Baguio Strawberries

Laura wants to know where the shopping photos are, from our recent trip in SE Asia. I didn’t take a whole lot, because there were a few times when I had to choose to put down the camera. Our snorkeling excursions, navigating the sometimes precipitous rice terraces, and enjoying our wild night of Ifugao dancing were notable other times.

Another reason for not many engaging-in-commerce photos: enamored of this crazy notion that we wanted to “travel light,” on this trip, we didn’t have a whole lot of extra room in the luggage, for souvenirs. This played a big part in us not buying much during the northern Luzon tour, as most souvenirs were about the size of my leg. Seriously, we could have bought one of these.

I did take some photos of various & sundry merchandise, though not many snapshots survived my machete-like job of editing down my photos from 650 or so to under 100.

Sausages in Baguio Market

Most of the survivors were shots I took as we walked through the public market in Baguio, and as you can see, there was some meat there.

The Bacon Guy

The photo below is not food (well, no one offered it to us) BUT it is related to a fruitful shopping excursion. We visited a silk farm in Siem Reap, Cambodia, and got a wonderful tour of the creative workshop, which took us from beginning to end of the silk fabric production process.

Silky wormies

These are silkworms! Busily making fibers that will end up in a scarf very much like the one pictured here, today. Steve bought this for me, at the end of the workshop tour.

Scarfing it up

We also brought home some tea. While in Cambodia, we ate in Chinese restaurants several times, as that’s where Kim Sy and Mr. Choi took us and did us the huge favor of pre-ordering our lunches. In two of the restaurants there was this lovely orange-colored tea, which was floral in scent but almost buttery in flavor. The scene pictured below was the place where we were able to buy some of the tea to bring home: the restaurant was one floor of a department store.

Still life with Angkor Beer

Textiles featured prominently in our souvenir haul, as fabric packs well. We also visited a weaving collective in Sagada; here you can see me ogling the looms. Shortly thereafter, Steve bought a necktie for himself, and a wallet for me. While in Siem Reap, I also bought a length of fabric printed with images of Apsara dancers, in black, white and orange, to use as a sarong during the beach portion of our trip. I’m so glad one of the Aussie friends we made on the first portion of our trip suggested the sarong!

I also bought these most excellent pants. Orange really got to me on this trip! Perhaps this photo of some monks about to go for a swim, had something to do with it? In Buddhism, orange apparently represents wisdom, strength and dignity.

Swimming in orange