Morning markets in Asia are a jumble of surprises – people and products rubbing shoulders in unexpected combinations. The morning market in Attapeu, southeastern Laos is a great example: a treasure trove where the nails are next to the make-up and crayons; where you can buy live catfish or invest in the nets to catch your own; where the weak fluorescent lamps can neither illuminate the dark interior corridors nor compete with the brightly angled early sunshine outdoors.
Who said money doesn't grow on trees? These money trees are to offer the local Buddhist temple.
I love morning markets – except for the fact that they are so very early in the morning! I am really not a morning person… but the morning markets in Attapeu, southeastern Laos, start early – very early. By the time I was up and out at 5:30am, this small frontier town at the confluence of the Xe Kong and Xe Kaman rivers was already coming to life. Crossing the rivers on precarious little ferries that look like grass huts on pontoons, vendors and buyers from outlying areas were already arriving in town with their motorcycles, their shopping baskets and their trussed pigs and chickens. Shop keepers with permanent places at the outer edges of the large shelter that comprises part of the market were rolling up their metal doors and organising displays of hanging baskets, clothing and fishing nets.
Coming into Attapeu
Heading from the Ferry to Market
Morning has Broken: Motorcycle coming into Attapeu
As much as I love markets, I do find them challenging – both personally and photographically. I’m not petite, and once I have my ThinkTank around my waist and a camera or two around my neck, I take up a lot of room! Under-cover markets can be dark and crowded, with narrow aisles and a lot of people. They are wet underfoot in places, with boxes, uneven surfaces and other obstructions in others. When it comes to taking pictures, I have difficulty with the low light and high contrasts; as well with the tight spaces. Sometimes, sights and smells can be confronting.
Local Butcher
Food is central to the markets: raw, cooked or still wriggling – everything is right here!
Kitchen Fires
Chicken Little
Portable Take-Away "Food on a Stick" is Everywhere!
Making Banana Fritters for Breakfast
Banana Fritters: Delicious!
Catfish Wriggling
Buffalo Hide for Jerky?
The best part of local markets for me is the insight it gives me into people’s lives, and the opportunity to interact with ‘true’ locals. Laos must be one of the most ethnically diverse countries in the region: Attapeu province alone, with it’s meagre population of 114,000, is home to fifteen ethnic groups, and the local market plays host to many of these. Although there are numerous local languages, most people speak Lao, and between their Lao and my Thai, I can generally have small conversations. The people were engaging, willing to chat and mostly happy to be photographed.
Lao Smiles
Chiildren of Vendors Have to Make Fun Where they Can Find It!
Lao Woman Selling Clothes from Thailand
Local Lao Silk Weaves
Lawee Child
Lao Man
Not Everyone is Happy to be at the Market!
If You Have no Customers, Use the Products Yourself!
Markets can give you a real sense of what is important in people’s lives. My travel companions were in search of woven baskets and silks; the two products that most got my attention were fishing supplies (river fishing is critical to livelihood here) and lumps of white stuff, which I finally worked out were brewers yeast, for making the ubiquitous rice wine!
Wicker and Broom on Main Street, Attapeu
Tiny Metal Weights hang like Tear Drops on the New Nylon Fishnets
Brewers Yeast by the Bag Full - For Rice Wine by the Bucket-Full!
Meat and Fish: Waiting for Customers... (The red face on the woman at the left is a relatively common local condition. We were told it is the consequence of the excessive use of skin-whitening products.)
Mattresses and Motor Oil For Sale in the French Colonial Shop-Houses
Heading to the Ferry With a Supply of Aluminium Pots: Heading Home, or to the Next Market?
Great interesting report again, nice reportage style of photographs developing too 🙂
Are you sponsored by Thinktank? (lol joking) I use Thinktank stuff too and absolutely love their solutions for travel/street work.
Funny about the language thing, you seem to agree with my findings; that if you are able to speak a reasonable degree of Thai, combined with some words and phrases in Lao/Isaan you pretty much have no problem communicating.
The Colours of the Wind Welcome Visitors to the Jim Thompson Farm
Some people are larger than life. James Harrison Wilson Thompson, more commonly know as Jim, or even ‘Lord Jim’, is one such person. He is, amongst other things, credited with single-handedly revitalizing the commercial Thai silk trade. An Office of Strategic Services (OSS; precursor to the CIA) operative during the second World War, he resettled in Thailand where he was involved in a number of artistic and business ventures. At the time, Thai silk was produced in the countryside for local consumption, and was dying out because of cheap synthetic and cotton clothing imports from China. Thompson saw a potential niche, and with his natural flair for style and colour created designs which he promoted to high-end over-seas markets, gaining international recognition for his success and for the product.“Simply put, the name Jim Thompson is Thai silk, and the man has become one of the most famous foreigners to have ever lived in Thailand if not the whole of Southeast Asia.”
Then, on Easter Day 1967, at the age of 61, he took a walk in the Cameron Highlands, Malaysia, and was never seen again. Theories explaining his disappearance abound, but none has any reasonable evidence to support it, and no trace of him was ever found. He did, however, leave a legacy as rich and colourful as his life. The house he rebuilt in Bangkok from multiple traditional Thai teak homes and filled with precious artefacts from all over Asia, is registered as a national museum and is well worth a visit. This, together with some of his other properties, is now operated by a foundation in his name. Under Royal patronage, the James H. W. Thompson Foundation is dedicated to supporting Thai arts and artists; and the preservation and conservation of Thailand’s rich cultural heritage, especially with regards to textiles. A company bearing his name grows, cooks and serves organic produce and still manufactures, markets and sells high-quality silk products.
One of the properties, the Jim Thompson Farm, is open to the public just three weeks a year, over the December-January holiday. Art installations are on display across the farm: the work of eleven invited artists-in-residence who have studied the farm, the nearby silk factory, and the surrounding Isaan community.
Art on the Farm
Art on the Farm: Artists in Residence Interpret the Farm and Nearby Silk Factory
Art on the Farm: Bales and Pumpkin
Art on the Farm: Pumpkin
Nature's Art: Cosmos Field
Nature's Art: Rice on it's Element
Patterns: Rice on the Farm
Art on the Farm: Altar To the Rice Goddess, Mae Phosop (แม่โพสพ)
Silk Bobbins at 'The Market'
Isaan Musicians with Traditional Instruments
Local Flowers in Sun Hats
Rice Threshing
Smiling Isaan Rice Farmer
Making a Pot Without a Wheel Means Walking Around the Pot!
Elderly, but Still Spry! The Potter
Young Farmer
Miniature Pumpkins for Sale
Photo Op Amongst the Pumpkins
Chilies of Another Colour
Immature Sunflower
Say Good-Bye to the Farm ~ For Another Year...
Art and nature: a winning combination for a great day out. We enjoyed the sun and the silk and the colour… Still, I couldn’t help but wonder about Jim… It’s been over 40 years now since his disappearance and the legacy and legend are as big as ever. We may never know what happened that day, but we are unlikely to forget him.
Wonderful post and photos. You’re absolutely right – the colors are amazing and you captured them perfectly. Looking at your pictures, I can definitely see that you enjoyed the day at the farm. Well done, Ursula! 🙂 Cheers!ReplyCancel
Ursula -June 11, 2011 - 11:55 am
Hi Paula,
Welcome back to ‘civilisation’. Glad you like the post!
I’m still looking to get together for a night shoot – I’ll sms you. 🙂ReplyCancel
The other week, someone tried to explain to me how time goes backwards…. (I sometimes lunch with Mathematicians, so this kind of theoretical abstraction is a regular topic at the table.) I confess: I really didn’t get it. As I get older, I swear that time is going faster and I have enough trouble trying to pause it or slow it down!
So, if I don’t understand how time can go backwards, why should I expect that I can travel back through it? If there is one thing I’ve learned living in Thailand, it is that having anything resembling an ‘expectation’ is just asking the universe to throw things at you.
But, none the less, a couple of weeks ago, I thought I could go back in time, and that nothing would have changed. In mid-2009, I took part in a very rushed trip to one of the very edges of Thailand: the exotically named but rather ordinary Three Pagodas Pass, Vajiralongkorn Lake (Khao Laem reservoir), and the remote Ban Wangka, the Mon village across the river from Sangkhlaburi. I’ve always wanted to go back. Sangkhlaburi is an enchanting small town of typical Thai houses and wats (temples) mixed in with guesthouses and back-packer lodging; it is the last stop before Myanmar. It is, however, a very long drive from Bangkok, so you need time (there is that nebulous concept again) and a good reason to go there.
Built in 1993, the longest wooden bridge (400m) in Thailand separates a Mon village from the rest of Sangkhlaburi. (2009)
On the break between Christmas and New Year’s, I thought we had both: time and good reason. We had family visiting from both Canada and Australia, so a visit to the Allied war memorials at Kanchanaburi (more about that some other time) and beyond, seemed like a good idea. I had failed to take “time” into account: the time it takes on winding Thai roads to drive the 200 km from Sai Yok to Sangkhlaburi, and the time that had passed since my last visit.
Change, even change for the better, is considered a stressor. Expectations, realistic or otherwise, can blind one to ‘what is’. So it was, when I arrived in Sangkhlaburi, with (again) too little time, only to discover that they were in the process of renovating THAT bridge, that I almost lost sight of what is still there.
What is still there is a traditional community of Mon people, displaced from Myanmar (not to be confused with Hmong, from China). The community of Ban-Wangka was first established by the Theravada Buddhist monk Reverend Uttama, who escaped to Thailand from Burmese persecution in 1949, after the Second World War. Although he died in 2006, his practices live on. Every morning at 6:00 am the monks from his temple (Wat Wangwiwekaram – วัดวังก์วิเวการาม) do their morning rounds, and the people of the village line up to give alms.
Morning on the New Wooden Bridge (2010)
Monk Offerings: Then (2009)
Monk Offerings: Now (2010)
Slip off your Shoes and Bow your Head: Here Come the Monks!
Who Knew they Could Move so Fast! Here Come the Monks! (2009)
Patiently Waiting
Offerings Ready (2009)
Temple Offerings (2009)
Giving (2009) and Receiving (2010)
Daily Serving of Rice
Giving Alms (Sai Baht ~ ใส่บาตร) is a Solemn Affair without Eye Contact
Monk Receiving Alms (2009)
Monk Receiving Alms ~ Now
Some Things Don't Change! Little Nehn (เณร) ~ Then and Now
By 7:00am the gong sounds, setting all the dogs howling pitifully, and the food is dished up for all the monks in the temple. The rest of the villagers go back to their daily routines...
Monks Heading Home
Little Angel with Flower Offerings
Quiet Afternoon: The Mon Houses of Baan Wangka
Boys on the Bridge: What does the Future Hold?
While theoretical time might reverse, here on planet earth you can never quite go back. For better or worse, things change, times change, we change. I looked at the young men sitting on the bridge and wondered what time would hold for them. How would they bridge the transition from a simple traditional past and the future?
I guess only time will tell, but I can’t help but hope that somehow these people will determine a positive future for themselves, harmoniously incorporating the values of the past. Certainly, time will not stand still.
Just lovely Ursula, nice touch with the before and after photo’s. Time moves so quickly I have to agree… January is half gone, where is the new year going…
love to you bothReplyCancel
The Chao Phraya River (แม่น้ำเจ้าพระยา), which collects the Nan and Ping Rivers in Central Thailand and runs 372 kilometres south to empty into the Gulf of Thailand, is the life-blood of the City of Angels. When Bangkok was established as the Capital of Thailand in 1782, most activity was conducted along the Chao Phraya River and the network of canals that intersected the city. Many of these canals are still in use as transportation routes today, and warehouses and shophouses (which seem old enough to date from those early times!) often open onto the canals or the river rather than the streets. Day or night, there is no better way to see the life of the city than by boat.
I love being on the river. The regular ferry system joins neatly with our SkyTrain and provides convenient, fast and cheap access to points all along the river. Tourists can explore the klongs (canals) or travel up- or down-river by basic long-tail boat or fancy tour boat. Dinner cruises, whether on large ships or converted wooden rice barges, are a great way to enjoy the night lights of the city.
So, there could be no better way to ring in the New Year than by cruising in style on the “River of Kings” – where ancient shophouses rub shoulders with modern executive apartments; where modest boat piers and markets vie for space amongst the high-rise hotels and luxury shopping centres; where the gridlocked traffic is kept at bay, at an elegant distance, on one of the many bridges spanning the water.
The Elegance of the Dance
Chinese Temple Lights
Wat Arun ~ Temple of the Dawn ~ Magnificent by Night
The Grand Palace: Built in 1782, During the Reign of King Rama I
The Rama VIII is my Favourite Bridge
Rama VIII Cable-Stay Pattern
Rama VIII Lights and Strings
Chao Phraya Night Life
Rice-Barge with Faerie-Lights
Fireworks on the Chao Phraya
So Close we can Touch Them!
An Impressive DIsplay
"Bangkok We Love You" ~ Happy New Year ~ สวัสดีปีใหม่
Strictly speaking, “Chao Phraya” means “Noble General of High Rank”, but the river has been dubbed the “River of Kings”, and that has a much better ring to it! Certainly, it is a river fit for kings and all the Kings of the current Chakri dynasty have made extensive use of it, often via the ceremonial Royal Barges. Our somewhat more mundane transport was still a great place to launch 2011.
The New Year’s period is a time of celebration around the world. Although Songkran in April is the ‘traditional’ New Year in Thailand and is still celebrated in its own inimitable fashion, the transition from December 31st to January 1st is formally recognised as the start of the new year and is cause for parties, fireworks and gift-giving.
For me, New Year’s is usually a time of quiet contemplation; the time when I reflect on the past year, trying to use the lessons from it to build a plan for the year ahead – like the lotus, rooted in the mud and reaching for the heavens.
- Performing the Ganga Aarti from Dasaswamedh Ghat, Varanasi
- Buddha Head from Shwedagon Pagoda, Myanmar
- Harry Clarke Window from Dingle, Ireland
- Novice Monk Shwe Yan Pyay Monastery, Myanmar
Packets of 10 for $AU50.
Or - pick any photo from my Flickr or Wanders blog photos.
Great interesting report again, nice reportage style of photographs developing too 🙂
Are you sponsored by Thinktank? (lol joking) I use Thinktank stuff too and absolutely love their solutions for travel/street work.
Funny about the language thing, you seem to agree with my findings; that if you are able to speak a reasonable degree of Thai, combined with some words and phrases in Lao/Isaan you pretty much have no problem communicating.
Cheers,
Guava
Hi Guava!
Glad you like the post and pictures. No, ThinkTank don’t pay me, but I do love’em enough to advertise. 🙂
I like the diversity of photos and theme xxx
Fabulous insight into the local communities Ursula… love to you both.
Thanks for visiting and commenting, Signe. I hope it’s getting drier where you are!
Fantastic photos Ursula! Loved the commentary too- started with a bang haha, and very crisp and informative!
Thanks for sending the link
D
Thanks for stopping in, Debbie. I’d love to be able to use humour like you do. 🙂
[…] particular trip, to Attapeu and to the Lawae and Taliang villages in the region, was rich with cultural experiences. But, I […]