Since joining the Eyes of Hawaii photography club in Honolulu, several people were asking me about what it was like to live in Ecuador. Being a photography club, I decided the best way to explain it was by creating a slide show / video for them.
In looking over our photographic resources from our living there for 8 years, it became clear that there was more to be told than would fit in any reasonable length video. I therefore decided to split the topic into two videos.
This is the second of those two videos, and shows what our life was like while living there as an American expat. This was well received when shown at the Eyes of Hawaii meeting, and I think it does a fairly good job of giving the sense of life as an expat.
Please join me for the next 24 minutes, as you experience Living in Ecuador as an Expat:
Since joining the Eyes of Hawaii photography club in Honolulu, several people were asking me about what it was like to live in Ecuador. Being a photography club, I decided the best way to explain it was by creating a slide show / video for them.
In looking over our photographic resources from our living there for 8 years, it became clear that there was more to be told than would fit in any reasonable length video. I therefore decided to split the topic into two videos.
This is the first of those two videos, and shows the numerous festivals that we attended in Ecuador while living there. This was well received when shown at the Eyes of Hawaii meeting, and I think it does a fairly good job of giving the sense of the atmosphere of these numerous festivals.
Please join me for the next 18 minutes, as you experience the Festivals in Ecuador:
I created this video / slide-show for our Honolulu photo club (Eyes of Hawaii), to show them what we experienced when visiting Toraja this past Summer.
This was a culture that is beyond anything we have ever experienced before, or even expected to still be active in the 21st century. I am not sure I really get across the extreme nature of this society in this video, though the first half-dozen test viewers have said it does.
If you wish to revisit our 7 blog posts on that visit, you can see them all by using this search.
For now though, we welcome you to spend the next 18 minutes experiencing Toraja, Indonesia:
The Hukilau event in La’ie last Saturday was staged for a documentary film on the shaka gesture. Volunteer photographers were recruited and provided with a shot list that may be used for the documentary produced by Bizgenics in association with Henry Kapono, a Hawaii legendary performer and song writer, who was nominated for a Grammy and multiple awards winner including “2021 Favorite Entertainer of the Year“. Above is an image of the video and sound crew as they made their final plans, before the crowds arrived.
One of the categories on the shot list that the filmmakers requested was Behind the Scenes photos. Above are some photos of professional cameramen and sound crew. Middle image is of Henry Kapono, as he walks into the sea playing his guitar. Bottom right image is cameraman with Steve Sue, Bizgenics chairman.
Hukilau is an ancient style of shore fishing where large numbers of people drive the fish into a net using ropes hung with leaves from ti plants.
Another category on the requested shot list included photographing various aspects of the fishing. The first phase is preparing the fishing nets. Above are images of tying the ti leaves onto ropes, then loading onto a wooden boat, and finally laying the nylon nets into the boat.
The next step is launching the boat with the nets into the sea (center-left). The nylon net is lowered into the water, and an underwater film crew is capturing the scene. The last phase is pulling the net back into the shore with hundreds of volunteers (all other images above). During certain periods, large schools of fish are driven into the net. The catch is then shared with the community.
For this event, held on Hukilau Beach, where the ancient form of fishing began, the community was welcomed to attend. Above are images of various people there that day. You can see the volunteer photographers hovering around the kids.
A unique tradition was that the first fish caught in the net is presented to a young girl (center-right) on the net line. Bottom-left is a selfie with Steve Sue, Stuart from California and two other friends. The seniors (anyone over the age of 62) were asked to “pretend” to be part of the the team pulling in the fishing net in. The editors will then incorporate the seniors into the documentary using digital magic.
Last was the luau, where a fabulous lunch was also served to everyone to celebrate the event, which included pork from three pigs that had been roasting overnight in a buried pit, along with poi and other treats. Henry Kapono (center) entertained the lunch crowd with songs he has written, including songs that will be included in the upcoming documentary. There were also a few demonstrations on how to make hats (lower row) and various items from palm fronds and pounding poi (upper-right).
Henry Kapono singing “Little Grass Shack”, one of the great songs that he wrote.
The Blue Angels, the elite US Naval flight demonstration squadron, showcased their exceptional precision flying skills, and were the headliner at the air show at the Marine Corps Base Hawaii (MCBH) this past weekend. They have not flown over Kaneohe Bay in Oahu for seven years. The airshow was also celebrating the centennial of the US Navy first landing of a jet on an aircraft carrier.
We have not seen the Blue Angels fly for more than a decade, since we used to watch them practice over the SF Bay when we lived in California. The show was generally very well organized… with one exception. There was no detailed schedule of events available, and no staff that we talked to knew the order nor when each activity would start. ☹
We arrived when the gates first opened at 10AM and claimed our VIP seats, we were served a continental breakfast and catered lunch. At 11AM, the show started with a traditional Hawaiian blessing, and then the Marine band played the National Anthem (upper center). At noon the action began with the Flying Leathernecks jumping out of a US Air Force C-17 Globemaster overhead with their high performance parachutes (upper-left and center).
Once things did start up, the show was every bit as good as we had hoped. At one point, there was a simulated attack assault, combining the joint forces of the US Marine Corps MV-22-Ospreys, Air Force F-22 Raptor jets, Air Force F-16 Fighting Falcon and Infantry Marines. They used live ammo in a fiery demonstration (lower-right) showing how an area can be cleared before landing the ground troops. When the Blue Angels arrived, they come with a substantial crew to support them (lower-left and lower-center).
The initial aircraft were propeller based. The Coast Guard Search and Rescue’s team demonstrated their sea rescue techniques, including showing how a flare could be used in turbulent seas to locate the men once in the water (top). The capabilities of long range cargo aircraft was also demonstrated (lower-left). The Navy’s Bell Boeing Osprey also spent quite a bit of time showing off its tilt rotor vertical and short takeoff capabilities (lower-center two images).
We had ringside seats, and the F-16 was parked directly across the runway from us, giving us an unobstructed view as the pilot and his team prepared for flight (top), taxied down the runway waving to us (center-right). The F-22 Raptor was also showing off its capabilities, and you can see it launching in the bottom image.
The Lockheed Martin’s F-22 Raptor is an American single seat stealth tactical fighter aircraft and demonstrated it’s sheer power (top speed up to 1500 mph). It is surprisingly quiet at lower speeds though, allowing it to easily sneak into enemy territory without being heard. When the F-22 flew past us in quiet mode, though it was only 30 feet away when it passed, it sounded no louder than our car !
F-16 Fighting Falcon (top row) and F-22 Raptor Fighting jets (lower row) also showed off their power. The biggest plane of the day was the Boeing C-17A Globemaster (center). This massive monster demonstrated taking off and landing in less than 3500 feet. (By comparison, our last airplane, a Turbo Twin Comanche with only 6 seats needed over 1000 feet) It was also able to land, back up, discharge or load its cargo, then take off again in minutes, making it the workhorse for getting men and equipment in and out of tight spots around the world. For the first time, a jet broke the sound barrier (770 mph) when they flew over the top of us.
The headliner of the show was the Navy’s elite Blue Angel squadron. They flew last, and their preparation and pilot loading were a show unto itself (center-left). As each F/A-18 Super Hornet passed by, the pilot would wave (center-right), then take off nearly vertical mere meters from us (bottom). Once airborne, they performed low level formation pass, no more than a dozen meters above the runway (top).
The Blue Angels are well known for their tight formation flying, and they spent the next 60 minutes enthralling the audience with their precision flying and teamwork. Interesting to note is that the Blue Angels fly some of their formations with their landing gear down, to reduce their speeds at air shows, to make them more easily viewed.
Each plane can fly at up to 1400 mph, though they limit their airshow speed to 700, to stay under the sound barrier. When doing cross-over demonstrations (upper-left and lower-left), their closing speed approaches 1400 mph, and even when my camera is set to 10 frames per second, I completely missed the crucial moment in many of the passes. Top Gun would be proud of their incredible flying skills!
At the end of the day, we left exhausted, and with stiff necks from looking up so long… often with our jaws on the ground. This was definitely an enjoyable and exhilarating way to spend a sunny Sunday afternoon.
There are more than 41,000 Buddhist temples in Thailand, of which more than 33,000 are actively in use. The term “wat” is a Thai word for enclosure, and now refers to any Buddhist or Brahminical temple. 95% of the 70 million people in Thailand are Buddhists.
In 2019, we were “templed out” on our last visit to Chiang Mai and Chiang Rai, so did not visit many of the temples there. The word “Templed” is in the Scrabble dictionary, by the way. The term “templed out” is found in guidebooks, and refers to the moment when you’ve seen so many ancient ruins that details all merge together in a cloud, eyes glazed over, feet and back hurts, and you develop a ho hum attitude to viewing more incredible architectural and cultural wonders. Yep, that described us in 2019, and we were closing in on that juncture again at the end of this trip.
Wat Rong Suea Ten, better known as The Blue Temple, is located in Chiang Rai, a four-hour drive north of Chiang Mai. The temple statues and walls are decorated in a brilliant blue hue of sapphire. This is quite unusual in Thailand, where most temples are decorated in gold. This temple was “technically” completed in January 2016, although it is still considered a work in progress, and we saw many construction scaffolds. This is the only blue temple in the world and one of the newest wats in Chiang Rai. It was designed by a student of Mr. Chalermchai Kositpipat, the famous designer who built the White Temple.
This is an active temple, with many visitors coming to pray (top row plus lower-left). However, there was also a rather bizarre side to this temple. All temples have some attempts at fund-raising, but this one lowered all decency standards to look like a carnival, or outright scam.
Of the many such sections, two particularly stood out to me. One had a person enter money to let a wheel spin (bottom-center). When it stopped on a number, the sucker pulled out a sheet of paper with an elaborately written fortune on it. Another was the almost cartoonish ghoul seen in the lower-right. He was a mechanical man that bobbed up and down ceaselessly, spouting religious drivel. People who were too poor to afford a “proper burial” (which is only received by paying lots of money to the temple) were to put money into the slot under this character, and thus receive blessings for their loved dead. Thus this scam was designed to take the last dime from those who had no money… ☹
Too bizarre to believe it is real, but here is a 10 second clip showing the plastic ghoul supposedly blessing those who give it money.
The immense white female Buddha (center) at the Temple of Mercy (Guanyin) is easily recognizable as it dominates the landscape at 90 meters, or 26 stories high. This temple complex sits on top of a mountain, surrounded by an array of green hills (top-left), which is located in the heart of Chiang Rai, just north of the Kok River.
Wat Huay Pla Kang is a Buddhist religious site that includes a representation of Guanyin, the Chinese goddess of Mercy. The design of this Buddhist complex shows its international influence from Thailand, China and Europe, and is still under construction. In addition to the tall female white Buddha statue is a 9-story Pagoda and a White Temple housing another white Buddha inside (lower-center). Chinese dragons guard each stairway (center and top-center).
In the white temple, a white statue of Guanyin reaches all the way to the second floor (center). Many locals and visitors come here to pray and get blessings from Guanyin, a bodhisattva who is associated with passion. When you go up the elevator of the white temple, you are greeted with guards dressed in red (lower-center) and elegantly dressed women. Sandalwood statues of Chinese divinities and Buddhas decorate each floor of the pagoda (top row).
By this time, we were templed out. However, our friend said we had to see one more before we left Chiang Mai. Wat Umong, built in the 13th century, is also known as the Tunnel Temple and is unique, being located in the forest with a network of centuries-old tunnels still used by Buddhist monks. At the ends of the tunnels are various Buddha images (center and top-center). The temple was built to accommodate the semi-lucid mad monk Thera Jan. The shady temple grounds are quiet and a good place for monks to meditate, since it is rarely visited by tourists. Near the top is a black statue (top-left) of a very thin fasting Buddha.
Thailand has been invaded numerous times in its long history. Many of these invaders tried to destroy the existing Thai temples, as a way to eradicate the existing culture. In each case, the invaders eventually left, and the Thai people restored their temples and lives. Wat Umong was abandoned during the Burmese rule, and then brought back into active service most recently in 1949.
One part of Wat Umong is what best described as a cemetery for broken idols (top-right and bottom row). This is an area where the heads of statues are lovingly placed in an orderly manner, allowing the monks to continue to revere them.
The White Temple, aka Wat Rong Khun, is a privately-owned living art gallery. It’s in the style of a traditional Buddhist temple mixed with modern art including mythical creatures, and modern pop culture heroes such as Batman. We saw it on our tour in 2019 and had a chance to meet the artist, Mr. Chalermchai Kositpiptat, who opened the exhibit in 1997. We quickly passed by on this trip, on our way to other Chiang Rai temples.
We had a chance to connect with other expats who chose to live in Chiang Mai. We now know two couples who moved from Cuenca to Chiang Mai recently, and are loving the experience. We asked why, and heard about the quality of medical care, low cost of living (especially with the strengthening of the US dollar), low cost regional air fares, healthy diet and life style, warmer temperatures, and the friendliness of the Thai people. There’s a badminton league, easy-to-use Grab taxis, quality water color painting classes, Amazon Prime and great variety of top notch cuisines. Thanks again David and Yao (top-center) for introducing us to your new life in Chiang Mai and showing us places we would not have seen on our own!
David had heard of an interesting light show at the clock tower in the center of Old Chiang Rai, so we went there one night to watch it. After seeing the light shows in Singapore, and earlier ones we have seen in Dubai and Las Vegas, this was a bit underwhelming. The 35 second video above gives a sense of what it was like.
This is the last of our Summer 2022 odyssey! It was a consolidation of two years of prepaid tours delayed by Covid. We started by traveling through the Balkans last May. We then spent two months in Indonesia, visiting Bali, Kalimantan, Java and Toraja. Next we went to Malaysia, spending time in Kuala Lumpur, Malacca and Penang. After a couple days in Singapore, we finished here in Thailand. It is now time to return to our home in Honolulu, and try to catch up on a ton of image processing and writing. See you again soon! ☺
When we planned our trip to SE Asia, we had not anticipated making a stop in Thailand. Then, David and Yao, our friends from Cuenca, moved to Chiang Mai, Thailand, to become expats last year during Covid lockdown. Because of Covid, Thailand was not open to fully vaccinated international visitors without restrictions until July 1, 2022. When the country opened, we jumped on the opportunity to visit our friends and find out what it’s like to live there. It turns out that there are more than 30,000 English-speaking expats in Chiang Mai. This was our third trip to Chiang Mai, and our favorite trip seeing it from the point of view of a local and keen photographer.
As an example, we were shown Wat Jed Yod, built in 1497, a large active temple where monks live and study, and is seldom visited by foreigners (above images). It is one of the ancient temples and translates to “seven peaks temple.” It’s unusual that its architecture is copied from a temple in India. Some parts of the figurines have been disfigured (lower-left and lower-right), yet you can still see the finely detailed figures. The complex feels very intimate and special.
David and Yao also introduced us to see the iconic Wat Phra Singh, a 14th century Buddhist temple located in the Old City Center. It is considered Thailand’s most revered temple and is home to an important Buddha, the Phra Buddha Sihing statue. Pilgrims regularly come to pray and hold special ceremonies, including weddings. The complex has multiple buildings on site, and several house reclining Buddhas of different sizes (lower-center). As you wander the monastery grounds, note the golden elephants (lower-left), bas relief angels and gilded serpents.
We also enjoyed seeing the likeness of ancient monks as wax figurines. In Sri Lanka, Evelyn spent more than an hour surreptitiously and with much guilt photographing the monks so as not to disturb them, only to find out they were made from wax. Yes, the monks were unusually still while meditating.
On our last visit to Chiang Mai in 2019, we saw the night bazaar, which is open every night and filled with delicious street food. This time, we were introduced to the Sunday Tha Phae Walking Street Night Market, the biggest retail street market in town, filled with quality arts, crafts, souvenirs, street artists and performers, plus a food court. As you walk the street, there are lit ancient temples on both sides of the streets, so the ambience is extraordinary. And, it was so enormous that it seemed like we walked on forever. But, we were told that prior to the Covid lockdown, it was more than double this size. We ate chicken skewers (bottom-left), dim sum, omelettes (bottom-center) at a mini food court, only to find there was another gigantic food court toward the end the street with a much larger array of mouth-watering bites.
There were many talented artists selling paintings at the night market. Here are just a few that we liked.
The quality of the crafts was quite high, but we were limited by suitcase space. There were a couple of glass blowers (upper-right) actively making various glass figurines, a display of colorful umbrellas (upper-left), humorous sculptures (upper-center), mounted bugs(lower-left), holiday ornaments (lower-right), carved soap, plus the usual tourist t-shirts.
This short 60 second video gives life to parts of the market we enjoyed.
As we looked back over the past few months, we were struck by how many great photos we had of street art in Malaysia and Singapore. We decided they deserved a blog post of their own.
Street art in Penang became famous in 2012 when Ernest Zacharevicm, a Lithuanian artist, painted six murals as part of the George Town Annual Art Festival in Malaysia. Two years later, new artists’ creations started to blossom. There is now an interactive street map where you can look for murals like hunting for buried treasure. The most famous one is the kids on the bicycle (center, top-left and top-right), where visitors queue up to get their photos taken. Top-right shows the original mural, while Evelyn poses with the art in top-left.
Our first day in Penang, we walked along the waterfront. Across the street is a construction site that takes up an entire block. The images above decorated the construction wall, with a new silhouette graphic every few feet.
A later form of street art in Penang were created using comic-style wire sculptures. There are 52 placed around George Town, with each sharing some history not found in guidebooks. This style of mural virtually assures that they will last decades with minimal deterioration, and all of them were interesting enough to stop and spend some time studying. Each wire sculpture has a QR code posted on the wall next to it, where you can scan and read about the history and story of that particular piece of art.
In George Town, we also found street art at Chew Jetty and some fun ones around town, where different artists have been invited over the years. Even storefronts are colorful in this part of town.
Sadly, most of the murals are not being cared for, and over time, are starting to fall apart. Surprisingly, we did not see tagging or destroying other artists’ creations. It was mostly just deterioration of the walls over time, and the art with them.
Singapore had a very different mural style than Malaysia. The art here told entire stories, with complex scenes unfolding in each piece of art. This set of images illustrated life in local homes. These were very well maintained, and most looked as though they had been painted in the last couple years.
These additional story-telling scenes focused on outdoor life in typical local streets.
More street art can be found around Chinatown and Little India in Singapore. There are strict laws against vandalism, so you almost never see graffiti tags.
After completing our travels to Indonesia and Malaysia, we spent a few days in Singapore. We’ve been intrigued by Singapore’s opportunities for night photography of their modern skyline. We were fortunate that we met John Fong in Malacca when photographing the sunset at the Floating Mosque. He offered to share his secret photo spots in Singapore, which allowed us to find locations we would otherwise have missed.
Singapore is known for their Supertree Grove at Marina Gardens. You can admire these giant metal trees which provide shade by day (middle row), and an exhilarating light and musical show at night. During the day, you can also check out the trees close up on the sky walk (top). The Supertrees are vertical gardens, with more than 162,900 plants and over 200 species growing on their trunks. The tallest structure is more than 16-stories high.
John took us to a special spot away from the tourists to catch the light and music show (all images except bottom were shot from that location).
Every night there is a light show at 7:45PM and 8:45PM. Hundreds of tourists come to see each show, though we were able to see it from an optimum position away from everyone else, thanks to John Fong’s guidance. This is a show you really need to see live to fully appreciate, but the 80 second sample above can help to entice you to go yourself someday.
A second light and music show is at the Marina Sands Hotel, on the man made lake (top and 2nd row-left). On the skyline is also the ferris wheel known as the Singapore Flyer, which opened in 2008 (2nd row-right). The iconic Merlion statue, spouting water from its mouth (bottom), stands at 8.6 meters and weights 70 tons. The Apple Computer Store is built on its own island (3rd row right).
We saw two different light shows. These were easily on the caliber of shows we’ve seen at the Bellagio Hotel in Las Vegas. In fact, the owners of the Marina Bay Sands Hotel hail from Las Vegas. This show occurs every night at 8PM and 9PM. Thus, with good timing, it is possible to see both the SuperTree light show (first part of this post) and this one on the same night. This 80 second video helps show the life of the show, being only an except from the 15 minute full show.
One of our favorite experiences of the day was the Gardens by the Bay, where we saw the Flower Dome and Supertree Observatory. At the Flower Dome, we enjoyed a creative display of indoor and outdoor art sculptures, in wood, stone and other materials created by artists worldwide. Due to ongoing maintenance, we were not able to see the Cloud Forest display, which we have heard is also worth a visit.
We spent a couple days and evenings just walking around Singapore, mostly in the vicinity of our hotel. On our first night, we came across a colorful large building (bottom), which was identified as the police station. We also wandered along the Singapore River, watching colorful canal boats pass (top and 2nd-row-right).
The temple in Chinatown is huge, and as such, it is difficult to isolate at street level. With John Fong to lead us, that was no problem though. John just took us up an elevator to a nearby public housing apartments (with no security to restrict access), and we were able to capture the photo (2nd row left) where the bicycle is parked in front of the balcony (3rd row center). The temple apparently also lights up during special ceremonies, so this was a strategic spot to be able to capture the festivities, though none were scheduled during our stay.
Hawker Chan (3rd row left) is the only street hawker restaurant in the world with a Michelin Star. The chicken was absolutely the best roasted chicken we have had in many months.
The Marina Bay Sands Hotel (background on bottom image) is a standard icon of Singapore, housing the world’s largest infinity pool on the roof, and is shaped like a boat at the top of the structure.
Many consider Penang Island as one of the top culinary destinations in the world. Its cuisine is considered a regional food paradise. It is famed for foods from the many cultures on the island, including Hokkien, Hakka, and Teochew-speaking Chinese communities, Indian Tamils, Malays, and the British.
Our host at the historic Hotel Ren I Tang highly recommended Jason’s Nyonya House restaurant to experience our last supper in Penang City, because it served delicious local Nyonya cuisine with a spicy tang. She was right, and it was an absolute gem, but you have to get advanced reservations to get in. It’s worth experiencing Nyonya food, a fusion of Malay and Chinese, and it’s hard to describe how delectable everything tastes.
One evening, we checked out the Chew Jetty, which is comprised of wooden stilt houses built around a walkway. It is currently the only accessible jetty (of the existing seven jetties) to the waterfront for visitors. The jetties were home to the seven Chinese clans who migrated from China to work in tin mining and the rubber plantations. It looked liked an opportunity for a sunset shot, but the clouds were not cooperating. It is now mostly souvenir shops for tourists.
There is a different night market each day of the week. On Wednesday night is the Farlim Night Market, which is one of the largest night market scenes in Penang. Check out the video to see what we had for dinner at the night market — char kuey teow, a stir-fried rice noodle dish.
Ubudiah Mosque was initially built in 1917, after a series of interruptions to the construction, including some rampaging elephants and World War I. It was then renovated in 2003. While the mosque is grand, what really impressed us the most was the neighborhood. Within a span of a few blocks, you could find an Islamic Mosque, a Christian Church, multiple Hindu Temples of various sects, and other religions. All appear to coexist side-by-side with no evidence of discord.
Chen Hoon Temp Temple is the oldest Chinese temple in Malaysia, built in 1645. We stopped in one night on our way back to the hotel, when we discovered it open.
Chanting at Kek Lok Si Buddhist Temple in George Town, Penang in Malaysia.
We took a tour of Pinang Peranakan Mansion Museum with a colorful English-speaking tour guide. He described the original mansion owner as a Chinese Mafia leader. This museum shows how the wealthy Chinese lived. It was interesting to see that the table was set with forks and knives, rather than the expected chopsticks. That was because the area was a former British colony. The Chinese clans played a major role in bringing in Chinese immigrants to the area for the British tin mines.
We were in Penang during their annual art festival, and attended a glove puppet show on their last night. This was an outdoor show, just past sundown on the grounds of the Seh Tek Tong Cheah Kongsi Temple. As the show began, our cameras turned to the fabulous Blue Hour forming behind the temple (center).
The puppet show was entirely in Thai language, which of course, we know none. They did project the narration in English below the puppets though it was difficult to read.
Photo Galleries
At the top of this page is a menu that will take you to a variety of galleries showing our favorite images.
