All Photographs © Peter Whittlesey
In iWeb photo captions are very limited, but if you read my blog about Ban Phu Leuy (which is in progress as of 4/16/07) then you’ll have a better understanding of how all these photos connect to tell the story of Ban Phu Leuy. Because I selected 162 photos for the gallery, and because iWeb will only allow a maximum of 99 photos in a gallery, then I’ve divided the gallery into two galleries. The photos in these two galleries were taken over a period of about three years when I visited Ban Phu Leuy three times. Two times we drove up to the village of Ban Huey Ot, which is about a three hour journey from Luang Prabang, and two hours on a very crude dirt road. One time I hiked up to Ban Phu Leuy from a Lue village on the Nam Ou River. That was an amazing hike, across country and up, up, up. And along the way I had to stop numerous times to take off the leeches that were attaching themselves to my ankles (I wore Tevas). Even then, when we arrived up in the village my ankles were a bloody mess with the fattest leeches you ever did see hiding beneath straps on my sandals. But...what’s a little blood?
In this first gallery I begin with our journey up to Ban Phu Leuy as we turned off onto the dirt road that leads up to Ban Phu Leuy.
Along the way we saw women and men on the road such as the women whose photos I included in the gallery carrying heavy loads of wood. There are then photos of the village of Ban Heuy Ot where we had to park our truck/taxi and begin our hike up the mountain to Ban Phu Leuy (Phu means mountain, so the village is on Leuy Mountain). There are photos of Mai’s uncle’s house where her grandma lived and then shots inside the house that include Mai’s grandma cleaning up the wooden platform where I slept whenever I visited the village. There are photos of when Mai’s grandma had to go down to the creek to get water for the house and then hike back up, all the time accompanied by her good friend. There are photos of Mai’s grandma with her similarly elderly friends. They were so close and when I visited the village after Mai’s grandma died you could tell they missed her terribly. There are photos of different views of the village and then photos of Mai’s uncle’s son cleaning the altar in preparation for the New Year. And then there are photos of the pounding of steamed sticky rice to make sticky rice pancakes, a New Year’s treat and then photos of preparation for passing under the New Year’s “tree” as a way of receiving special blessings for the beginning of the new year.
Please, there really isn’t much detailed information about Hmong New Year’s traditions and if anyone thinks there is something I should add to my descriptions please email me.
Peter at peterlaos@hotmail.com
Enjoy all my pictures without the work!
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