The first thing I saw when arriving in the mountain village were kids sliding down the icy road on their hand made sleds. The sleds consisted of wooden boards with a little bit of padding on top and metal strips on both bottom rails to enhance the sledding experience! Witnessing this instantly brought me back to the many Christmas seasons of sledding at the park with my brother, cousins and grandpa. While reminiscing on my sledding days that included frozen extremities, laughter and hilarious wipeouts we came to a stop where I immediately got the camera out to take photos of the joyful scene. Following this, I grabbed a portrait of one of the boys who had a great expression and seemed confident enough to let a foreigner make an image of him.

     To say the least, it was a great start to my photography on the trip. We then met up with the local we had connections with and proceeded to go into his home to drink tea. I sat oblivious to what was being discussed but took photos of our driver, our hosts, and my co-worker who were talking passionately on an unknown topic. It was intriguing seeing the carpets on the walls of each room in the home. I couldn’t help but wonder who made them, how old they were, what they’ve seen, are they special, do they have meanings?  The one thing I did know about them was that they made great photo backdrops! Since they seemed to be a staple decoration I used one of them for the portrait of the mother and daughter in the home we stayed at for the night.

     The last two images are of our driver right before we were about to go our separate ways. Once we arrived back to the town where the bus would bring us back to the capital he took us into an authentic teahouse. When I say authentic I really mean filled with cigarette smoke, men playing a dice game, stove in the middle heating tea, and overall pretty grungy but it provided the perfect environment to make my favorite portrait on the trip.

     I look forward to sharing many more stories with you this year and hope you like the post enough to share it with friends!