Same Same

...but different:



The Khmer woman vs the French woman. That's 700 years and a few thousand miles of culture apart. The image at left is an apsara statue from the Bayon temple in Angkor, while the image at the right is a wall carving from an old French colonial mansion in Phnom Penh. Funny how they almost the same, but different...

Money Trees

Money may not grow on trees, but on some days it seems the case in Thailand:



Villagers offer donations for the upkeep of the Na Phra Larn Buddhist temple in Koh Samui, Thailand. The occasion is a community event, with hundreds of locals turning out to pin money on the branches of these potted "trees". Traditional dancing is performed, followed by a solemn, yet rather festive procession around the temple.

Koh Samui, Baby!

A waitress prepares for evening diners at the Zazen Restaurant in Bophut Beach, Koh Samui:



This was shot on the last night of my Samui assignment, after a long month of shooting different locations each weekend. I'll be desk-bound for the next few weeks, but hell - I can't wait for the next overseas shoot... :)

Shot for Fah Thai, the inflight magazine of Bangkok Airways.

Stories on Walls

Seen on the wall of an old French colonial mansion, just behind Sisowath quay:



I wonder what those Khmer writings mean. Placed against this patriotic looking sticker, one can probably say the graffiti speaks of love of country, or subversion, or politics, etc.

Or maybe it just means "bawal ihi putol titi".

Anybody wanna guess what these writings might mean?

Khmer Nightlife

It's a public holiday in Cambodia and the streets of Phnom Penh are jammed with locals going out and about:



The number of motorbikes here reminds me of Plaza Burgos in Vigan on a weekend night. Phnom Penh is just like Iloilo or Bacolod City - pretty laid back - except that the expat community here is quite large. In fact, the sheer variety of restaurants here is staggering. After seeing the killing fields, the S-21 prison and the Royal Palace, the next best thing to do here would be to eat and drink. .

The occasion last Monday was the coronation anniversary day of King Norodom Sihamoni:

Assignment: Phnom Penh

Thirty years ago, this would have conjured images of dusty war zones and killing fields, AK-47's and the Khmer Rouge.

Prison cells at the Toul Sleng Genocide Museum, Phnom Penh


Part of a journalist's time here might also be spent hanging out in a place like the Foreign Correspondents'Club (the FCC for short - and it's not the image posted above!). Though the current FCC along Sisowath Road only dates back to the UNTAC days in the early 90's, it isn't hard to imagine that its cream-colored walls oozing with colonial nostalgia dates back to the war years. Back in my hobbyist days, I would dream of hanging out in a place like this after a hard day of shooting, my cameras stowed nearby while having beers with fellow photographers.

Last Saturday I did just that. But the adventure feeling wasn't complete, though, because I wasn't photographing soldiers.

I was photographing fashion designers.



Romyda Keth, designer of the Khmer label Ambre.

But hey, this is a good thing for Cambodia. If a photographer still has to go here to cover war, a decade after order was supposedly established, this would mean that there hasn't been much improvement since then.

The Thin Red Line

There's a thin line between brave and fucking stupid:



And I think I crossed it the other day in Cambodia:



My guide said it was perfectly safe. But maybe - just maybe - if there was a stray mine down there and I happened to step on it... I don't want people to say I blew my leg off for a photo-op. Man that was stupid.

But thankfully for me and that cow, there were no mines and we walked out with our body parts intact.

And now I have a fucking stupid photo that I'll tell my grandkids about. Hahahaha!!!