Buddha Statue Builders

Went out after breakfast and photographed at a local business, the business was the construction of Buddha statues for neighborhood Wats (temples). I did a number of portraits of 2 of the artist/workers who were applying cement to a giant Buddha head and also did some shots of the Buddha head alone.

It was fun to photograph the workers and the language stuff came in quite handy again. Even thou Laos is different than Thai I can make myself understood here for the most part. I also got the group men workers to laugh so I guess I can tell jokes here. I was photographing the heads and workers when 3 youngish farang girls walked by on the nearby sidewalk, one girl talking loudly said to the others " I used to be able to drink for 3 days straight without sleeping or eating but now I can't do that anymore!" I kind of giggled when I saw them and heard that but when I turned around again to the 8 or 10 Lao men in the outdoor shop area I realized they did not understand what the passing girls had said. I relayed the story in my broken Thai and they all laughed out loud repeating it amongst themselves several times, they thought the story was very funny.

After the drinking farang joke story we were all friends and making photos became very easy, later when they sat down to eat as a group they asked me 2 times to join them. The men also gave me a glass of water to drink, they were very nice fellows, I downed the water quickly as I was quite thirsty with sweat running into my eyes but declined the food as I had just eaten. Thais, Cambodians and Laotians are all very sociable and friendly and very generous with sharing their meals.