Late-Afternoon Walk Along the River 🇱🇦 Exploring Laotian Small Town

I told myself, okay, David, go and quickly take images of those boats made of American airplanes, and, then, return to the hotel, if you have this homebody mood. And I started climbing down the bridge slope, barefoot (for better grip), with flip-flops in my hand:

There was a pathway through a village down the bridge but I had no mood to meet local dogs.

Missed an opportunity to photograph a cute big snake, when I started the climbing down, got upset for a second but being close to nature healed this soon.

Can you see a cone in the center bottom? That's not a mushroom but a tiny lady herding cows. It was funny how long she couldn't realize a farang (me) was that near. 🙂 I was sneaking around - I didn't want to be noticed, and found a strange pleasure in that.

The whole riverbank was empty except for the mushroom lady with the cows and a couple of tiny fisherwomen not larger than a German shepherd each.

Alas, Lao ladies are usually unwilling to be photographed, and I could see no reason why I should have disturbed these lovely people who were peacefully enjoying the tranquility of the late afternoon at the Banghiang River, Xepon Town, Laos.

This type of boats are made of parts of American aircrafts... Since I had described the whole thing in a detailed report on Hive, I wanted to find something else there, like, local people, but the riverbank was empty. I turned to go back to the hotel when I heard someone calling: "You!"

With gestures, I asked if they wanted to be photographed, and got a positive answer. (Of course, they wanted, why else they shouted "You!")

I had no idea what was happening but more people arrived soon:

As usual, a farang with a large camera made a big impression on kids. 🙂

Non-Asian foreigners from faraway countries are rare in Xepon Town; one or two per week stay a night at a hotel but few of them go to meet locals. Considering this and the fact we all look like characters from American movies 😄, no surprise people are interested in us.

(I have the same feeling when I see a Korean: "Jeez, that curly Asian dude looks right like the guy from the series" 😄).

What characters, how lucky I was that day!

I got a clue that it was the school rowing section - more and more children were arriving with oars.

The kids began to scoop water out of the canoe and moved it closer to the pier area.

Lao boys love posing for the camera, and there is a challenge in that for photography: as soon as you point the camera at them, they start posing with thumbs-up or get shy and stop being natural or even leave the scene.

So it's a psychological game to not show an interest to them and then carefully quickly photograph them without being too pushy.

That boat was quite long so I switched from f/4 to f/8 to get all kids sharp in images, and raise to ISO 1600 to compensate for the lack of light.

I spotted this nicely sitting gang but didn't know how to sneak a pic, and eventually asked consent.

(Of course, yes.)

Fun how the shaved boy was scanning me with his eyes. He kept sternly watching me even when I ended photographing them so I got embarrassed.

But eventually he decided to like me and even jumped into the water

following other children who were showcasing their best skills to everyone and particularly to the farang (me).

I was getting more and more popular since everyone realized I am simple to deal with. These otters wanted a group shot in the water (why not?):

Soon, I understood that that was not a school rowing section but rather an adult club:

Probably, some tradition to unite best families of the town into one rowing team?

Have no idea. 😃

I was getting less happy, meanwhile, since the sun was leaving the scene. So I documented the departure of the boat and myself headed back to the bridge.

On my way, I came across a group of four kids, and asked if I could photograph them:

One of them left the scene and another started uncontrollably laughing and preferred to leave too. The bravest boys are in the image above. 😃

I returned to the bridge. Returning was easier - you don't need to climp, just walk barefoot along the bridge slope.

When I myself was a kid in Soviet Georgia, I dreamed to establish my own public botanical garden. Looking at this scenery, I can say it seems my dream came true although without planting a single tree. Good, why not.

More stories from Southeast Asia are ahead! Check out my previous posts on my personal Travelfeed or Worldmappin map.

I took these images with a Nikkor 50mm on a full-frame DSLR Nikon D750 on August 30, 2024, in Xepon (Sepon), Laos.