Put The Horse Before the Cart

Streets of Casablanca

The Breadseller of the Medina

The Ladder Seller

Neighbourhood Chat

The Atlantic Coast

A man walks with his bike past couples looking out into the horizon.

Woman On Train

Movie Night

Faded Seaside Glamour

'twas a good day at the beach indeed.

I Envy You Your Slumber

An insomniac's dream is sleep....

Breaking Waves

I like bringing my Smena 8 around on clear sunny days. Alex is somewhere in this photo breaking waves and outsplashing the rest. Yey!

Oh Deer Me

.... look! I think I made a new friend!...

Weights and Measures

It was still pretty early in the day when I got up for a walk, but this rural grandmother and a granddaughter had apparently sold all their wares even by 7am. I haven't seen those kinds of weights and measures since chemistry lab.

I call him the niffy old uncle. He always seemed happy to see me and chat with me even though the language barrier seemed insurmountable save through a friendly smile and endless cups of tea.

Chasing Shadows in Nepal..

"Afoot and light-hearted I take to the open road, Healthy, free, the world before me,
The long brown path before me leading wherever I choose." -- Walt Whitman, Song of The Open Road

On most mornings, these children would be just outside their house playing
or helping in the garden. We'd never fail to greet each other
"Namaste" before going off for the day's adventures.

Kirtipur is a sleepy old town that has a wonderful sense of faded
grandeur thanks to its myriad of medieval temples and houses found in its backstreets.
One can get easily yet comfortably lost here but there's absolutely no reason to be scared
because this place just opens you to a world where people are
just as curious of you as you are of them.

I chanced upon this lovely wise woman in one of Kirtipur's streets. She was kind enough to honor me by taking a picture of her. We hardly ever understood each other but I learned that a smile is powerful and universal language that makes strangers out of no one.

Thamel could easily be the busiest most touristy place in the whole of Kathmandu. Despite this, I found this quiet street that has practically none of the bustle. There are pockets of magic everywhere. You just have to learn how to look.

Outside Pashupatinath, Nepals' most important Hindu pilgrimage site, stores sell beads and tika powders in rainbow colors.

Inside the Pashupatinath complex, open air cremation ghats line the Bagmati River, Nepal's holiest river. The importance of the Bagmati also lies in the fact that Hindus are cremated on its banks.

Durbar Square remains the heart of Kathmandu where the city's kings were once crowned.

Little girl selling flowers as offerings to the gods in Durbar Square. It was really sweet and cute how she flashed me the peace sign. 

This scene is very typical in all of Nepal's streets and towns. I should think that both men and women could carry the same load, be it crops, bricks, cement, or what have you. They carry almost anything in these deceptively strong baskets which are hitched by a belt on a person's forehead for balance.

Patan

Girl of Patan. What I liked about this picture is that this happened right in the middle of one of Patan's busy open spaces between sacred tomes. She was completely surrounded by people but she seemed independent of them and seemingly like a universe upon herself.

The Nepal-Tibet border. I remember hiking up one of the mountains and stopping by to look at the view I've just passed. It was breathtaking and stunning and it's certainly a life-affirming moment. I knew then that I've crossed an invisible boundary within myself. 

There's a village up in the mountains near the Tibet border where people would welcome you into their yards to rest for a bit. This woman probably knew I liked animals and invited me to play with her baby goat.

Bodhnath is one of Nepal's important Buddhist pilgrimage sites. When visiting this massive stupa, one has to go around it in a counter clockwise manner. In doing otherwise would be considered sacrilegious.

Girl riding bicycle in the Central Terai region. India would be a few hours bus ride away.

Sauraha, Central Terai region. One can visit small Tharu villages in this area. Their houses, while quite functional, are rather environmentally friendly too -- the walls are made entirely out of elephant dung.

The Rapti River in Chitwan can both be a shower play pool for elephants or
a place where you can do your laundry.

The Himalayas.

A Feast Of Strangers

I was cleaning up my files to free up some space on my hard drive and found some pictures I took of people I met along the way.

Such friendly strangers. 

I love how the world is full of them. And how the power of a smile make people into friends.

I met Rebeca in Kalinga-Apayao. She was so very gracious and so beautiful. The tribes in the Cordilleras are wary of strangers but she let me take a picture of her to remember her by. The necklace she is wearing in this photo belonged to her ancestors. Each bead would make it priceless beyond imagination.

This little girl I met in Vigan in a burnay-making factory. She took my hand and showed me around her family's estate where up till now the centuries-old tradition of burnay is kept alive. 

I met Karolina on jeep stop in Sagada going to Bontoc. She  and I had the same route and we ganged up till Banaue. While there, she found out her Chinese VISA got cancelled and she had to spend an extra day in Manila. So we ended up trekking back to the city and this is a picture of her on her send-off in Malate. 

During the Holy Week, residents of the older part of Makati celebrate the Holy Week by parading different statues of saints and Jesus. These men who carried this statue of Jesus crowned with thorns for at least 2 miles barefoot gamely posed for me for a respite. 

Girl from Krispy Kreme

Oh how perceptive. I asked this tour guide in Ha Long to pose next to the sign. Funny thing was, I don't think he got my joke. 

Maria and Andy were some random people I met up with on a Valentine night in Siem Reap. Along with other Couchsurfers, I still kept in touch with them, each of us promising a couch and a friend if anyone visits one another's countries.