One of the fun subjects of travel photos is taking shots of kids. Children everywhere are ingenuous and innocent, and don’t seem to mind when some strange, old foreigner sticks a camera in their face. Most of the time, I’ve found, they like to ham it up for the lens. As usual when visiting Nai and his family in Laos, I had plenty of opportunities to take some shots of all the kids in the family area–sons and daughters of Nai’s brothers and sisters, cousins, nieces and nephews, as well as assorted neighborhood children.
While I was there, a couple of the families had birthday parties for their young daughters. Some of the photos, then, are from the parties.
Here, everyone’s getting ready for one of the parties, blowing up the balloons, preparing some of the food, with the bamboo baskets filled with sticky rice.
Laos Birthday Party
Earlier, the wife of Won (Wahn), one of Nai’s brothers, prepared the sticky rice. Sticky rice is eaten with your hands, generally out of a bamboo basket, and can be dipped into a hot (spicy) sauce, or can be used to grab a handful of really hot papaya salad.
Preparing the Sticky Rice
Some of the kids chowed down on a few appetizers.
Chowing Down on a Few Appetizers
So, what exactly are they eating? Deep fried chicken feet, of course. (Never tried ’em myself)
Deep Fried Chicken Feet
Here’s one of the birthday girls, Took, who was 8 year old, if I’m not mistaken. Notice the money wrapped around her wrists with string–birthday gifts from the people attending the party. Most of it will probably go to her parents, to help with the party expenses, but she’ll get some of it, I’m sure.
Birthday Girl, Took
Here’s Nai with his brother Guay’s (Gway) daughter.
Nai with baby
Here’s a few shots of one of Won’s kids, just a cute, adorable little guy. I’d guess he’s about 4.
Cute Guy
Cute Young Guy
Hey, let’s see what those shades look like on you. Cool!
Cool Kid
And a few more shots. Looks like somebody got banged up. Guay’s daughter with Nui, one of Nai’s sisters.
Banged Up
Nap time?
Nap Time
And finally, here’s Kim, never camera shy, the son of Nai’s sister Lot.
Kim
I’ll try to get the final photos of my trip posted soon, so, as always, more later.