Taking a walk through the various monasteries and ancient temples in luang Prabang offers an up close and personal opportunity for talking with the numerous young buddhist monks dotted around and for snapping some intimate portraits. It's a wonderful feeling to turn a corner or exit an otherwise deserted part of the a temples grounds and to find several monks, dressed in their orange robes simply going about their daily activities; it feels for just that moment you've walked into a completely different world and one that I personally love to photograph.
These large wooden huts provide housing for the young monks and are located within the grounds of their respective temples' grounds.
This particular temple was located five minutes from the old town in Luang Prabang; I had arrived at lunchtime and was lucky to just catch the monks moving back inside.
In recent years, with the backing of UNESCO, some of the Monk's quarters in a few temples have been restored as classrooms with the aim of providing training for monks in the skills need to ensure the ongoing preservation of the temples; woodcarving, painting and buddha casting are all skills in high demand in order to bring the temples back to their full glory.
Each younk monk that I met at the temples that I visited had a basic but sufficent command of English ; "Where are you from"..."how long have you been in Luang Prabang";all asked with genuine interest and heart felt sincerity. Entry into the monastery schools begins at 13 and finishes at 19yrs. These particular young monks seemed very content and smiled with openess and ease between the group and with myself. I retired the camera for a few minutes and tried to lend a helping hand with some DIY; the monks were busy crafting new handles from wood for the various machetes lying around. Their attention was drawn to the subject of football and henceforth two of the group began building a makeshift football from the long streaks of bamboo leaf lying around.
Luang Prabang is encased on two sides by the Mekong River to the West, which meets up with the Nam Khan river running up and down the eastern banks of the city. I decided to take a short but neverthless exhilarating boat trip across the Mekong to the banks on the other side; from there I could spend a few hours in the local village whilst making my way up the hill towards the Buddhist temple I had seen shining so brightly the previous evening.
The river banks were busy with women working, toiling with vegetable allotments and scrubbing clothes bundles of various sizes in the silty water. Children too were everywhere, playing in the sand and generally running amok. As I approached the village I was greeted by children running and laughing as they competed for my donations for their flower bundles.
The children of Luang Prabang.
The children of Luang Prabang.
It's a race to reach the new arrival first with your carefully prepared bundle of flowers, taken as an offering to the Buddha at the tope of the hill.
I stumbled across an old temple just up from where I landed on the river bank;this old monk seemed to be passing the day at the window sill and seemed wholly content. This image speaks of history, wisdom and humility.
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