Butter Tea

Getting ready to distribute butter tea; at a festival in Jambay Lakhang, Jakar, Bhutan.

Bhutan is very welcoming to the visitor. At this busy local religious festival (with just a minor sprinkling of tourists) I was offered some butter tea and chili rice, just like all pilgrims and locals that were there for religious reasons.

I must admit that the butter tea can be an acquired taste. This one was - very pungent, creamy, and salty. The chili rice is just that: white rice spiced up with some chili, served in your bare hand.

Making Tarmac

Manual Roadwork, near Mongar, Bhutan.

These guys are making tarmac by mixing hot molten asphalt with grit. All day long. Roadwork is quite hard, slow, manual work in those quarters. But quite photogenic too...

To get this, I moved around them go get the smoke to be backlit by the sun. Then it was a matter of waiting until the smoke, their bodies and the shovels created a nice composition - I wanted those diagonals.

Monk in Punakha Dzong

This is in a 1000 Buddhas temple in the monastery that is part of Punakha Dzong, Punakha, Bhutan. The photo-gods were with me that afternoon.

I was walking down a corridor soaking up the atmosphere and gorgeous architecture of the Dzong (a fortress, combining a monastery and government quarters) when I heard 'come' out of a room I passed. This monk was waiting for me there. I put my camera down and had him explain me how to pay my respects to the Buddha. He explained a bit about the room and the 1000 buddhas. I was just beginning to wonder how to bring up the subject of a picture - always a bit difficult when it comes to religion - when he pointed to my camera, still sitting on the floor, and simply said - 'camera'. I snapped this portrait.

One that should not have been, as ISO 800 was not good enough: 1/5th of a second is a tad slow at 127mm... But as said, the photo gods were with me. Good karma. It's not critically sharp but I doubt you'll notice on the web. Love this shot anyway.

(I took two more almost identical shots, seconds later, at more reasonable shutter speeds, but you can see his smile slowly drop. Expression over perfection, for me.)

When I was about to say my goodbye to him, he referred to me as father. A touching end to a brief meeting I will remember for a long time.

All lined up

Rangjung Woesel Choeling Monastery, East Bhutan.

I had taken a shot of this group before, reflected in this same flooded courtyard. I'd even shown them the shot (to little reaction). But when I saw them coming along the wall, next to the water, I dashed like a madman to get the water between them and me. I guess you can see why. One of my favourite shots from the trip.
(About 50ft behind me, Mark Stennett was doing the same, but the extra distance gave him a cleaner shot: head-on, and all six of them evenly spaced. Ah well:-)