NOT real happy 'bout the camera!

The last time I travelled overseas on a journey like this I carried a bag full of Nikon gear - a 35mm SLR and three lenses. A proper tripod, not one of those compact, lightweight jobs that tremble in a stiff breeze. 40 rolls of film. Polarizing filters for the lenses. Batteries. Cleaning equipment. Did I say it was a large bag? It was also hard work, because it all had to be carried around at an average altitude of 4000m.

I was shooting transparencies (slides) and when I got home the cost of processing the films and scanning the images to high resolution CDs cost more than my return flight to Kathmandu.

I used to hump all that gear around the coastal trails near my old hometown of Margaret River in Western Australia too. Hard work when it was hot. Left me unable to contribute to carrying camping gear. Drove my fellow hikers or family insane when I'd stop for a shot and decide I had to change lenses or film first. It takes a while to set up for some shots too, so when I was tired or being waited for I'd pass up good opportunities because I knew if I didn't spend the time I'd just be wasting film.

Then came digital.

Lao Lao and Chicken

We're seated around the cooking fire in the headman's house at Tiger Trouble Village. The flames are kept low to avoid igniting the eminently combustible ceiling and the circle of light and warmth is small. The evening meal is almost finished. The men around the fire pick the last of the bamboo shoots from the soup and reach into one of the finely woven baskets near their feet to squeeze one more handful of sticky rice to dip in the remaining liquid.

The headman leans out of the light toward a smoke-stained rough-hewn cupboard that's barely visible in the inky shadows of the room's corner. Kong pushes the plate of chicken in my direction and indicates that the feet are great. While I'm smiling my disinclination, Mung reaches across to grab the proffered foot and crunches it with relish. Kong is consoled with the late chicken's head and when he's nibbled it clean, says "You ever play chicken head, Duk?"

Buen Tai, Phongsali Province, Laos

          The new highway through town           Water Buffalo being led down the new main street           Schoolkids crowd Kong, Amber and the camera           Low morning cloud caps the forest above the new road           A woman washes clothes in the river by the generator dam           Rice barns above a hot spring mineral salt farm           A newly prepared catchment for evaporating mineral water to make salt           Mung watches on as Tan checks his latest picture msgs           Satellite dish in traditional village on outskirts of Buen Tai           Buen Tai village landscape The new highway through town

The forested ridge to the west of town is clawing the morning's low cloud deck to tatters, creating pallid shreds of mist that drift among the trees like wraiths. The mist's slow crawl across the ridge mirrors that of the stately pace of two water buffalo being led up the road before us. The buffalo and the man they follow are moving against the flow of almost everything else on the road and the luminous condensation of bovine breath contrasts starkly with the black exhalations of the mechanical earth movers lumbering in the opposite direction. The scene is an apt metaphor for the transformation underway in these remote mountains.

10 things I'm so glad I have in my pack!

Because everybody loves a list...