate. Through the translations of my cultural guide, I learned that they were tickled by my presence and by my huge backpack. Even with Angkor's popularity, they weren't used to seeing tourists at their peaceful sanctuary. We smiled and waved to each other a lot.
Banteay Kdei
Adjacent to Ta Prohm, this crumbling temple exudes moody ambiance. Compared with its restored neighbors, it borders on feeling like a ghost town.
It is most beautiful in the morning after sunrise and in the late afternoon light.
Preah Palilay
This small Buddhist temple is surrounded by tall trees growing out of its foundations. A quiet, forested place with hardly any tourists, it is prettiest in the late afternoon.
Until next time
I would love to say that I visited and captured every spot on my wish list but seven days didn't come close to being enough time. Beng Mealea, Kbal Spean, Chau Srey Vibol, Banteay Prei, and Prasat Kravan are a few of the sites I've yet to see with my own eyes.
May your journeys, near and far, always fulfill your heart's desires.
Leah
Leah C. Lau
Photographer, Writer and Philanthropist
Silent Light Photography
http://www.leahlau.com/
As many of you guessed, Angkor, in Cambodia, was my favorite site during my three-week photography shooting expedition to Southeast Asia from June 11–July 2, 2008.
Angkor refers to the hundreds of Buddhist and Hindu temples spread across a vast stretch of Cambodia. Angkor Wat refers, specifically, to the giant star of a temple that everyone has heard of—the largest religious monument ever built.
Under the leadership of a succession of kings for 200 years, Angkor was designed by the most brilliant philosophers, astrologers, architects and engineers who merged art and science to create monuments of vision, harmony, symmetry and balance, which incorporate solar orientation.
Special thanks to Vey Lav, who was my cultural guide during my first few days at Angkor; Mr. Savay, my ever-present tuk tuk driver; and Dave Perkes, photographer and owner of Peace of Angkor Villa, in Siem Reap, http://www.peaceofangkor.com/, who shared with me his guide to "Angkor Obscura."
Because the Angkor site is so vast, it would take months to visit all of the excavated temples (hundreds more have yet to be unlocked from the jungle overgrowth) and learn about them.
Of my nine days in Cambodia, I spent seven focused on scouting and shooting Angkor.
It was the beginning of monsoon season which, like anything, has its blessings and its shortcomings: fewer tourists, more dramatic light, more mosquitoes, more rain, lower rates for accommodations. Did I mention fewer tourists?
Next time, I'd like to visit at the end of monsoon season, when the pools are more full. This will yield more reflection options. That timing is September through December.
According to Dave, November offers the most beautiful light. (A magical month in that part of the world. The Himalaya is also supposed to have the best light in November.)
Be sure to pick up a detailed map of not only the main Angkor complex right around Angkor Wat, but of the smaller temples within the main complex and of major outlying sites like Banteay Srei, the Roluos Group, Kbal Spean and Beng Mealea.
The guidebook snapshots won't go into that level of detail but if you fall in love with the entire Angkor site, like I did, you'll be glad to know about all of the possibilities. The free "Siem Reap Angkor Visitors Guide Map Supplement" is a good place to start.
Hire a private tuk tuk driver, motorcycle or car (whatever suits your budget and physical comfort level).
My tuk tuk experience was really positive. Just be sure to always wear sunblock and sunglasses, plus use a handkerchief over your nose and mouth. They'll protect your face from the inevitable dirt, dust, insects and flying pebbles of open-air travel. (I learned the hard way.)
To have Angkor almost to yourself, start your days early, presunrise or at sunrise. The temples are a sanctuary at that time.
You'll have peace, quiet, and fewer people to shoot around before the group tour buses unload at 8 a.m. Once your surroundings are flooded with hundreds of point-and-shoot camera-wielding tourists wandering into your field of vision, composition after composition will slip away.
The jungle also starts to get unbearably hot around 8 or 9, so you'll be thankful for the relative coolness and more forgiving humidity of that early start.
At the Angkor entrance, you'll need to buy a 1-day, 3-day or 7-day pass. Angkor merits at least a 3-day visit but if you only allot 1 day, stick to the most spectacular, and yes, popular sites.
If you're doing some serious photography, give yourself seven days minimum. I could have stayed there for a month and can't wait until the year I return.
Once you get your entrance pass, hold onto it throughout your visit and keep it easily accessible. You'll need to flash it to the Angkor staff as often as your passport during overland border crossings and international flight check-ins.
Given these basic timing parameters, here are my recommendations for must-see temples.
1-day itinerary
Angkor Wat
Start with the star, Angkor Wat, a small city which took 37 years to build. Get there early in the morning, though for only one day, I don't recommend trying to catch sunrise unless you have a guide with you.
The temple is so huge, it's easy to get lost during your first, or even second, visit. Spend an hour or two exploring the hallways, rooms, shrines, staircases, levels, lookout points and adjacent sandstone libraries.
South Gate of Angkor Thom
While you still have some morning light, go to the South Gate of Angkor Thom. There, two rows of sculptures will line the entrance.
On clear days, the morning light illuminates these perfectly, and the river forms a perfect backdrop.
The Bayon
Go through the South Gate to the Bayon. Easily one of my favorite sites ever, hundreds of giant, serene portraits are carved into the multifarious pillars.
Close-ups of the portraits are world-famous. Equally dramatic are wider shots of the temple itself. Designed with wonderful symmetry, it's beautiful from all angles.
Take a walk around the temple through the surrounding forest and watch the light dappling through the bark onto the stone. It's a magical way to spend the morning.
Coconuuuuuut
By this point, you'll probably need a break. Be sure to drink plenty of water no matter the season. The jungle's going to take it out of you unless you're used to living in that environment.
Better than plain water is something with electrolytes, like Gatorade or Gu.
I ran out of my own stash early into the trip but found the juice of fresh green coconuts a more refreshing and natural supplement.
Local Cambodian merchants sell these at stalls throughout Angkor. For $1 USD, they'll wield a butcher knife with lightening precision and present you with a self-contained drinking vessel.
Place a napkin across the top opening to keep the bugs out.
I was up to four coconuts on some days, and I swear they saved me. It makes sense to have jungle juice replenish what the jungle air is taking out of you.
Lunch at Khmer Village Restaurant
For lunch, drive to the small Angkor village of Srass Srong. A handful of restaurants line the river.
Khmer Village restaurant was by far my favorite restaurant of my entire time in Cambodia. I ate lunch there almost every day and the English-speaking Cambodian kids were kind, smart, gracious and charming.
They accommodated my veganism, they remembered my special order (I always got the vegetarian noodle soup and also made up my own dish of stir-fried rice noodles, tofu, morning glories and lemongrass), and they never gave me food poisoning.
On my last day, they even gave me a present! Care like that made me feel whole again.
Khmer Village Restaurant
House No. 045 Group 3
Srass Srong Village
Telephone No.: 012 390 583
Open daily
Ta Prohm
Now that you're refreshed, go to nearby Ta Prohm. This is the most famous site of giant Sponge Tree roots growing around the temples. Otherworldly images.
Give yourself an hour to walk all of the way through the site. It truly feels like divine forces are at work.
Apparently, some of the scenes of "Tomb Raider" were filmed here. Several of the male Angkor guides waxed poetic about what it was like to see Angelina Jolie in person.
Phnom Bakheng
The highest point (altitude-wise) in all of Angkor, this is the most popular spot to watch sunset.
It's not a great place to shoot from because, at this high vantage point, the temples are so far away and tiny.
But it's an experience to climb the many ultrasteep staircases (a common Buddhist architectural feature throughout Angkor) and get a birds-eye view of the site.
Brace yourself for the crowds.
Dinner at Borey Sovann
You'll be staying in Siem Reap, the congested city hub for Angkor. Restaurants with varying quality abound.
Within Siem Reap proper, my favorite was Borey Sovann. I didn't grab the business card and address but it's a major restaurant situated on one of the few main streets.
The cuisine is authentically Cambodian but with its superbly trained English-speaking Cambodian staff and heavily decorated air conditioned dining, the management definitely caters to western tourists.
On the one hand, that didn't sit great with me but on the other, I ordered delicious vegan meals with ease and they, like the fine folks at Khmer Village, never gave me food poisoning.
This simple fact is worth gold when you're in a third-world country with limited infrastructure.
*************
3-day itinerary
Now that you've scouted your way around Angkor Wat, brave it in the dark to catch sunrise. Get there 30–45 minutes before sunrise and have your tuk tuk driver drop you off at the main parking lot before the causeway.
You're going to walk for a good 15 minutes up the long causeway and around either the left or right entrances around the temple. It'll be dark. Carry a flashlight or wear a headlamp. Be ready to show the guards your pass. Hope that a monsoon doesn't start.
Walk along the causeway until the five towers of Angkor Wat are visible in the early dawn. Actually, you'll probably only be able to see three from that vantage point but they're unmistakable.
In front of the temple to the left and right are reflection ponds. The left one is full most of the year and the right one is only full at the end of monsoon season.
Plant yourself in front of the left reflection pool and, if it's clear enough as the light starts to make its way through, you'll see a stunning graphic image of the Angkor towers reflected perfectly in the lily pond at your feet.
Heaven. I spent the better part of five mornings watching sunrise from that vantage point.
For the sixth, on the morning of the summer solstice, I walked around to the back of Angkor Wat to catch the sunrise light illuminating the temple. The compositions aren't as clean from the back; it's not as visually dramatic but if you have a lot of time, it's a lovely way to witness an alternate view.
Ta Som
After sunrise, walk through the forest to this small temple.
When you hit the dead end, turn around and look at the doorway in the tree you just walked through.
It is shrouded perfectly, almost unbelievably, by a spindly Ficus Tree that neatly frames the doorway.
Through this keyhole, you can see the forest for hundreds of feet. Provided you are there early enough, you can get a clear long-distance shot of the forest without people walking through your composition.
Preah Khan
In Buddhist architecture, the aesthetic goals of symmetry and balance permeate many of the temple designs.
One of the most beautiful effects is the infinite doorways which are seamlessly aligned so that you could look through 50 doorways in a row and see clear through from the first to the last.
Preah Khan, a less-visited neighbor of Ta Prohm, dramatically achieves this effect. And, because it receives fewer visitors, you have a greater chance of getting a long depth-of-field shot without people walking through.
In its thick jungle enclosure, Preah Khan also benefits from the Sponge Tree root growth that gives Ta Prohm so much of its otherworldly ambiance.
Take some time to walk around out back and visit the stone library. If you climb to the top of the adjacent stairs, you can get eye level with the roof.
Thommanon
The tiny, ornate Thommanon temple doesn't show up on overview maps. As such, it was one of the "obscure" temples that Dave recommended to me.
In the late afternoon, the early sunset light will hit the most beautiful side of this temple perfectly. Hardly anyone else will be there.
Pre Rup
After you've gotten your requisite Phnom Bakheng sunset out of the way, climb to the top of red lava rock Pre Rup in the late afternoon to watch the towers and pillars aflame and stick around to watch the sun set from the highest lookout platforms.
On a clear day after sunrise, the light will illuminate the front of the temple. Tough to get a clear overview shot without people milling around, though.
The adjacent East Mebon is, architecturally, an earlier and less impressive version of Pre Rup. The elephants in the corners are lovely, though.
*************
7-days or more
With this luxurious amount of time, you'll really feel Angkor become a part of you, rather than feeling like one of the thousands of tourists blasting your way through too many locations.
You don't want to see the temples so quickly that they become an indistinguishable blur of sandstone and carved bas reliefs.
Each one is unique and you'll definitely feel yourself more drawn to some than others.
Banteay Srei
Thirty seven km north of Siem Reap, Banteay Srei, or the Temple of Women, is a Hindu temple constructed of pink sandstone.
Of all of the temples in Angkor, this one has some of the most ornate details and intricate carvings.
The most beautiful times of day to visit this site are at sunset and sunrise. Sunrise would hit the opening gates perfectly. Most people can catch sunset here but on account of its more remote location, sunrise would be a bit tougher.
To be that early bird, you'd likely have to stay with a local family in the surrounding village.
The Roluos Group
Southeast of Siem Reap, the satellite site of the Roluos Group holds sentimental value for me.
It was here, while photographing sunset light on the Bakong Pyramid momument, that a little deaf girl joined me and gave me ring and flower that she'd made from grass. Together, we sat on a rock and watched the warm light show.
Circumambulate the pyramid and reach the back corner where the late afternoon light hits. If you position yourself just so, you can get an outline of the elephant statues silhouetted against the sky.
The small temple, Preah Ko, has nice brick details that would be lovely in the sunrise light.
Ta Keo and bridge
Another less-crowded neighbor of Ta Prohm is Ta Keo. It's a lovely, dramatic open-air temple that gets nice light in the late afternoon before sunset. The drama of the pillars and climb to the top reminded me of Pre Rup.
Adjacent to the bridge, a charming pair of trees with long, overgrowth roots surround some ancient keyhole-looking doorways.
This tiny, gorgeous spot is deep in forest cover and doesn't get much light so you'd need a tripod and long exposures to bring in enough ambient light. It's still a beautiful spot to walk through.
Neak Pean
Adjacent to Preah Kahn, this meditative spot would be even more beautiful at the end of the monsoon season when the intended pools are full. With animal sculptures anchoring north, south, east and west, this is a beautiful area to walk and enjoy some peace. Few tourists come here.
During my visit, I encountered older Cambodians who had come to meditate. Through the translations of my cultural guide, I learned that they were tickled by my presence and by my huge backpack. Even with Angkor's popularity, they weren't used to seeing tourists at their peaceful sanctuary. We smiled and waved to each other a lot.
Banteay Kdei
Adjacent to Ta Prohm, this crumbling temple exudes moody ambiance. Compared with its restored neighbors, it borders on feeling like a ghost town.
It is most beautiful in the morning after sunrise and in the late afternoon light.
Preah Palilay
This small Buddhist temple is surrounded by tall trees growing out of its foundations. A quiet, forested place with hardly any tourists, it is prettiest in the late afternoon.
Until next time
I would love to say that I visited and captured every spot on my wish list but seven days didn't come close to being enough time. Beng Mealea, Kbal Spean, Chau Srey Vibol, Banteay Prei, and Prasat Kravan are a few of the sites I've yet to see with my own eyes.
May your journeys, near and far, always fulfill your heart's desires.
Leah
Leah C. Lau
Photographer, Writer and Philanthropist
Silent Light Photography
http://www.leahlau.com/
Thursday, July 3, 2008
Buddha Nature in the Thai Jungle
Letter home about Thailand on July 3, 2008
Dear family and friends,
Three weeks, three countries, three cultures. A journey that ends not with a bang or a whimper but a monsoon and a kiss.
I'm writing from my soft, warm bed in San Francisco.
I took one of the hottest showers of my life, luxuriating in the ability to crank up the heat and feel something other than a trickle of cold water.
I enjoyed my first uninterrupted night of sleep in weeks because no mosquitoes were buzzing around my ears. (Not buying a mosquito net before I left was probably my biggest travel mistake. By the time I got to Southeast Asia, I couldn't find one, in spite of several wild goose chases around the markets.)
When my friend, Sujata Mody, picked me up from SFO and I saw her familiar, welcoming face, my relief was palpable: I was actually home.
I would have written this final e-mail from Bangkok but the Internet connection at my guesthouse was infuriatingly slow (in 30 minutes, I was only able to read two e-mails and send one) and then a monsoon started and lasted most of the evening while I was hand-scrawling these travel notes until I keeled over from exhaustion.
*************
The ancient capital
My final photo shoot was at Sukhothai, one of the ancient Thai capitals, and her sister site, Si Satchanalai.
For most of my journey throughout Cambodia, Thailand and Laos, I'd been visiting temples.
No other temples can compare to Angkor, so what was special for me about Sukhothai and Si Satchanalai were the colossal Buddhas.
Following my Angkor model, I hired a private tuk tuk driver for the two days that I was shooting. The sweet little garden guesthouse where I stayed in New Sukhothai City, Ban Thai, referred me to Mr. Vinay.
(For future trips, I would stay in the Old City. Guesthouses there are across the street from Sukhothai Historical Park. I was concerned that the tiny Old City wouldn't have enough resources but it had plenty, and a lot more ambiance than the New City.)
White-knuckle tuk tuk ride
At 5:30 a.m., when Mr. Vinay pulled up, I was baffled by the layout of the tuk tuk.
In Cambodia, the motorcycle and driver were in front and the open-air passenger seats were in back.
This northern Thailand tuk tuk was rear-wheel drive with the motorcycle in the back.
Horrified, I did the math: I would be facing the open road with literally no barrier in front of me.
Envision the back of a pick-up truck with no tailgate. Now flip it around so that's the front of the vehicle.
No seatbelts, no windshield. Nothing between you and freedom ... or imminent disaster.
The first time we got on the highway, I was clutching the sides of my seat bench so hard that my forearms strained. I was convinced this was the end of my life and I had done this to myself.
My only regret was that all of my exposed film was back in my bungalow at Ban Thai and, having left no specific instructions with the staff there, what were the odds that it would get shipped back to the United States so that someone could develop it?
The drive from the main Sukhothai Historical Park site to the more remote and, hence, less-visited Si Satchanalai is approximately 70 km along a paved road through the jungle.
Banana trees, coconut trees and glorious tropical flowers lined the route, creating a verdant jungle landscape as far as the eye could see.
Monsoons consumed most of the days but during the breaks, the sky was a giant puff of white clouds and blue sky reminiscent of ancient Greek paintings.
A few minutes into the ride—and a lot of soul searching later—I started to enjoy myself.
The open-air vantage point of riding in a tuk tuk like this is pure freedom.
I had committed to two days of shooting at Sukhothai and Si Satchanalai. I wasn't going to ride a bicycle between these long distances, I'm too clumsy to ride a motorcycle, and renting a car was cost prohibitive for me, so rear-wheel drive tuk tuk it was.
Colossal Buddhas
Within Sukhothai, my favorite giant Buddhas were the colossal seated Buddha at Wat Si Chum which appears through a keyhole; Wat Sa Si, which is surrounded by pillars and a moat; and Wat Saphan Hin, which requires a short hike up a rough stone path to a hilltop view.
Mr. Vinay's English was limited and my Thai nonexistent (I found it harder to pick up than my bits of Cambodian and Lao), so we worked through ideas with a lot of sign language and laughter. He was good natured and knew the sites to perfection.
Understanding that I'm a photographer, he was mindful of lighting conditions even though it was almost impossible for me to explain those concepts to him verbally given our language restraints.
While in Cambodia, I had worked with a separate tuk tuk driver and a cultural guide. In Thailand, Mr. Vinay helped me perfectly as a hybrid of both skill sets.
During the first sunrise, we visited Wat Si Chum, and I was absolutely enthralled by the serene colossal Buddha seated in the calling the earth to witness pose (signifying the Buddha's enlightenment), with its giant right hand reaching toward the ground.
The fluid, boneless, Sukhothai style of Buddhas is my favorite. I halfheartedly took some shots but the light was very gray and flat so I told Mr. Vinay how much I loved the site but that we'd have to try again another time when the light was better.
Next, he drove me to Wat Saphan Hin, and we laughed as we hiked up the stone path while most of the city was still asleep (except for the monks in their orange robes making the alms circuit).
It was around 6, and the heavy cloud cover opened up just enough to let some soft gold sunrise light through.
By then, I was positioned on the hillside looking up at a giant standing Buddha with a hand positioned facing out and forming a dramatic contrast against the sky.
I only had a few minutes of good light before the sky closed up again but I told Mr. Vinay that because of that good few minutes, the trip was already a success.
He could tell from my expression and by my pointing out what I loved about the scene what I was after.
That set the stage for our two days working together.
I scouted all of Sukhothai Historical Park pretty quickly and, on account of the rainy weather, only stopped to shoot a little.
By the afternoon, I asked Mr. Vinay what more I could see there and he communicated that I had seen it all, so I asked him about Si Satchanalai.
He was willing to drive there and knew the sites there very well, but he said it was a long drive and that we should wait until the next day.
It was around 2 p.m., and I calculated that we still had a good four hours of light l left. It was about an hour's drive to get there.
For several minutes, we bantered back and forth about going that afternoon or waiting until the next day.
Sensing an end game, I pulled out my pocket calendar and pointed to the current day, June 29. Next, I pointed to June 30 and said that was my last day at Sukhothai. Then I pointed to July 1 and said I was taking a bus to Bangkok.
Finally, I pointed to late at night on July 1 heading into July 2 and said "airport, fly to America" and gesticulated the signs for the flight by laying my left hand out flat, running my right hand across my left palm, and making the motion of the plane taking off into the air.
He understood my urgency and, in spite of his being tired, laughed at my determination and gave me a big smile and nod.
We were off to scout Si Satchanalai.
Echoes of Angkor
The temples at Si Satchanalai were larger than those at Sukhothai, more untouched and in better condition. Hardly anyone else was around.
I felt twinges of Angkor because the temples were grander and had more echoes of the Khmer architecture. Actually, the Khmers did build the oldest structures at Sukhothai and Si Satchanalai.
During the height of Angkor power, the Khmers controlled much of present-day Thailand, though they overextended their reach so that didn't last for long.
Since I left Angkor, I've missed it, so it was nice to feel a bit of its presence right before I left Southeast Asia.
Just before sunset, Mr. Vinay drove me to an offsite section of Si Satchanalai, called Wat Phra Si Rattanamahatath Chaliang.
There, I visited three of the most beautiful giant Buddhas I saw throughout my entire trip.
One platform pilgrimage site was a double Buddha image with a larger one seated protectively behind a smaller one. Adjacent to these was a powerful colossal Buddha looking up at the sky and encased between two tall pillars.
I loved the double Buddha platform but the sunset light was directly behind them and the light was very flat. I knew that sunrise would be perfect, much to my delight and Mr. Vinay's chagrin.
When I pointed this out to him, he gave me a look as though he knew that was coming. He belly laughed so hard I thought he was going to cry but he smiled and nodded that yes, he would drive me back here at sunrise.
When we left at 5:30 a.m. on my last shooting expedition day, another monsoon started.
While I was being pelted with rain throughout the hour-long tuk tuk drive back out to Si Satchanalai, I wondered many times what I was doing.
Was the monsoon going to last 20 minutes or three hours? Was I dragging myself and poor Mr. Vinay to this remote site in vain?
What was I doing risking my life again on this totally dangerous tuk tuk through the jungle of Thailand?
By the time we got to Si Satchanalai and drove directly to the double giant Buddhas, the monsoon had finished.
I hiked through the temple clearing and started to set up my tripod and get into position to capture the hints of sunrise light on the Buddhas, both in the calling the earth to witness pose.
No one else was around. I looked at my favorite Buddhas and the sweet offerings of food and water that worshippers had left in front of them.
I watched the sky. You have to trust the sky—it will tell you everything you need to know.
Waiting in silence, I watched the sun start to break through the clouds.
In the stillness, with no one else around, I reflected on my trip, and all of the events, good and bad, that had brought me to this remote spot in Thailand at this particular moment in my life.
I reflected on how lucky I was to be alive and to have experienced everything that I had throughout my trip. I was thankful for the good things in my life and mindful that the bad things are temporary.
And then I was rewarded as gold sunrise light broke through and cast soft, even light on the Buddhas from 6:30 to 8:30. I celebrated this bit of good luck but knew that I had so much more to be grateful for than good photography shooting light.
Mindful of the time and weather (another monsoon was starting), we headed back to the main Sukhothai Historical Park so that we'd be close to town and resources. I asked Mr. Vinay to drive me by Wat Si Chum for the fourth time.
Each visit, I made a little pilgrimage but the light was never more than a dull gray. Mr. Vinay apologized for this and said that he wished that the light was better for me these past two days.
I told him that the sites were beautiful and I enjoyed my visit in spite of the monsoons and gray light.
I thanked him for his knowledge of the sites and for his understanding what types of temples I loved the most. I told him that I couldn't have seen and learned what I did without his knowledge.
Cultural exchanges
My cultural exchanges throughout the trip consisted of baffling incidents in addition to the more clear ones.
During that last Wat Si Chum visit, I ran into a Thai film crew shooting some footage of the colossal Buddha.
A monsoon was under way so I visited the site one last time under the cover of a borrowed umbrella, and the crew didn't shoot for a long time. It consisted of a lead videographer, a camera assistant or two, and a woman with notepads who appeared to be a producer of some sort.
They looked at me in my bandanna and giant backpack and spoke amongst themselves in Thai.
The men left to return to their crew van with Thai signage on the panels but the woman stayed on to speak to me in limited English.
After explaining that they were filming a cultural documentary on Thailand's history, she asked what I was doing in Thailand.
I pointed to my backpack, said it contained some big cameras and that I was a photographer. Then the clarity fell apart when she tried to ask me about my work and I tried to explain it.
Two-thirds into my trip, I had run out of business cards so had resorted to handwriting my Web site information on little scraps of paper. I handed her one and pointed to my Web site URL but it's hardly as self-explanatory an experience as seeing one of my business cards emblazoned with the mini photo of Patagonia.
After some more broken conversation in the rain, she went into the film crew's van and I went back to my tuk tuk to finish waiting out the monsoon (this one lasted a couple of hours and it's no use driving in rain like that).
After a few minutes, she appeared at my tuk tuk and asked me to come with her. Baffled, I asked her why.
Hamstrung by the language barrier, she couldn't answer why, exactly, but kept saying that I should get all of my things together and go with them—that they wanted me to join them.
I explained to her that I was leaving soon to return to America and that I wasn't sure that I could help them at all. Were they looking for another photography expert?
I really had no idea, and with the language barrier, I couldn't ascertain their interest in me. She repeated her request for several minutes but without a clear sense of why they were asking me to join them, I didn't feel right about getting in a van with a bunch of strangers right before I was due to leave the country!
*************
Oh, and as for that kiss? My flight home departed Bangkok at 6 a.m., so I had to leave my guesthouse at 3 a.m. While making my way through the dark lobby, I almost crashed into two discombobulated Frenchmen who asked what on earth I was doing up at that hour. While pointing to my expedition duffle, I said that I was going to the airport.
I asked what they were doing and they communicated in limited English that they'd made a mistake about something, where they were supposed to be or when they were supposed to be somewhere.
Unsure of their circumstances, I tried to clarify, "You had the wrong date?" And Frenchman No. 1 replied, "No, he's not my date." They disappeared down an alley. I shrugged and figured we just weren't meant to understand each other.
Then Frenchman No. 2 reappeared and asked me, "Can I give you a kiss?" In response to my deer-in-headlights look, he went on, "I love to kiss beautiful girls."
Who can resist a French accent in the middle of the night? I pointed to my cheek and then hailed a cab to the airport.
*************
My Asia travels complete for now, I've turned my globe at home to my remaining two continents: Africa and Australasia. Namibia and the South Island of New Zealand beckon.
Be brave, be adventurous and be honest. I will do the same.
Love,
Leah
Leah C. Lau
Photographer, Writer and Philanthropist
Silent Light Photography
www.leahlau.com
Dear family and friends,
Three weeks, three countries, three cultures. A journey that ends not with a bang or a whimper but a monsoon and a kiss.
I'm writing from my soft, warm bed in San Francisco.
I took one of the hottest showers of my life, luxuriating in the ability to crank up the heat and feel something other than a trickle of cold water.
I enjoyed my first uninterrupted night of sleep in weeks because no mosquitoes were buzzing around my ears. (Not buying a mosquito net before I left was probably my biggest travel mistake. By the time I got to Southeast Asia, I couldn't find one, in spite of several wild goose chases around the markets.)
When my friend, Sujata Mody, picked me up from SFO and I saw her familiar, welcoming face, my relief was palpable: I was actually home.
I would have written this final e-mail from Bangkok but the Internet connection at my guesthouse was infuriatingly slow (in 30 minutes, I was only able to read two e-mails and send one) and then a monsoon started and lasted most of the evening while I was hand-scrawling these travel notes until I keeled over from exhaustion.
*************
The ancient capital
My final photo shoot was at Sukhothai, one of the ancient Thai capitals, and her sister site, Si Satchanalai.
For most of my journey throughout Cambodia, Thailand and Laos, I'd been visiting temples.
No other temples can compare to Angkor, so what was special for me about Sukhothai and Si Satchanalai were the colossal Buddhas.
Following my Angkor model, I hired a private tuk tuk driver for the two days that I was shooting. The sweet little garden guesthouse where I stayed in New Sukhothai City, Ban Thai, referred me to Mr. Vinay.
(For future trips, I would stay in the Old City. Guesthouses there are across the street from Sukhothai Historical Park. I was concerned that the tiny Old City wouldn't have enough resources but it had plenty, and a lot more ambiance than the New City.)
White-knuckle tuk tuk ride
At 5:30 a.m., when Mr. Vinay pulled up, I was baffled by the layout of the tuk tuk.
In Cambodia, the motorcycle and driver were in front and the open-air passenger seats were in back.
This northern Thailand tuk tuk was rear-wheel drive with the motorcycle in the back.
Horrified, I did the math: I would be facing the open road with literally no barrier in front of me.
Envision the back of a pick-up truck with no tailgate. Now flip it around so that's the front of the vehicle.
No seatbelts, no windshield. Nothing between you and freedom ... or imminent disaster.
The first time we got on the highway, I was clutching the sides of my seat bench so hard that my forearms strained. I was convinced this was the end of my life and I had done this to myself.
My only regret was that all of my exposed film was back in my bungalow at Ban Thai and, having left no specific instructions with the staff there, what were the odds that it would get shipped back to the United States so that someone could develop it?
The drive from the main Sukhothai Historical Park site to the more remote and, hence, less-visited Si Satchanalai is approximately 70 km along a paved road through the jungle.
Banana trees, coconut trees and glorious tropical flowers lined the route, creating a verdant jungle landscape as far as the eye could see.
Monsoons consumed most of the days but during the breaks, the sky was a giant puff of white clouds and blue sky reminiscent of ancient Greek paintings.
A few minutes into the ride—and a lot of soul searching later—I started to enjoy myself.
The open-air vantage point of riding in a tuk tuk like this is pure freedom.
I had committed to two days of shooting at Sukhothai and Si Satchanalai. I wasn't going to ride a bicycle between these long distances, I'm too clumsy to ride a motorcycle, and renting a car was cost prohibitive for me, so rear-wheel drive tuk tuk it was.
Colossal Buddhas
Within Sukhothai, my favorite giant Buddhas were the colossal seated Buddha at Wat Si Chum which appears through a keyhole; Wat Sa Si, which is surrounded by pillars and a moat; and Wat Saphan Hin, which requires a short hike up a rough stone path to a hilltop view.
Mr. Vinay's English was limited and my Thai nonexistent (I found it harder to pick up than my bits of Cambodian and Lao), so we worked through ideas with a lot of sign language and laughter. He was good natured and knew the sites to perfection.
Understanding that I'm a photographer, he was mindful of lighting conditions even though it was almost impossible for me to explain those concepts to him verbally given our language restraints.
While in Cambodia, I had worked with a separate tuk tuk driver and a cultural guide. In Thailand, Mr. Vinay helped me perfectly as a hybrid of both skill sets.
During the first sunrise, we visited Wat Si Chum, and I was absolutely enthralled by the serene colossal Buddha seated in the calling the earth to witness pose (signifying the Buddha's enlightenment), with its giant right hand reaching toward the ground.
The fluid, boneless, Sukhothai style of Buddhas is my favorite. I halfheartedly took some shots but the light was very gray and flat so I told Mr. Vinay how much I loved the site but that we'd have to try again another time when the light was better.
Next, he drove me to Wat Saphan Hin, and we laughed as we hiked up the stone path while most of the city was still asleep (except for the monks in their orange robes making the alms circuit).
It was around 6, and the heavy cloud cover opened up just enough to let some soft gold sunrise light through.
By then, I was positioned on the hillside looking up at a giant standing Buddha with a hand positioned facing out and forming a dramatic contrast against the sky.
I only had a few minutes of good light before the sky closed up again but I told Mr. Vinay that because of that good few minutes, the trip was already a success.
He could tell from my expression and by my pointing out what I loved about the scene what I was after.
That set the stage for our two days working together.
I scouted all of Sukhothai Historical Park pretty quickly and, on account of the rainy weather, only stopped to shoot a little.
By the afternoon, I asked Mr. Vinay what more I could see there and he communicated that I had seen it all, so I asked him about Si Satchanalai.
He was willing to drive there and knew the sites there very well, but he said it was a long drive and that we should wait until the next day.
It was around 2 p.m., and I calculated that we still had a good four hours of light l left. It was about an hour's drive to get there.
For several minutes, we bantered back and forth about going that afternoon or waiting until the next day.
Sensing an end game, I pulled out my pocket calendar and pointed to the current day, June 29. Next, I pointed to June 30 and said that was my last day at Sukhothai. Then I pointed to July 1 and said I was taking a bus to Bangkok.
Finally, I pointed to late at night on July 1 heading into July 2 and said "airport, fly to America" and gesticulated the signs for the flight by laying my left hand out flat, running my right hand across my left palm, and making the motion of the plane taking off into the air.
He understood my urgency and, in spite of his being tired, laughed at my determination and gave me a big smile and nod.
We were off to scout Si Satchanalai.
Echoes of Angkor
The temples at Si Satchanalai were larger than those at Sukhothai, more untouched and in better condition. Hardly anyone else was around.
I felt twinges of Angkor because the temples were grander and had more echoes of the Khmer architecture. Actually, the Khmers did build the oldest structures at Sukhothai and Si Satchanalai.
During the height of Angkor power, the Khmers controlled much of present-day Thailand, though they overextended their reach so that didn't last for long.
Since I left Angkor, I've missed it, so it was nice to feel a bit of its presence right before I left Southeast Asia.
Just before sunset, Mr. Vinay drove me to an offsite section of Si Satchanalai, called Wat Phra Si Rattanamahatath Chaliang.
There, I visited three of the most beautiful giant Buddhas I saw throughout my entire trip.
One platform pilgrimage site was a double Buddha image with a larger one seated protectively behind a smaller one. Adjacent to these was a powerful colossal Buddha looking up at the sky and encased between two tall pillars.
I loved the double Buddha platform but the sunset light was directly behind them and the light was very flat. I knew that sunrise would be perfect, much to my delight and Mr. Vinay's chagrin.
When I pointed this out to him, he gave me a look as though he knew that was coming. He belly laughed so hard I thought he was going to cry but he smiled and nodded that yes, he would drive me back here at sunrise.
When we left at 5:30 a.m. on my last shooting expedition day, another monsoon started.
While I was being pelted with rain throughout the hour-long tuk tuk drive back out to Si Satchanalai, I wondered many times what I was doing.
Was the monsoon going to last 20 minutes or three hours? Was I dragging myself and poor Mr. Vinay to this remote site in vain?
What was I doing risking my life again on this totally dangerous tuk tuk through the jungle of Thailand?
By the time we got to Si Satchanalai and drove directly to the double giant Buddhas, the monsoon had finished.
I hiked through the temple clearing and started to set up my tripod and get into position to capture the hints of sunrise light on the Buddhas, both in the calling the earth to witness pose.
No one else was around. I looked at my favorite Buddhas and the sweet offerings of food and water that worshippers had left in front of them.
I watched the sky. You have to trust the sky—it will tell you everything you need to know.
Waiting in silence, I watched the sun start to break through the clouds.
In the stillness, with no one else around, I reflected on my trip, and all of the events, good and bad, that had brought me to this remote spot in Thailand at this particular moment in my life.
I reflected on how lucky I was to be alive and to have experienced everything that I had throughout my trip. I was thankful for the good things in my life and mindful that the bad things are temporary.
And then I was rewarded as gold sunrise light broke through and cast soft, even light on the Buddhas from 6:30 to 8:30. I celebrated this bit of good luck but knew that I had so much more to be grateful for than good photography shooting light.
Mindful of the time and weather (another monsoon was starting), we headed back to the main Sukhothai Historical Park so that we'd be close to town and resources. I asked Mr. Vinay to drive me by Wat Si Chum for the fourth time.
Each visit, I made a little pilgrimage but the light was never more than a dull gray. Mr. Vinay apologized for this and said that he wished that the light was better for me these past two days.
I told him that the sites were beautiful and I enjoyed my visit in spite of the monsoons and gray light.
I thanked him for his knowledge of the sites and for his understanding what types of temples I loved the most. I told him that I couldn't have seen and learned what I did without his knowledge.
Cultural exchanges
My cultural exchanges throughout the trip consisted of baffling incidents in addition to the more clear ones.
During that last Wat Si Chum visit, I ran into a Thai film crew shooting some footage of the colossal Buddha.
A monsoon was under way so I visited the site one last time under the cover of a borrowed umbrella, and the crew didn't shoot for a long time. It consisted of a lead videographer, a camera assistant or two, and a woman with notepads who appeared to be a producer of some sort.
They looked at me in my bandanna and giant backpack and spoke amongst themselves in Thai.
The men left to return to their crew van with Thai signage on the panels but the woman stayed on to speak to me in limited English.
After explaining that they were filming a cultural documentary on Thailand's history, she asked what I was doing in Thailand.
I pointed to my backpack, said it contained some big cameras and that I was a photographer. Then the clarity fell apart when she tried to ask me about my work and I tried to explain it.
Two-thirds into my trip, I had run out of business cards so had resorted to handwriting my Web site information on little scraps of paper. I handed her one and pointed to my Web site URL but it's hardly as self-explanatory an experience as seeing one of my business cards emblazoned with the mini photo of Patagonia.
After some more broken conversation in the rain, she went into the film crew's van and I went back to my tuk tuk to finish waiting out the monsoon (this one lasted a couple of hours and it's no use driving in rain like that).
After a few minutes, she appeared at my tuk tuk and asked me to come with her. Baffled, I asked her why.
Hamstrung by the language barrier, she couldn't answer why, exactly, but kept saying that I should get all of my things together and go with them—that they wanted me to join them.
I explained to her that I was leaving soon to return to America and that I wasn't sure that I could help them at all. Were they looking for another photography expert?
I really had no idea, and with the language barrier, I couldn't ascertain their interest in me. She repeated her request for several minutes but without a clear sense of why they were asking me to join them, I didn't feel right about getting in a van with a bunch of strangers right before I was due to leave the country!
*************
Oh, and as for that kiss? My flight home departed Bangkok at 6 a.m., so I had to leave my guesthouse at 3 a.m. While making my way through the dark lobby, I almost crashed into two discombobulated Frenchmen who asked what on earth I was doing up at that hour. While pointing to my expedition duffle, I said that I was going to the airport.
I asked what they were doing and they communicated in limited English that they'd made a mistake about something, where they were supposed to be or when they were supposed to be somewhere.
Unsure of their circumstances, I tried to clarify, "You had the wrong date?" And Frenchman No. 1 replied, "No, he's not my date." They disappeared down an alley. I shrugged and figured we just weren't meant to understand each other.
Then Frenchman No. 2 reappeared and asked me, "Can I give you a kiss?" In response to my deer-in-headlights look, he went on, "I love to kiss beautiful girls."
Who can resist a French accent in the middle of the night? I pointed to my cheek and then hailed a cab to the airport.
*************
My Asia travels complete for now, I've turned my globe at home to my remaining two continents: Africa and Australasia. Namibia and the South Island of New Zealand beckon.
Be brave, be adventurous and be honest. I will do the same.
Love,
Leah
Leah C. Lau
Photographer, Writer and Philanthropist
Silent Light Photography
www.leahlau.com
Friday, June 27, 2008
Out of the Literal Jungle, Into the Urban Jungle
Letter home from Laos and Thailand on June 27, 2008
Dear family and friends,
I hope that you're all well and happy.
The healing pace of life in Luang Prabang, Laos, was just what I needed to help recover from the food poisoning and dehydration I got toward the end of my expedition in Cambodia.
Brimming with curiosity, I was anxious to begin a rustic two-day, two-night Mekong River journey.
I spent most of the past few days literally off the grid, floating up the Mekong on a ramshackle wood slowboat from Luang Prabang to Huay Xai, in Laos, and then ferry ride for the water border crossing into Chiang Khong, northern Thailand.
Days with no access to technology (or much electricity, even) gave me time to reflect on my journey so far.
Luang Prabang gave my body time to decompress and the Mekong gave my mind time to decompress.
I stayed at several places that were $3–$5 a night in Laos not so much out of budgetary constraints, this time, but because of infrastructure limitations. In some locations, that was literally the going rate.
But what that means, of course, are the understandably dingy conditions: no flushing toilets, the necessity of keeping my own toilet paper and hand sanitizer on me at all times, no bathroom sinks in one of the guesthouses nor in a local restaurant, which helps explain a violent aftershock case of food poisoning I got in the middle of the night in Huay Xai, Laos.
Off the grid and on the Mekong
The limestone karst scenery, steep jungle-covered mountains and lush tropical fruit crops were most plentiful just outside of Luang Prabang.
During the two-day Mekong river journey, the slowboat would make the briefest of stops at tiny nooks so remote that when the local Lao passengers wanted to disembark, the slowboat would pull up close to the shore and the local would leap from the slowboat onto the dirt and grass, then begin walking uphill, presumably toward a village.
Because the slowboat doesn’t travel when it’s dark, you have a mandatory overnight stay in a tiny village nestled along a remote shore of the Mekong, called Pakbeng.
The guidebooks say next to nothing about Pakbeng, so I didn't expect anything other than barebones guesthouses with cold showers.
What I found was a tiny, peaceful, slice of heaven.
Not only was it nice to stretch my legs and get to walk around on solid land, but the river view from the balcony of my villa was the stuff of dreams.
And, at $5 a night, I could hardly complain about the cold shower (not enough electricity from the generators) or the showerhead that was more of a liability than a utility.
I figured out quickly enough that more water was pouring from a compromise in the seal of the shower hose than out of the showerhead, so once I used that instead of where the water was supposed to come out, I was in business.
In the jungle, a limited cold shower is always better than no shower.
I was also stunned to find a lovely, authentic Indian restaurant in Pakbeng serving omnivorous and vegetarian food.
It was called Hasan, and was the first major restaurant I encountered on the right when I came up from the pier.
Even though I ordered a feast of spinach and potatoes, fried vegetable patties, garlic naan, and rice, the bill only came to about $4 before tip.
The gracious owner, Hilu, came out and started speaking to me after he saw my little "Vegan Passport" book that I'd shown to the waiter.
The book explains that I am vegan in 58 languages (59 after I asked an employee at the Peace of Angkor Villa to handwrite a translation in Cambodian) but it's also missing Lao.
The waiter spoke Lao and Thai, so I showed him the Thai page. Adjacent to that was Tamil.
The owner saw that and had to know who had the little book with his native language in it! He flies the spices in from India.
The cuisine reminded me of Pakwan, back in San Francisco. Moments like that make you even more homesick than you already are.
Ambassadors for our countries
What impressed me even more than the delectable, authentic Indian food was Hilu's professionalism when dealing with a group of incredibly rude travelers.
One of the customers at a noisy table was a vegetarian and realized that chicken was in her dinner.
Rather than politely bring the mistake to the staff's attention and ask for a replacement meal, she stormed into the kitchen and started screaming (I am not exaggerating about this) at the staff so loudly that all activity in the restaurant came to a screeching halt.
She yelled that she's been a vegetarian her entire life and that they served her chicken, and that she ate some of it.
She said that she wasn't paying for the meal and began to berate the staff with words and in a tone that were insulting, disrespectful and inappropriate under any circumstances but that were especially jarring in a peaceful and quiet environment like the remote Mekong.
As a vegan, I can empathize with her being unhappy about being served meat. Apparently, very few vegans are in Southeast Asia. During my trip so far, I have accidentally been served and momentarily ingested shrimp, eggs, milk and fish.
My internal radar would go off and I'd alert the waiter that something off-limits was in my meal and I'd politely ask that it be replaced or I would reorder and have him bring me something else.
Yes, I have been unhappy when this has happened, but I don't expect the world to revolve around me. Veganism is not common here. People are doing me a favor when they make me a special meal and I have genuinely thanked them for this.
The rude woman's table of friends were no better.
When it was time for them to pay, they each started haggling with the management over the bill, claiming that they'd been overcharged and refusing to pay for items they ordered and already finished, for example claiming that they should only pay for four Cokes even though six empty cans were on their table.
Other patrons in the restaurant were staring. I was staring. They didn't care. They were aggressive and had an ugly sense of entitlement that I've seen in people before but is always a shock.
No matter where we are, no matter the cultural differences, logistics or circumstances, we owe each other human decency and respect.
Whenever we travel, we are ambassadors for our home countries.
These rude travelers left a very negative impression of their country and culture not only on me, but on everyone else who was in the restaurant.
Several of us (me and the other patrons) went out of our way to thank the staff for being so gracious, especially in light of what they were dealing with.
We were embarrassed for those travelers even though they would not recognize that they were wrong and disrespectful.
I hope that I have been a good ambassador for the United States (and for Chinese Americans, as locals throughout Southeast Asia continue to ask my racial heritage everywhere I go).
The Thailand ricochet
After ferrying into Chiang Khong, Thailand, I took a rickety bus the few hours to Chiang Rai. This is a pretty major city up north. It has traffic, pollution, technology, urban infrastructure, and a river running through it.
Although urban lodgings abound in the city center from which I'm writing this e-mail, I'm staying at a humble rural riverside retreat in the jungle.
It's called the Akha River House, part of the community organization for education and cultural advancement, and it's $3 for tonight. I chose it on a whim while traveling with a European couple I met on the Mekong, Margarita and Victor.
I've definitely missed being able to communicate seamlessly with people. Just after our slowboat journey, I realized that they speak perfect English and Spanish, so it's been a real treat to converse with them in two of our overlapping languages.
They spend seven months of every year working and saving money so that they can spend five months traveling. Can you imagine?
Hitting the showers
Much of my quality of life here can be summed up by the infrastructure of my showers.
In an attempt to minimize the number of times I wonder to myself, “is that awful smell coming from me?” I’ve persisted in nightly showers even through less-than-ideal circumstances.
The Akha experience required the most bravery.
Set in the jungle, the outdoor shower was exposed to the creatures of the day and night.
Before diving in, I had to mentally accept the geckos climbing the walls and ceiling feet from me, the leaping cricket-looking insects flying around inches from me, and the constantly buzzing mosquitoes plotting their next blood meal by hovering over my exposed skin.
I don't think I stopped flinching every time a creepy crawly or flying creature of the night buzzed by me, but it did feel so good to rinse the humid and rank day off of me.
Southeast Asia homestretch
Tomorrow morning, I depart overland for a nine-hour bus journey to Sukhothai, one of the ancient Thai capitals.
There, and at its sister site, Si Satchanalai, I'll find giant Buddhas in open-air temples. They’re vast sites, similar to Angkor in terms of spread-out logistics.
Now at the end of my expedition, I'll only be able to squeeze in a day, maybe two, before I need to get back to Bangkok for my return flight home on July 2.
I knew that spending so much time at Angkor (nine days) would truncate everything else but I'm content with my decision.
If I'd had the budget, I could have spent the entire three weeks at Angkor, truly a spiritual and photographer's paradise, but the continued costs of the access pass and tuk tuk driver weren't feasible.
It's hard to believe that my expedition is already nearing its end. In ways, it feels like a lifetime has passed and in others, it's like I blinked and I'm at the end.
A heartfelt thanks to everyone who's written, shared updates on your lives and learned from my experiences. Those familiar voices have meant the world to me and helped keep me going during the difficult moments of my travels.
Be dignified, be respectful and be gracious. I will do the same.
Love,
Leah
Leah C. Lau
Photographer, Writer and Philanthropist
Silent Light Photography
www.leahlau.com
Dear family and friends,
I hope that you're all well and happy.
The healing pace of life in Luang Prabang, Laos, was just what I needed to help recover from the food poisoning and dehydration I got toward the end of my expedition in Cambodia.
Brimming with curiosity, I was anxious to begin a rustic two-day, two-night Mekong River journey.
I spent most of the past few days literally off the grid, floating up the Mekong on a ramshackle wood slowboat from Luang Prabang to Huay Xai, in Laos, and then ferry ride for the water border crossing into Chiang Khong, northern Thailand.
Days with no access to technology (or much electricity, even) gave me time to reflect on my journey so far.
Luang Prabang gave my body time to decompress and the Mekong gave my mind time to decompress.
I stayed at several places that were $3–$5 a night in Laos not so much out of budgetary constraints, this time, but because of infrastructure limitations. In some locations, that was literally the going rate.
But what that means, of course, are the understandably dingy conditions: no flushing toilets, the necessity of keeping my own toilet paper and hand sanitizer on me at all times, no bathroom sinks in one of the guesthouses nor in a local restaurant, which helps explain a violent aftershock case of food poisoning I got in the middle of the night in Huay Xai, Laos.
Off the grid and on the Mekong
The limestone karst scenery, steep jungle-covered mountains and lush tropical fruit crops were most plentiful just outside of Luang Prabang.
During the two-day Mekong river journey, the slowboat would make the briefest of stops at tiny nooks so remote that when the local Lao passengers wanted to disembark, the slowboat would pull up close to the shore and the local would leap from the slowboat onto the dirt and grass, then begin walking uphill, presumably toward a village.
Because the slowboat doesn’t travel when it’s dark, you have a mandatory overnight stay in a tiny village nestled along a remote shore of the Mekong, called Pakbeng.
The guidebooks say next to nothing about Pakbeng, so I didn't expect anything other than barebones guesthouses with cold showers.
What I found was a tiny, peaceful, slice of heaven.
Not only was it nice to stretch my legs and get to walk around on solid land, but the river view from the balcony of my villa was the stuff of dreams.
And, at $5 a night, I could hardly complain about the cold shower (not enough electricity from the generators) or the showerhead that was more of a liability than a utility.
I figured out quickly enough that more water was pouring from a compromise in the seal of the shower hose than out of the showerhead, so once I used that instead of where the water was supposed to come out, I was in business.
In the jungle, a limited cold shower is always better than no shower.
I was also stunned to find a lovely, authentic Indian restaurant in Pakbeng serving omnivorous and vegetarian food.
It was called Hasan, and was the first major restaurant I encountered on the right when I came up from the pier.
Even though I ordered a feast of spinach and potatoes, fried vegetable patties, garlic naan, and rice, the bill only came to about $4 before tip.
The gracious owner, Hilu, came out and started speaking to me after he saw my little "Vegan Passport" book that I'd shown to the waiter.
The book explains that I am vegan in 58 languages (59 after I asked an employee at the Peace of Angkor Villa to handwrite a translation in Cambodian) but it's also missing Lao.
The waiter spoke Lao and Thai, so I showed him the Thai page. Adjacent to that was Tamil.
The owner saw that and had to know who had the little book with his native language in it! He flies the spices in from India.
The cuisine reminded me of Pakwan, back in San Francisco. Moments like that make you even more homesick than you already are.
Ambassadors for our countries
What impressed me even more than the delectable, authentic Indian food was Hilu's professionalism when dealing with a group of incredibly rude travelers.
One of the customers at a noisy table was a vegetarian and realized that chicken was in her dinner.
Rather than politely bring the mistake to the staff's attention and ask for a replacement meal, she stormed into the kitchen and started screaming (I am not exaggerating about this) at the staff so loudly that all activity in the restaurant came to a screeching halt.
She yelled that she's been a vegetarian her entire life and that they served her chicken, and that she ate some of it.
She said that she wasn't paying for the meal and began to berate the staff with words and in a tone that were insulting, disrespectful and inappropriate under any circumstances but that were especially jarring in a peaceful and quiet environment like the remote Mekong.
As a vegan, I can empathize with her being unhappy about being served meat. Apparently, very few vegans are in Southeast Asia. During my trip so far, I have accidentally been served and momentarily ingested shrimp, eggs, milk and fish.
My internal radar would go off and I'd alert the waiter that something off-limits was in my meal and I'd politely ask that it be replaced or I would reorder and have him bring me something else.
Yes, I have been unhappy when this has happened, but I don't expect the world to revolve around me. Veganism is not common here. People are doing me a favor when they make me a special meal and I have genuinely thanked them for this.
The rude woman's table of friends were no better.
When it was time for them to pay, they each started haggling with the management over the bill, claiming that they'd been overcharged and refusing to pay for items they ordered and already finished, for example claiming that they should only pay for four Cokes even though six empty cans were on their table.
Other patrons in the restaurant were staring. I was staring. They didn't care. They were aggressive and had an ugly sense of entitlement that I've seen in people before but is always a shock.
No matter where we are, no matter the cultural differences, logistics or circumstances, we owe each other human decency and respect.
Whenever we travel, we are ambassadors for our home countries.
These rude travelers left a very negative impression of their country and culture not only on me, but on everyone else who was in the restaurant.
Several of us (me and the other patrons) went out of our way to thank the staff for being so gracious, especially in light of what they were dealing with.
We were embarrassed for those travelers even though they would not recognize that they were wrong and disrespectful.
I hope that I have been a good ambassador for the United States (and for Chinese Americans, as locals throughout Southeast Asia continue to ask my racial heritage everywhere I go).
The Thailand ricochet
After ferrying into Chiang Khong, Thailand, I took a rickety bus the few hours to Chiang Rai. This is a pretty major city up north. It has traffic, pollution, technology, urban infrastructure, and a river running through it.
Although urban lodgings abound in the city center from which I'm writing this e-mail, I'm staying at a humble rural riverside retreat in the jungle.
It's called the Akha River House, part of the community organization for education and cultural advancement, and it's $3 for tonight. I chose it on a whim while traveling with a European couple I met on the Mekong, Margarita and Victor.
I've definitely missed being able to communicate seamlessly with people. Just after our slowboat journey, I realized that they speak perfect English and Spanish, so it's been a real treat to converse with them in two of our overlapping languages.
They spend seven months of every year working and saving money so that they can spend five months traveling. Can you imagine?
Hitting the showers
Much of my quality of life here can be summed up by the infrastructure of my showers.
In an attempt to minimize the number of times I wonder to myself, “is that awful smell coming from me?” I’ve persisted in nightly showers even through less-than-ideal circumstances.
The Akha experience required the most bravery.
Set in the jungle, the outdoor shower was exposed to the creatures of the day and night.
Before diving in, I had to mentally accept the geckos climbing the walls and ceiling feet from me, the leaping cricket-looking insects flying around inches from me, and the constantly buzzing mosquitoes plotting their next blood meal by hovering over my exposed skin.
I don't think I stopped flinching every time a creepy crawly or flying creature of the night buzzed by me, but it did feel so good to rinse the humid and rank day off of me.
Southeast Asia homestretch
Tomorrow morning, I depart overland for a nine-hour bus journey to Sukhothai, one of the ancient Thai capitals.
There, and at its sister site, Si Satchanalai, I'll find giant Buddhas in open-air temples. They’re vast sites, similar to Angkor in terms of spread-out logistics.
Now at the end of my expedition, I'll only be able to squeeze in a day, maybe two, before I need to get back to Bangkok for my return flight home on July 2.
I knew that spending so much time at Angkor (nine days) would truncate everything else but I'm content with my decision.
If I'd had the budget, I could have spent the entire three weeks at Angkor, truly a spiritual and photographer's paradise, but the continued costs of the access pass and tuk tuk driver weren't feasible.
It's hard to believe that my expedition is already nearing its end. In ways, it feels like a lifetime has passed and in others, it's like I blinked and I'm at the end.
A heartfelt thanks to everyone who's written, shared updates on your lives and learned from my experiences. Those familiar voices have meant the world to me and helped keep me going during the difficult moments of my travels.
Be dignified, be respectful and be gracious. I will do the same.
Love,
Leah
Leah C. Lau
Photographer, Writer and Philanthropist
Silent Light Photography
www.leahlau.com
Monday, June 23, 2008
Extraordinary Week in Angkor, Cambodia | Meeting the ELMA Students
Letter home from Cambodia and Laos on June 23, 2008
Dear family and friends,
I am writing from the sleepy, idyllic Buddhist enclave of Luang Prabang, Laos.
A short flight from Siem Reap, Cambodia, this is the third (and last) new country for this expedition.
When I leave here, I'll head back to Thailand and start winding my way back to Bangkok for my return flight home.
The Laotians in Luang Prabang are wonderfully warm, patient and friendly. They're not wealthy by any stretch of the imagination but they have a peacefulness and contentedness in their demeanors. It's really relaxing being in their presence.
I strolled up and down the handful of Buddhist temple-lined streets.
I learned a bit about the country and culture; checked out handmade goods and crafts from Laos; ambled alongside pretty, winding views of the Nam Khan and Mekong rivers; and stumbled into a lovely shop, Naga Gallery Jewelry Designs, where I had a charming discussion with two French expats, Fabrice and his mama.
It is, as my friends and family in San Francisco would recognize, like a MultiKulti of Luang Prabang. The owners' eye for astoundingly gorgeous local finds is a wonder.
After poring over the selection for hours (and being woefully aware of my Lao kip cash budget, which was the equivalent of about $20), I picked out a pure silver Chiang Mai rose pendant, regional to northern Thailand.
With the ELMA students from Cambodia still close in my heart, this pendant came to symbolize them and my time here.
************
Angkor's magnificence
My week at Angkor, in Cambodia, which refers to the entire archaeological site, was easily my most intense and physically grueling week of shooting since I was in Antarctica in 2006.
I noticed the parallels in the concentrated spans in which I was working: my seven-day Angkor pass vs. five days of landings and zodiac excursions.
The extreme physical conditions: heat, humidity, and logistical spread over many miles vs. extreme cold and logistical spread over islands and the continent itself.
And the toll that each took on my body: 2.5 days of food poisoning / dehydration / exhaustion at the end of my week in Cambodia vs. 20 hours of seasickness at the beginning of Antarctica.
Is anyone surprised, really, that I got violent food poisoning in Cambodia?
During the early part of the week, I worked with the cultural guide, Vey Lav, to get a handle on the enormity of Angkor.
The Angkor site is, in fact, so vast that most of it hasn't even been excavated from the jungle yet. Dozens of sites are accessible now but hundreds are hidden throughout the forest.
A combination of Buddhist and Hindu temples and monuments, they were made during centuries of vision and labor, and constructed out of materials like sandstone, pink sandstone and red volcanic rock.
I charged forward hard all week, monsoon or no, learning the sites, shooting, scouting ideas for the future, adding to my wish list, learning about potential shots for other years, other seasons, taking mental notes, and making photographic snapshots in my mind for images I'd like to make someday.
Some of my favorite sites are Ta Prohm, the Bayon, Angkor Wat, Pre Rup, Bakong, Neak Pean, Ta Som, Preah Khan, the South Gate and Thommanon.
A blessing of my choosing to come during the monsoon low season is that fewer tourists were around—smaller crowds and fewer people to have to shoot around.
The monsoons, which last anywhere from a few minutes to a few hours, also provided welcome relief from the omnipresent heat.
I learned the signs of when a monsoon was about the start: The air would dramatically cool down and the humidity would get cut. Then the air would become still and tight, as though a giant took in a huge breath. A slight humming noise would start to radiate.
I'd get my umbrella ready or take shelter in an outdoor temple and wait for the deluge.
When the butterflies started to propagate the air again, I knew that the monsoon was finished.
Coconuuuuuutttttt
My dedicated tuk tuk driver all week for Angkor, Mr. Savay, spoke limited English. My Cambodian consists of thank you (aukoon), no thank you (te aukoon), and bless you (spy). Oh yeah, and cow (go)—some kids taught me that one.
Because Mr. Savay carted me around all week, we worked out ideas and signals.
He used the word "hungry" for everything from "Do you need to eat?" "Did you eat?" "I need to eat" to "Are you going to eat?"
I realized early on that he likes to eat as much as I do!
When I could tell he was losing his patience with timing or exhaustion or fill in the blank, I'd suggest we get some refreshment like a meal or my jungle favorite—the juice of fresh green coconuts.
I'd ask, "Mr. Savay, coconut time?"
Not prone to straightforward answers like yes or no, even in Cambodian, Mr. Savay's "yes" answer was saying an exaggerated, "Coconuuuuuutttttt" and his "no" answer was looking at me like I was crazy.
When I last wrote, it was the eve of my first morning getting up at 4 a.m. to catch the sunrise in front of Angkor Wat.
As incredible—or dare I say impossible—as it might seem to those who know how hard it is for me to get up in the morning when I am home in the city, I relentlessly stuck to that schedule from Monday through Saturday.
Mr. Savay and I had the same disgruntled yet spirited exchange at the end of every day.
"I want to try the sunrise again tomorrow morning. 4 a.m."
Exasperated look, "Why every morning?"
"It will be years before I can return. I have to try every day that I am here."
Mutual laughter as we agreed on 4.
Rinse and repeat until the 3:30 a.m. start time the Saturday morning of the summer solstice.
A friendly group of Americans from Colorado reminded me of it on the 20th. I'd been so immersed in my daily bubble of sunrises, monsoons, temples and sunsets that I lost track of the calendar.
They suggested that I photograph Angkor Wat from the east, rather than from the west, as I'd been doing all week.
It was an interesting idea, one that required an earlier start, not only because of the solstice but because it meant an additional 20 minutes of fumbling in the dark around Angkor Wat with my headlamp to get to the other side.
Mr. Savay was not happy with the news but I placated him by reminding him that his torture was almost over—that I was leaving on Monday and he could have soon have his life back. Another round of laughter.
A monk, a nun and an Angkor conservation worker
During one of my many afternoons exploring, I wanted to get away from the crowds and a little off the beaten track.
I was at Angkor Wat and people were everywhere so I walked off of the main site and went to one of the open air sandstone libraries adjacent to the main temple.
Of the four narrow staircase approaches, I got the bright idea to enter through one surrounded by tall grass, figuring no one had walked there in awhile. I got my wish alright.
By the time I left the site, I realized that my pant legs and tripod bag were covered in hundreds of prickly sticky grass shards—ones that, due to the thin expedition weight material of my pants, needed to be removed one by one so as not to crack and leave the prickly heads in my clothing.
Amazed by own brilliant lack of common sense, I tramped back to Angkor Wat to sit in a well-trod, safe, stone area to begin pulling the shards out.
A few minutes into my effort, a monk appeared, smiling, laughing and offering advice in Cambodian. I couldn't understand him, so he sat down beside me and started pulling out the shards alongside me.
Moments later, a nun appeared and joined suit. And then an Angkor conservation worker.
All three smiled at me joyfully, empathetically and kindly. They chatted in Cambodian. They alternately picked at individual shards with their fingers or used a stick-rubbing technique.
I said "aukoon" (thank you) again and again, and smiled at each of them in turn. About 45 minutes later, I was sticky-grass free, thanks to the patient and selfless efforts of three Cambodian angels.
A monkey, a lily and a can of Raid
On Friday morning, after three consecutive days of thwarted sunrise attempts due to monsoons or overcast skies, I was blessed with my second extraordinary day of shooting at Angkor.
The skies were clear, sublime. Perfect reflections of the Angkor Wat silhouette were in the pool in front of the temple. I spent the latter part of the morning marveling at the light on the lily pads in the pond.
A Cambodian man was swimming in the lily pool, collecting flowers and doing some conservation work.
He carefully placed two beautiful fuchsia-colored water lilies by the shoreline. I went over to try to photograph them in the gorgeous morning light, but just as I was about to get a clear shot, a can of Raid bobbed to the surface of the water right behind the lilies!
All that morning, a very aggressive monkey had been harassing tourists, even climbing up one man's leg.
The Cambodian man in the water started singing a joyful song to the monkey, who started watching the man, as though in a trance.
The monkey whisperer kept calling to the little troublemaker while an astounded crowd of onlookers gathered to see what would happen.
In a flash, the monkey leapt from the shoreline and started swimming toward him. The crowd laughed and cheered. The man continued to sing to the monkey.
A few minutes later, the monkey swam back to shore and went over to the spot where the man had deposited the lilies. The monkey started playing with them and then the can of Raid.
I didn't exactly get the shot I was hoping for but I had one of my best laughs during this trip!
ELMA School for Children
On Wednesday afternoon, I visited the ELMA School, which Vey helped found.
Miles of unpaved dirt road from Siem Reap, in the tiny village of Sambour, it is the only English language school in the vicinity, and serves poor and orphaned Cambodian children.
I was lucky to be the first tourist to ever visit the afternoon students. Vey told me that about five other tourists had visited with the morning classes during the two years that the school has been open.
The children ranged from about 5–18 and were split into two levels by age group.
I thought my ride into Cambodia itself was harrowing but the patchy, narrow, dirt and mud strip to the school was the bumpiest stretch I've ever been on.
I wondered whether the children walked to school. It turned out that most of them rode bicycles. The school is a simple open air concrete building with two classrooms and a tiny library. When I arrived, we visited the younger class first.
The littlest girls, the 5- and 6-year-olds, were beside themselves with excitement and were all over me with their smiles, giggles and questions.
They wanted me to take their pictures, they posed, they adjusted their hair, they put their arms around each other, they mugged. They were joyful and appreciative in spite of their living conditions.
The teenagers were more reserved and self-conscious. They felt more comfortable after I approached them first, and then they would warm up.
During my five years as a camp counselor, I worked with hundreds of teens. It was heartening, in a way, to see that they're the same the world over regardless of their life circumstances.
The younger children had learned the English alphabet and could say individual words and a few sentences which they'd memorized.
The teens impressed me by actually being able to read an entire chalkboard of sentences in English. It was so gratifying to see them so far along their way.
Vey was so excited to show me their library.
When I walked into the small concrete room, which consisted of only two small shelves, I thought of the humble but still well-stocked public libraries I grew up with and compared them in my mind with the tattered picture books before me.
The handful of 20 or so picture books on a small, low shelf was largely comprised of discards from an international school in Taipei. When I worked in books ages ago, I specialized in children's books, and have always had an affinity for them.
Although they have one full shelf of young adult level books, those are mostly too advanced for the students.
A voracious reader as a kid, I read 106 library books in one year alone while I was in elementary school. That seemed to be more than the total number of books in the ELMA library.
This juxtaposition of images simultaneously flashed in my mind. So many students at the ELMA School sharing so few books.
When I asked Vey whether they wanted more books, he looked at me with joy and shock.
I told him that when I get back to the United States, that I can easily shop for children's book to help build their collection, and he said that the children would love to have access to more books.
They are interested in stories about family, children, animals, history, science, etc.
One of their favorites is a picture book about Patagonia and Antarctica because they love to see the foreign landscapes and the pictures of animals.
They can hardly believe such exotic places exist, and were beside themselves when I told them I had actually been to those icy, glacier-covered places.
**If you or anyone you know have extra children's books that you no longer need, feel free to funnel them to me and I will take responsibility for shipping them to Cambodia.
This is an ongoing endeavor for as long as the school is in existence and I retain my contacts in Cambodia.**
Hope for Cambodia
Of all of my warm and wonderful interactions with people in Cambodia, it was the ones with the children that most affected me the most.
I interacted with hundreds of children—beggars, orphans, students, workers for family businesses, disabled, maimed.
One afternoon, I saw a young girl crumpled and crouched at the foot of a bridge.
Her skin, features and body were mangled, maimed beyond the ability to lead a normal life. She radiated almost inconsolable sadness.
I asked Vey if he knew what had happened to her and he said that she had been burned but he didn't know how or why. It took me days after seeing her before I could process my shock and grief enough to cry.
In spite of everything that they have been through, so many of the children still have such beautiful hearts and dreams for their futures.
While photographing sunset at the Bakong pyramid monument, a little deaf girl walked up to me and gave me a ring and flower that she'd made out of grass. We sat side-by-side on a rock and watched the sunset light on the pyramid together.
After awhile, we were joined by a boy from her village.
He was excited to practice his English with me. I asked him if he learns it in school and he said no, he learned English from speaking with tourists but that he plans to study Mandarin and Japanese in school.
He wants to learn multiple languages so that he can be an Angkor guide when he grows up. He was thin and poor. His clothes were simple and dirty and ragged like so many of the other children's.
But he had such light in his eyes and a steady, forward-looking gaze. I looked at kids like him and thought that there are many of them who are going to make it.
************
Night has fallen here in Luang Prabang, Laos.
I'm turning in soon, as I'm still recovering from the food poisoning incident from Friday night. I flew into Laos thinking that if I don't get better soon, I'll head to Bangkok early and see a doctor.
But the rest from the past couple of days has done me a world of good and the slow, healing pace of life in Luang Prabang should keep me on the mend.
Be appreciative, be generous and be open. I will do the same.
Love,
Leah
Leah C. Lau
Photographer, Writer and Philanthropist
Silent Light Photography
http://www.leahlau.com/
Dear family and friends,
I am writing from the sleepy, idyllic Buddhist enclave of Luang Prabang, Laos.
A short flight from Siem Reap, Cambodia, this is the third (and last) new country for this expedition.
When I leave here, I'll head back to Thailand and start winding my way back to Bangkok for my return flight home.
The Laotians in Luang Prabang are wonderfully warm, patient and friendly. They're not wealthy by any stretch of the imagination but they have a peacefulness and contentedness in their demeanors. It's really relaxing being in their presence.
I strolled up and down the handful of Buddhist temple-lined streets.
I learned a bit about the country and culture; checked out handmade goods and crafts from Laos; ambled alongside pretty, winding views of the Nam Khan and Mekong rivers; and stumbled into a lovely shop, Naga Gallery Jewelry Designs, where I had a charming discussion with two French expats, Fabrice and his mama.
It is, as my friends and family in San Francisco would recognize, like a MultiKulti of Luang Prabang. The owners' eye for astoundingly gorgeous local finds is a wonder.
After poring over the selection for hours (and being woefully aware of my Lao kip cash budget, which was the equivalent of about $20), I picked out a pure silver Chiang Mai rose pendant, regional to northern Thailand.
With the ELMA students from Cambodia still close in my heart, this pendant came to symbolize them and my time here.
************
Angkor's magnificence
My week at Angkor, in Cambodia, which refers to the entire archaeological site, was easily my most intense and physically grueling week of shooting since I was in Antarctica in 2006.
I noticed the parallels in the concentrated spans in which I was working: my seven-day Angkor pass vs. five days of landings and zodiac excursions.
The extreme physical conditions: heat, humidity, and logistical spread over many miles vs. extreme cold and logistical spread over islands and the continent itself.
And the toll that each took on my body: 2.5 days of food poisoning / dehydration / exhaustion at the end of my week in Cambodia vs. 20 hours of seasickness at the beginning of Antarctica.
Is anyone surprised, really, that I got violent food poisoning in Cambodia?
During the early part of the week, I worked with the cultural guide, Vey Lav, to get a handle on the enormity of Angkor.
The Angkor site is, in fact, so vast that most of it hasn't even been excavated from the jungle yet. Dozens of sites are accessible now but hundreds are hidden throughout the forest.
A combination of Buddhist and Hindu temples and monuments, they were made during centuries of vision and labor, and constructed out of materials like sandstone, pink sandstone and red volcanic rock.
I charged forward hard all week, monsoon or no, learning the sites, shooting, scouting ideas for the future, adding to my wish list, learning about potential shots for other years, other seasons, taking mental notes, and making photographic snapshots in my mind for images I'd like to make someday.
Some of my favorite sites are Ta Prohm, the Bayon, Angkor Wat, Pre Rup, Bakong, Neak Pean, Ta Som, Preah Khan, the South Gate and Thommanon.
A blessing of my choosing to come during the monsoon low season is that fewer tourists were around—smaller crowds and fewer people to have to shoot around.
The monsoons, which last anywhere from a few minutes to a few hours, also provided welcome relief from the omnipresent heat.
I learned the signs of when a monsoon was about the start: The air would dramatically cool down and the humidity would get cut. Then the air would become still and tight, as though a giant took in a huge breath. A slight humming noise would start to radiate.
I'd get my umbrella ready or take shelter in an outdoor temple and wait for the deluge.
When the butterflies started to propagate the air again, I knew that the monsoon was finished.
Coconuuuuuutttttt
My dedicated tuk tuk driver all week for Angkor, Mr. Savay, spoke limited English. My Cambodian consists of thank you (aukoon), no thank you (te aukoon), and bless you (spy). Oh yeah, and cow (go)—some kids taught me that one.
Because Mr. Savay carted me around all week, we worked out ideas and signals.
He used the word "hungry" for everything from "Do you need to eat?" "Did you eat?" "I need to eat" to "Are you going to eat?"
I realized early on that he likes to eat as much as I do!
When I could tell he was losing his patience with timing or exhaustion or fill in the blank, I'd suggest we get some refreshment like a meal or my jungle favorite—the juice of fresh green coconuts.
I'd ask, "Mr. Savay, coconut time?"
Not prone to straightforward answers like yes or no, even in Cambodian, Mr. Savay's "yes" answer was saying an exaggerated, "Coconuuuuuutttttt" and his "no" answer was looking at me like I was crazy.
When I last wrote, it was the eve of my first morning getting up at 4 a.m. to catch the sunrise in front of Angkor Wat.
As incredible—or dare I say impossible—as it might seem to those who know how hard it is for me to get up in the morning when I am home in the city, I relentlessly stuck to that schedule from Monday through Saturday.
Mr. Savay and I had the same disgruntled yet spirited exchange at the end of every day.
"I want to try the sunrise again tomorrow morning. 4 a.m."
Exasperated look, "Why every morning?"
"It will be years before I can return. I have to try every day that I am here."
Mutual laughter as we agreed on 4.
Rinse and repeat until the 3:30 a.m. start time the Saturday morning of the summer solstice.
A friendly group of Americans from Colorado reminded me of it on the 20th. I'd been so immersed in my daily bubble of sunrises, monsoons, temples and sunsets that I lost track of the calendar.
They suggested that I photograph Angkor Wat from the east, rather than from the west, as I'd been doing all week.
It was an interesting idea, one that required an earlier start, not only because of the solstice but because it meant an additional 20 minutes of fumbling in the dark around Angkor Wat with my headlamp to get to the other side.
Mr. Savay was not happy with the news but I placated him by reminding him that his torture was almost over—that I was leaving on Monday and he could have soon have his life back. Another round of laughter.
A monk, a nun and an Angkor conservation worker
During one of my many afternoons exploring, I wanted to get away from the crowds and a little off the beaten track.
I was at Angkor Wat and people were everywhere so I walked off of the main site and went to one of the open air sandstone libraries adjacent to the main temple.
Of the four narrow staircase approaches, I got the bright idea to enter through one surrounded by tall grass, figuring no one had walked there in awhile. I got my wish alright.
By the time I left the site, I realized that my pant legs and tripod bag were covered in hundreds of prickly sticky grass shards—ones that, due to the thin expedition weight material of my pants, needed to be removed one by one so as not to crack and leave the prickly heads in my clothing.
Amazed by own brilliant lack of common sense, I tramped back to Angkor Wat to sit in a well-trod, safe, stone area to begin pulling the shards out.
A few minutes into my effort, a monk appeared, smiling, laughing and offering advice in Cambodian. I couldn't understand him, so he sat down beside me and started pulling out the shards alongside me.
Moments later, a nun appeared and joined suit. And then an Angkor conservation worker.
All three smiled at me joyfully, empathetically and kindly. They chatted in Cambodian. They alternately picked at individual shards with their fingers or used a stick-rubbing technique.
I said "aukoon" (thank you) again and again, and smiled at each of them in turn. About 45 minutes later, I was sticky-grass free, thanks to the patient and selfless efforts of three Cambodian angels.
A monkey, a lily and a can of Raid
On Friday morning, after three consecutive days of thwarted sunrise attempts due to monsoons or overcast skies, I was blessed with my second extraordinary day of shooting at Angkor.
The skies were clear, sublime. Perfect reflections of the Angkor Wat silhouette were in the pool in front of the temple. I spent the latter part of the morning marveling at the light on the lily pads in the pond.
A Cambodian man was swimming in the lily pool, collecting flowers and doing some conservation work.
He carefully placed two beautiful fuchsia-colored water lilies by the shoreline. I went over to try to photograph them in the gorgeous morning light, but just as I was about to get a clear shot, a can of Raid bobbed to the surface of the water right behind the lilies!
All that morning, a very aggressive monkey had been harassing tourists, even climbing up one man's leg.
The Cambodian man in the water started singing a joyful song to the monkey, who started watching the man, as though in a trance.
The monkey whisperer kept calling to the little troublemaker while an astounded crowd of onlookers gathered to see what would happen.
In a flash, the monkey leapt from the shoreline and started swimming toward him. The crowd laughed and cheered. The man continued to sing to the monkey.
A few minutes later, the monkey swam back to shore and went over to the spot where the man had deposited the lilies. The monkey started playing with them and then the can of Raid.
I didn't exactly get the shot I was hoping for but I had one of my best laughs during this trip!
ELMA School for Children
On Wednesday afternoon, I visited the ELMA School, which Vey helped found.
Miles of unpaved dirt road from Siem Reap, in the tiny village of Sambour, it is the only English language school in the vicinity, and serves poor and orphaned Cambodian children.
I was lucky to be the first tourist to ever visit the afternoon students. Vey told me that about five other tourists had visited with the morning classes during the two years that the school has been open.
The children ranged from about 5–18 and were split into two levels by age group.
I thought my ride into Cambodia itself was harrowing but the patchy, narrow, dirt and mud strip to the school was the bumpiest stretch I've ever been on.
I wondered whether the children walked to school. It turned out that most of them rode bicycles. The school is a simple open air concrete building with two classrooms and a tiny library. When I arrived, we visited the younger class first.
The littlest girls, the 5- and 6-year-olds, were beside themselves with excitement and were all over me with their smiles, giggles and questions.
They wanted me to take their pictures, they posed, they adjusted their hair, they put their arms around each other, they mugged. They were joyful and appreciative in spite of their living conditions.
The teenagers were more reserved and self-conscious. They felt more comfortable after I approached them first, and then they would warm up.
During my five years as a camp counselor, I worked with hundreds of teens. It was heartening, in a way, to see that they're the same the world over regardless of their life circumstances.
The younger children had learned the English alphabet and could say individual words and a few sentences which they'd memorized.
The teens impressed me by actually being able to read an entire chalkboard of sentences in English. It was so gratifying to see them so far along their way.
Vey was so excited to show me their library.
When I walked into the small concrete room, which consisted of only two small shelves, I thought of the humble but still well-stocked public libraries I grew up with and compared them in my mind with the tattered picture books before me.
The handful of 20 or so picture books on a small, low shelf was largely comprised of discards from an international school in Taipei. When I worked in books ages ago, I specialized in children's books, and have always had an affinity for them.
Although they have one full shelf of young adult level books, those are mostly too advanced for the students.
A voracious reader as a kid, I read 106 library books in one year alone while I was in elementary school. That seemed to be more than the total number of books in the ELMA library.
This juxtaposition of images simultaneously flashed in my mind. So many students at the ELMA School sharing so few books.
When I asked Vey whether they wanted more books, he looked at me with joy and shock.
I told him that when I get back to the United States, that I can easily shop for children's book to help build their collection, and he said that the children would love to have access to more books.
They are interested in stories about family, children, animals, history, science, etc.
One of their favorites is a picture book about Patagonia and Antarctica because they love to see the foreign landscapes and the pictures of animals.
They can hardly believe such exotic places exist, and were beside themselves when I told them I had actually been to those icy, glacier-covered places.
**If you or anyone you know have extra children's books that you no longer need, feel free to funnel them to me and I will take responsibility for shipping them to Cambodia.
This is an ongoing endeavor for as long as the school is in existence and I retain my contacts in Cambodia.**
Hope for Cambodia
Of all of my warm and wonderful interactions with people in Cambodia, it was the ones with the children that most affected me the most.
I interacted with hundreds of children—beggars, orphans, students, workers for family businesses, disabled, maimed.
One afternoon, I saw a young girl crumpled and crouched at the foot of a bridge.
Her skin, features and body were mangled, maimed beyond the ability to lead a normal life. She radiated almost inconsolable sadness.
I asked Vey if he knew what had happened to her and he said that she had been burned but he didn't know how or why. It took me days after seeing her before I could process my shock and grief enough to cry.
In spite of everything that they have been through, so many of the children still have such beautiful hearts and dreams for their futures.
While photographing sunset at the Bakong pyramid monument, a little deaf girl walked up to me and gave me a ring and flower that she'd made out of grass. We sat side-by-side on a rock and watched the sunset light on the pyramid together.
After awhile, we were joined by a boy from her village.
He was excited to practice his English with me. I asked him if he learns it in school and he said no, he learned English from speaking with tourists but that he plans to study Mandarin and Japanese in school.
He wants to learn multiple languages so that he can be an Angkor guide when he grows up. He was thin and poor. His clothes were simple and dirty and ragged like so many of the other children's.
But he had such light in his eyes and a steady, forward-looking gaze. I looked at kids like him and thought that there are many of them who are going to make it.
************
Night has fallen here in Luang Prabang, Laos.
I'm turning in soon, as I'm still recovering from the food poisoning incident from Friday night. I flew into Laos thinking that if I don't get better soon, I'll head to Bangkok early and see a doctor.
But the rest from the past couple of days has done me a world of good and the slow, healing pace of life in Luang Prabang should keep me on the mend.
Be appreciative, be generous and be open. I will do the same.
Love,
Leah
Leah C. Lau
Photographer, Writer and Philanthropist
Silent Light Photography
http://www.leahlau.com/
Sunday, June 15, 2008
Compassion and Angkor | First Impressions of Cambodia
Letter home from Cambodia on June 15, 2008
Dear family and friends,
I'm writing from Peace of Angkor Villa, my sanctuary in Siem Reap, Cambodia.
It's a gem of local, European and period architecture, hospitably owned by a professional photographer, Dave Perkes, who caters to like-minded folks http://www.peaceofangkor.com/.
And because this is Cambodia, it's only $15–$20 a night. A place like this in the United States would easily cost $100-$200 a night.
Sleepless in Bangkok
The bus trip from Bangkok to the Cambodian border was smooth, literally and figuratively. Paved all of the way, lush tropical jungle foliage was dotted with lily ponds, shantytowns and Buddhist temples.
In Bangkok, I stayed in the modest backpacker lodgings at the Donna Guest House.
I wasn't shooting in Bangkok, so while I ran errands to set up my overland border crossing into Cambodia, I locked up $5,000 worth of photography equipment in my $8 a night room (think high-end camping), and chuckled at the irony.
Sleepless in Bangkok my last night, I walked the bustling Th Khao San backpacker / expat / tourist district and feasted on a plate of street noodles and a spring roll for $1.12.
I got the hang of the Thai baht currency and getting around really quickly on my day-and-a-half stopover—comfortable just in time to switch countries, languages and systems!
The overall friendliness of the Thai people and the huge number of English-speaking expats and tourists proffering advice certainly made it manageable.
Cambodia: into the monsoon
On my shoestring expedition budget, I chose the cheapest (and most harrowing) option: overland on unpaved roads.
I skidded into Cambodia in the middle of a monsoon and the most chaotic border crossing.
The highlights and lowlights involved switching between multiple shuttles and buses, getting soaked through, blindly slogging through mud pond unpaved streets in an attempt to follow the confounding bus agency employees, language barriers, convoluted procedures, and unsettling discrepancies around visa protocol and rates.
Most of us passengers took it all in stride and laughed our way through—nothing a healthy dose of common sense and a good attitude couldn't cure.
It was an adventure of a lifetime but suffice it to say I'm rethinking the allure of overland border crossings and looking into flights for when I depart Siem Reap in the next week or so.
Other western travelers consistently warned me that the road and service conditions would deteriorate immediately once I crossed the Thailand / Cambodia border.
They suggested that instead of continuing on the bus, which likely would have busted shocks and would not be able to navigate the potholes, that I split a taxi ride with other passengers to Siem Reap, the hub for Angkor tourism.
Of my busmates, I got along best with a spirited trio of Norwegians whom I initially mistook for Americans: They had the slang down, having grown up watching the same syndicated '80s shows that were the foundation of my childhood in California.
With their dry senses of humor, they all had me in stitches: Chris, a quick-witted future pediatrician with wanderlust; Audun, a guitar-playing religion grad student; and Christopher, a former garbage man and kindergarten teacher, and an innate caregiver who looked out for me during the rough crossing.
The newly formed quad decided to share a taxi and brave the muddy, unpaved roller coaster Cambodian roads together.
Our driver didn't speak English and none of us spoke Cambodian. A cheerful and friendly guy on the outside, he passed motorcyclists and other cars with a proximity and flamboyance that literally made me squeeze my eyes shut in fear.
He also had a penchant for pulling over at random businesses, on lonely stretches of unpaved, monsoon-flooded roads and to answer nature's call without any forewarning or explanation to us as to what was going on.
The Norwegians and I usually stared at each other for a moment and then got out of the car to stretch our legs and keep an eye out for his unpredictable return. Facilities were uncomfortably threadbare or nonexistent.
In every direction, we just saw mud, rain-soaked monsoon skies waiting to flood more water onto us, and the occasional dot of green farmland or rudimentary shelter.
During the harrowing anchor leg four-hour journey, we traded travel war stories and shared in the creation of one of our best ones yet. I laughed in the boisterous moments and prayed in the silent ones. I also learned to count to 10 in—you guessed it—
Norwegian.
The seat of compassion
Witnessing the poverty in Thailand and Cambodia has been an eye- and heart-opening experience in compassion and empathy.
I am continuously astonished at the conditions under which I am watching people survive: bony, near-naked and sometimes naked children despondent and begging in the rain. Open-air tin roof or tree branch shelters with multiple families crammed inside. Piles of garbage. Mud, mud everywhere.
This is my first experience witnessing such extreme poverty and I knew that it would change me but the pain is palpable.
You want to help in ways that are meaningful and lasting, not just a handout for the afternoon. I've had my ears to the ground learning about local and international organizations that make real differences in education, safety and teaching leadership skills for the next generations of Cambodians.
My cultural guide is a magnanimous person named Vey Lav. I am grateful to Jennifer Davis for referring him.
Vey grew up just outside of Siem Reap and has spent his life observing the needs of Cambodians, learning Cambodian history, tangibly giving back to his community, and looking ahead to the future and how Cambodia can rebuild.
For many years, he has worked as a cultural guide and now aspires to start his own cultural tourism business partnered with nonprofits. He also helped found a local English language school for more than 100 impoverished children, called the ELMA School for Children.
Although Vey refuses to accept any payment from me for his guide help while I am here, I promised that in lieu, I will do volunteer work to help the school.
Star of Angkor
Angkor Wat is the star that brought me to Cambodia, one that served as my guiding light and perspective touchstone to push through the physical discomforts of being in third-world countries.
This morning, from the warmth and sanctuary of my beautifully appointed room, I awoke to a monsoon as heavy as the one I got caught in yesterday while crossing into Cambodia. Weather changes on a dime, so I geared up to spend my first full day in the Angkor complex.
It is, as so many people described to me, magnificent beyond imagination. No single photo can capture the beauty and energy here so I'm focusing on individual aspects.
While I make my way through the temples, I am awed and reverent. You can literally feel the care, consideration, devotion and thoughtfulness that went into the design and construction.
It is art, achievement, greatness, craftsmanship and vision. It is a spiritual paradise and a photographer's paradise.
The careful balance, astoundingly perfect reflections and synchronicity with the sun and seasons is called solar orientation.
The monsoon barely cleared today so what little I shot of Angkor Wat and the Bayon was in pretty flat light. Tomorrow onto Ta Prohm. The next day is Banteay Srei. I'll be here for at least a week.
Anything could transpire during that time, but no matter what happens with my photos, I am honored that I've had the opportunity to witness Angkor with my own eyes and to feel reverence here with my heart.
I'm signing off now to get up in a few hours for a 4:45 a.m. guide and tuk tuk transportation call time. In theory, it seems like such a good idea to catch the sunrise ...
Be compassionate, be kind and be happy. I will do the same.
Love,
Leah
Leah C. Lau
Photographer, Writer and Philanthropist
Silent Light Photography
http://www.leahlau.com/
Dear family and friends,
I'm writing from Peace of Angkor Villa, my sanctuary in Siem Reap, Cambodia.
It's a gem of local, European and period architecture, hospitably owned by a professional photographer, Dave Perkes, who caters to like-minded folks http://www.peaceofangkor.com/.
And because this is Cambodia, it's only $15–$20 a night. A place like this in the United States would easily cost $100-$200 a night.
Sleepless in Bangkok
The bus trip from Bangkok to the Cambodian border was smooth, literally and figuratively. Paved all of the way, lush tropical jungle foliage was dotted with lily ponds, shantytowns and Buddhist temples.
In Bangkok, I stayed in the modest backpacker lodgings at the Donna Guest House.
I wasn't shooting in Bangkok, so while I ran errands to set up my overland border crossing into Cambodia, I locked up $5,000 worth of photography equipment in my $8 a night room (think high-end camping), and chuckled at the irony.
Sleepless in Bangkok my last night, I walked the bustling Th Khao San backpacker / expat / tourist district and feasted on a plate of street noodles and a spring roll for $1.12.
I got the hang of the Thai baht currency and getting around really quickly on my day-and-a-half stopover—comfortable just in time to switch countries, languages and systems!
The overall friendliness of the Thai people and the huge number of English-speaking expats and tourists proffering advice certainly made it manageable.
Cambodia: into the monsoon
On my shoestring expedition budget, I chose the cheapest (and most harrowing) option: overland on unpaved roads.
I skidded into Cambodia in the middle of a monsoon and the most chaotic border crossing.
The highlights and lowlights involved switching between multiple shuttles and buses, getting soaked through, blindly slogging through mud pond unpaved streets in an attempt to follow the confounding bus agency employees, language barriers, convoluted procedures, and unsettling discrepancies around visa protocol and rates.
Most of us passengers took it all in stride and laughed our way through—nothing a healthy dose of common sense and a good attitude couldn't cure.
It was an adventure of a lifetime but suffice it to say I'm rethinking the allure of overland border crossings and looking into flights for when I depart Siem Reap in the next week or so.
Other western travelers consistently warned me that the road and service conditions would deteriorate immediately once I crossed the Thailand / Cambodia border.
They suggested that instead of continuing on the bus, which likely would have busted shocks and would not be able to navigate the potholes, that I split a taxi ride with other passengers to Siem Reap, the hub for Angkor tourism.
Of my busmates, I got along best with a spirited trio of Norwegians whom I initially mistook for Americans: They had the slang down, having grown up watching the same syndicated '80s shows that were the foundation of my childhood in California.
With their dry senses of humor, they all had me in stitches: Chris, a quick-witted future pediatrician with wanderlust; Audun, a guitar-playing religion grad student; and Christopher, a former garbage man and kindergarten teacher, and an innate caregiver who looked out for me during the rough crossing.
The newly formed quad decided to share a taxi and brave the muddy, unpaved roller coaster Cambodian roads together.
Our driver didn't speak English and none of us spoke Cambodian. A cheerful and friendly guy on the outside, he passed motorcyclists and other cars with a proximity and flamboyance that literally made me squeeze my eyes shut in fear.
He also had a penchant for pulling over at random businesses, on lonely stretches of unpaved, monsoon-flooded roads and to answer nature's call without any forewarning or explanation to us as to what was going on.
The Norwegians and I usually stared at each other for a moment and then got out of the car to stretch our legs and keep an eye out for his unpredictable return. Facilities were uncomfortably threadbare or nonexistent.
In every direction, we just saw mud, rain-soaked monsoon skies waiting to flood more water onto us, and the occasional dot of green farmland or rudimentary shelter.
During the harrowing anchor leg four-hour journey, we traded travel war stories and shared in the creation of one of our best ones yet. I laughed in the boisterous moments and prayed in the silent ones. I also learned to count to 10 in—you guessed it—
Norwegian.
The seat of compassion
Witnessing the poverty in Thailand and Cambodia has been an eye- and heart-opening experience in compassion and empathy.
I am continuously astonished at the conditions under which I am watching people survive: bony, near-naked and sometimes naked children despondent and begging in the rain. Open-air tin roof or tree branch shelters with multiple families crammed inside. Piles of garbage. Mud, mud everywhere.
This is my first experience witnessing such extreme poverty and I knew that it would change me but the pain is palpable.
You want to help in ways that are meaningful and lasting, not just a handout for the afternoon. I've had my ears to the ground learning about local and international organizations that make real differences in education, safety and teaching leadership skills for the next generations of Cambodians.
My cultural guide is a magnanimous person named Vey Lav. I am grateful to Jennifer Davis for referring him.
Vey grew up just outside of Siem Reap and has spent his life observing the needs of Cambodians, learning Cambodian history, tangibly giving back to his community, and looking ahead to the future and how Cambodia can rebuild.
For many years, he has worked as a cultural guide and now aspires to start his own cultural tourism business partnered with nonprofits. He also helped found a local English language school for more than 100 impoverished children, called the ELMA School for Children.
Although Vey refuses to accept any payment from me for his guide help while I am here, I promised that in lieu, I will do volunteer work to help the school.
Star of Angkor
Angkor Wat is the star that brought me to Cambodia, one that served as my guiding light and perspective touchstone to push through the physical discomforts of being in third-world countries.
This morning, from the warmth and sanctuary of my beautifully appointed room, I awoke to a monsoon as heavy as the one I got caught in yesterday while crossing into Cambodia. Weather changes on a dime, so I geared up to spend my first full day in the Angkor complex.
It is, as so many people described to me, magnificent beyond imagination. No single photo can capture the beauty and energy here so I'm focusing on individual aspects.
While I make my way through the temples, I am awed and reverent. You can literally feel the care, consideration, devotion and thoughtfulness that went into the design and construction.
It is art, achievement, greatness, craftsmanship and vision. It is a spiritual paradise and a photographer's paradise.
The careful balance, astoundingly perfect reflections and synchronicity with the sun and seasons is called solar orientation.
The monsoon barely cleared today so what little I shot of Angkor Wat and the Bayon was in pretty flat light. Tomorrow onto Ta Prohm. The next day is Banteay Srei. I'll be here for at least a week.
Anything could transpire during that time, but no matter what happens with my photos, I am honored that I've had the opportunity to witness Angkor with my own eyes and to feel reverence here with my heart.
I'm signing off now to get up in a few hours for a 4:45 a.m. guide and tuk tuk transportation call time. In theory, it seems like such a good idea to catch the sunrise ...
Be compassionate, be kind and be happy. I will do the same.
Love,
Leah
Leah C. Lau
Photographer, Writer and Philanthropist
Silent Light Photography
http://www.leahlau.com/
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