Visited the sisters Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Nagaland:

Arunachal Pradesh
In the most northern sister you can visit a lot of different tribes. Every village in a district is home for another tribe. I visited Apatani, Nishi, Tagin, Adi Gallong and Adi Minyong villages. You feel like travelling through the jungle, the road goes up and down through the green mountains without any straight road. Most of the people are followers of Donyi Polo religion (sun and moon), followed by Christian and Hindu people. The Apatani people are the most evocative people, women have tattoos in their face and wear big nose plugs.

Myoko
I was lucky to join the celebration of new year for the Apatani people. This event, called Myoko, is celebrated every year on March 21 and takes 30 days. This year Myoko will be celebrated in the villages Bamin, Michi, Mudang Tage, Tadu, Dutta and Hija. Next year it will be celebrated in Hong and in 2014 the villages Hari and Bulla host the festival. During Myoko there will be a lot of rituals. I visited the second and the third day of Myoko. On the second day we went to Bamin. In a shrine hangs a skull of a monkey which was killed in december. Men walked in a procession through the village with rattan leaves in their hands and sang. During the procession a chicken was killed in the shrine. His blood was poured over the skull of the monkey. The liver of the chicken was handed to the shaman and the village elder. The shaman concluded that everything is ok.
On the third day of Myoko we went to Mudang Tage. Before 6 AM we arrived and there were a lot of people on the street. Some girls were dressed the same way with a lot of colorful beads around their necks. They gave rice beer and rice powder to the residents and visitors and pouring it over pigs which should be sacrificed. The shaman mumbles against the pigs. Two men killed the pig, they made an incision in the abdomen. One of the men snatched the heart out of the animal while it was screaming. One hour later we had breakfast…

Assam
Connection between all the sisters and host Brahmaputra valley, national parks, rice fields and many tea estates.

Nagaland
The most evocative people of Nagaland are the headhunters, their faces are full with tattoos and they wear their trophies. If you are lucky you will see some, but they become older and older, so they will disappear within the next decades. I visited some Angami villages around Kohima and Konyak villages around Mon. Every year in the first week of April, the Konyak celebrate Aoling, a colorful festival. Small villages celebrate their own Aoling, but Mon is the heart of the Konyak and will celebrate the biggest one. People from every part of Mon and one group from Burma came together to celebrate the festival. Each group has its own colorful costumes and they sing and dance and shoot a lot of blanks…

The trip was organized by DimSum.

Itinerary

Nepal, country surrounded by big brothers China and India. Somebody told me that the three countries look like a hamburger, the best part is inside.

The hightlight of the trip was a 10 days trekking through the Himalaya. Walking along the Annapurna and Dhaulagiri range. Two Himalaya giants over 8000 meters. Every day walking between 3 till 6 hours, at an altitude varying from 1500 meters till more than 3600 meters abve sealevel. Only a small part of the trekking you walk over the highway, a paved pad full with western tourists. In october and november there are many tourist groups walking from and to Annapurna basecamp or a circle around Annapurna. The greatest benefit of this trip is that you will stay in community based lodges, who stay lonely on the edge of a mountainside. The most wonderful place is Kopra Ridge, on an altitude of 3600 meter. If you are lucky you can see the peaks of Dhaulagiri from you “hotelroom”. At the end of the day the shepherd comes back to the lodge with his herd of yaks.

I big contrast with the silence of the mountains is the cozy chaotic city Kathmandu. A lovely place to walk around, where you can meet buddhism and hinduism. In Kathmandu you can find dozens of temples, stupas and palaces. In the district Thamel you stumble over the outdoorshops and souvenirshops.

If you want to know more about this trip see hier.

Itinerary

After the presentation of the Humanity Photo Awards we made a photography tour of 5 days. Sitting more than 40 hours in a bus. We visited a village of the Dai and Wa minorities, we went to the border with Myanmar and the tour ended in Kunming. If you want to read more about the tour click here.

Itinerary

Thursday 15 september
The jury comes together for the final round. On the night before the ceremony takes place, we got a dinner and more than 150 guests were present. After speeches from Mr d’Orville of UNESCO and Mr. Shen Che from China Folklore Photographic Association there followed a spectacular show and a great dinner.

Friday 16 september
At 10:00 am the day with some speeches just before the exhibition was opened. For the first time we could see the submitted work of my colleagues. Except some power failures it was very nice to see all the stories from everybody. In the evening we went to the outskirts of Kunming for the ceremony. Some 2,000 children wer invited to join us. Speeches, flag parade, show, dance and music are interspersed with the presentation of the awards to the winners. I won the Documentary Award in the category Traditional Rites. The show ended with fireworks.

The prize consisted of:
- Invitation to attend the ceremony.
- Invitation to attend the premiere of the exhibition Memories of Mankind VII.
- Flight to Kunming in China
- 5 days photography tour through Yunnan.

You can find more background information about the story here vinden.

Saturday 17 september
The government will guide us through the 5 days tour through Yunnan. We still don’t know where we are going, except that on the list of participants Lincang is written. A place of 2 million inhabitants west of Kunming. In 5 days we drive more than 40 hours in a bus, we visit Ding Weng (Wa village) Mang Tuan (Dai village), we watch the border with Myanmar in Nansang and visit a tea museum in Lincang. The lunches and dinners are overwhelming, often with a hired dance group of beautiful girls and speeches. One of the funniest experiences was while we visited an old bridge, we were surprised when models arrived and used the bridge as a catwalk for fashion models.

Wednesday 21 september
After too many buses, too little sleep but a lot of fun, we want to celebrate our last night together. In the bar in the hotel we want to buy a beer. The assistant manager does not want to sell it to foreigners. I am surprised when he helps us to find a place where we can buy it. We hope to meet again on the next edition of HPA 2013…

If you want to see the pictures of the tour look here.

One of my experiences of Libya:
We drive in our bus from Tripoli to Ghadames, something like 600 kilometers. Again we have another bus, like almost every day. We are just a small group and use a bus for 50 persons. One of our guides is a pawn of Gaddafi. After two hours our bus was hit by a car and the only thing the driver could say was Insha’Alah, Insha’Alah… We stop at the Qasr of Nalut, a beautiful ancient granary with 400 chambers. We continue to Ghadames and almost at sunset, a ball bearing breaks. The balls are flying everywhere and we can’t continue. Sun is going down, it’s getting cold, but after two hours we got a ride from another bus. Next morning we visit the old beautiful city of Ghadames. Ghadames is a fantastic white old UNESCO protected city where you can get lost easily. Next day we take another bus to Sebha where our desert tour starts. From there we take some 4×4 to enter the real desert far away from the paved roads. Gaddafis man is gone, I think he likes the sacrifice feast more than following us. The next days we drive through the most beautiful part of the Sahara which I have ever seen. We pass big seas with sanddunes, which change colours during the day; white, yellow, red, brown. We visit the rocky Acacus mountains; big rockparts mixed with sand and a lot of rock paintings. It’s cold at night, freezing and every morning we have to remove the ice from our tent. Although we drink illegal alcohol to get warm we celebrate new year to early, at 10 pm. On our last day in the desert we are looking for the salted Ubari lakes. We got lost in the sea of dunes, but the trip is breathtaking. It looks like we enter the lakes from the unusual way. From the top of the dunes we go steep downhill for 100 meter and pass some people who are skiing, which you can hire at the lakeside. On our way to find a campsite we get problems with our car, the smoke comes through the dashboard and we have to leave the car. Next day we fly back to Tripoli and say goodbye to the desert, which is just as varied as our transport.

Click here to see the item on EditieNL.

Met Dimsum een 21 daagse reis gemaakt naar het zuiden van China. Met de trein van Chengdu naar Xichang, de belangrijkste stad van de Yi. In de niet toeristische omgeving van Xichang hebben we bij verschillende dorpen het jaarlijkse Torch festival meegemaakt. Vervolgens hebben we een deel van de oude zout- en theeroute afgelegd, langs plaatsen als Lijiang, Shaxi, Nuodeng, Weishan en Dali. Voor meer informatie over deze reis naar China klik hier.

Reisroute

Het gaat om de Dipo serie die ik in Ghana gefotografeerd heb tijdens het ritueel wat meisjes van de Krobostam doormaken als ze vrouw worden.

Voor een volledige lijst van genomineerden klik hier

Met Dimsum een 20 daagse reis gemaakt naar de Indiase deelstaat Orissa. Veel weekmarkten en stammen bezocht: Mali, Maraja, Kumbhar, Dhuruva, Bonda, Khubi Kondh, Lanjia Saura, Desia Kondh, Dongria Kondh en Kutia Kondh. Een indrukwekkend bezoek gebracht aan een weeshuis waar 350 kinderen verblijven, verschillende keren geïnterviewd voor lokale TV en uitgebreid kennis gemaakt met het Hindoeisme. Voor meer informatie over een vergelijkbare reis naar Orissa klik hier.

Reisroute

Met Sawadee een 23 daagse reis gemaakt naar Peru. Een reis door een spectaculair en afwisselend land. Zandduinen, hoogvlaktes, gletsjers, woestijn, Incaruïnes, zoutpannen, lama’s, alpaca’s, vicuña’s en koloniale steden. Het hoogtepunt van deze reis was de 3-daagse Larestrail gevolgd door een bezoek aan Machu Picchu. Voor meer informatie over deze reis naar Peru klik hier.

Reisroute