The 1000+ islands off the northern coast of Vietnam are, understandably, considered one of their national treasures. Ha Long Bay, which boasts some spectacular views and caves, is located among them, and no trip to Vietnam is complete without choking down diesel fumes to ride the old boats in a sort of un-pleasure cruise around the Bay.

I was up early from the rumblings of the diesel engine on our boat when I shot this picture using a nighttime filter on the lens to accentuate the blue tone to the whole scene. The photography on this trip was well worth the discomfort, but so was the feeling that we were floating in some little cauldron of life ringed by all these little mountains. It made the scuba diver in me itchy to get down below and see what it looked like to watch all those mountain tops ascend from the sea floor. One look and sniff of the water, however, and I decided that a nice clear side-scan sonar image of the Bay would suffice just fine. The Thousand Islands are a natural treasure for – shall we say – their visual, and not their olfactory, splendor.

Want more of the best photos ever taken? I’ve got a whole series of the most unexpected best photos you’ll find on the internet:
Best Photo Ever Taken of a Tree Hunting a Tourist
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Best Photo Ever Taken of Carb Crops
Best Photo Ever Taken of Unwise Seating Choices
Best Photo Ever Taken of Mongolian Ghers
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Best Photo Ever Taken of 1000 Blue Islands

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I love this photo, but I admit I did not actually take it knowing it would turn out like this. We were in the Angkor Wat temple complex in Siem Reap, Cambodia, wandering/sweltering/dying of heatstroke around the hundred plus temples there, and I was just snapping photos here and there by this point in the day. Angkor is a much-photographed place, and is usually portrayed in either an artsy or Tomb Raider-esque way. Humor is not a large part of the photography scene there.

But that night when I went through my photos, I realized how comical this one looked. The tourist, a Japanese one no less, looks positively hunted by the enormous tree. I found the contrast in the image and the stereotype (the Japanese tourists in Cambodia are fairly intense, and by intense here I mean that I have almost been crushed to death several times by them) quite amusing. Hope you do too.

Want more of the best photos ever taken? I’ve got a whole series of the most unexpected best photos you’ll find on the internet:
Best Photo Ever Taken of Moonshine
-Best Photo Ever Taken of Carb Crops
-Best Photo Ever Taken of Unwise Seating Choices
-Best Photo Ever Taken of Mongolian Ghers
Best Photo Ever Taken of Thai Temple Tops

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Best Photo Ever Taken of a Tree Hunting a Tourist

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Yes, moonshine. Although technically they had a permit to make this (delicious) stuff, the entire distillery operation had such backyard bathtub feel it was hard not to call it moonshine. Produced in a couple of crumbling concrete buildings on the outskirts of Hanoi, this liquor was both wonderful and extremely strong (28 proof). The distillery operation was one of those homemade contraptions that was both perfectly and brilliantly engineered and sort of held together with duct tape. I can’t quite convey in writing the comedy and contrast of the whole scene. There is no arguing, however, with the quality of the end product, which was quite tasty and sold at the fanciest hotel in Hanoi.

The pack of wild dogs and puppies roaming the property, the bombed out bunker feel of the cellar, the rickety tables holding up the bottles (beautiful arranged and carefully labeled as they were): all of these atmospherics made the tour of this place one of those great contrasts you can only find in places like Vietnam. This photo always makes me smile, almost as much as I did when watching the tourists at the fancy hotel oooh and ahhh over the bottles of this stuff for sale in the lobby. Moonshine, people, moonshine.

Want more of the best photos ever taken? I’ve got a whole series of the most unexpected best photos you’ll find on the internet:
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Best Photo Ever Taken of Moonshine

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Thailand is full of beautiful temples, small and large. The Buddhism is Thailand is palpable in ways that it is not in other countries where the people practice Buddhism, and I always enjoy that strong dose of such a quiet religion and the manner in which it permeates the culture there. In many places the religion – or a total anti-religion – comes out and clobbers you over the head after you step out of the airport. I’ll refrain from listing the many examples I can think of, but let’s just say it happens all over the world and leave it at that.

Buddhism, however, isn’t an obvious religion, so much so that it is hard to *see* it in the same way you *see* other religions. But Buddhism in Thailand is much more overt than say, in Mongolia, and it’s quite intellectually and esthetically interesting to take in that reflection in the architecture.

I especially love the carvings, the colors, the immense devotion to detail. I loaded this particular picture at a high density so you can zoom in and see what I’m talking about. Enjoy!

Want more of the best photos ever taken? I’ve got a whole series of the most unexpected best photos you’ll find on the internet:
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Best Photo Ever Taken of Thai Temple Tops

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Part of me thinks this photo merits some explanation, but then I realize I don’t actually have one to give it. I have no idea why this child decided to climb this rock, how he did it, or what he thought once up there. I only know I turned the corner on a walk in a small village in Vietnam’s northern highlands, saw this, and snapped the photo. This has to be the most un-ergonomic (is that even a word?) seating choice ever made.

(This photo is, of course, copyright ACMJ Productions)

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Best Photograph Ever Taken of Unwise Seating Choices

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You may think these photos are totally random, but I am obsessed with them. I have spent hours pulling out specific pixels of color to emphasize how vibrant and striking these things looked in person. I love taking photos like this – of basic, boring but totally vital things like corn and rice, and turning it into something fun and special.

Both of these photos were taken in a small village around the area of Sapa, Vietnam in the northern highlands region of the country. The rice crops there are amazing, because they are grown on impossibly steep hillsides. The nice wide shot of rice here was taken at the top of the mountain, which is why it is a large field. Talk about a tremendous amount of work.

The corn was the end of season harvest put out to dry on a large tarp in the middle of the road. It was huge, and absolutely covered in corn of all colors. The sun was incredibly bright, and the corn just gleamed in it.

All in all, this was one of my best photography walks ever. (All photos are, of course, copyright ACMJ Productions)

Click on the photos for an expanded, and much better, view.

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Best Photos Ever Taken (Of Carb Crops) (By Me)

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One of the biggest myths out there about switching careers is the idea that you can only do it when you are young. Ironically, you can’t really call four years in the work force a “career”, so it is hard for young people to be the ones doing all this career switching that everyone is talking about.

The reality is that career switching can happen at any age. You just need to plan differently if you have, for instance, a large mortgage, young kids, health concerns, or other complicating factors that a younger person might not have had the time and life experience to accumulate. But this does not mean, at all, that you cannot switch careers if you are older. In fact, your age may give you the experience and insight you need to make the switch.

A couple things to consider: one thing a career switch always requires is a lot of extra work. You have to learn a new trade or profession, often at the same time that you are conducting your previous one. Extra work takes energy. Energy takes sleep, the right diet, some vitamin D, and moderate exercise to sustain one to two years of doubling up. In other words, your collective act needs to be together if you are going to undertake a career switch and live to see the end of it. Burn out isn’t fun, and my general rule of thumb is that is takes twice as long to recover from the time you spend burning it at both ends as the time you spent, well, burning it at both ends.

Also, a career switch requires you to know what you want to do next. This is the hardest part for many people. What do they want to be? Do some serious soul-searching and note jotting. Research careers on the internet, take personality tests and read job descriptions. Make sure you look really hard before you leap.

However, if you can handle those two things – balance and research – you can easily make a major career switch no matter what age you are. You just have to be willing to put in the hours to two careers for a while, or save to take the time off to gear up.

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Career Switch: Older People Do It Too, You Know

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My qualifiers aside, I really do think these are fun photos of Mongolian ghers out on the steppes. Ghers, you ask? Yes, ghers. In Kazakhstan they call them yurts, but yurts and ghers are slightly different in engineering and materials. And ghers are just, cooler.

I stayed in one of these for three nights. It was really warm, and except for the bit of smoke buildup from the flue that was not working so well, it was more comfortable than many a hotel I’ve stayed in. Ghers are also completely portable: the thick layers of felt that form the covering can be taken down and rolled up, and the lattice-like infrastructure collapses down once the major support beams are down. It is quite amazing to see it all done.

The two photos here are of a gher camp in the southern part of the Gobi desert, near the sand dunes and dinosaur fossil site at the Flaming Cliffs. Notice the large goat herds – that is classic Mongolia. They raise goats for food and for the wool, which they turn into fairly decent cashmere (single loop, not double – sorry ladies). The goats are very soft, and quite funny to watch as well, as you can see here.

(All photos are, of course, copyright ACMJ Productions)

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Best Photos Ever Taken (Of Mongolian Ghers) (By Me)

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I always like to ask astronomy bloggers what they are following in the back of their minds, what events they really think will yield some major discoveries and stories in the coming years. Occasionally, I like to post on the same subject, if for no other reason than to remind myself what I think it great out there. So here are the current science events I’m tracking these days:

The watery exoplanet discovered last month is, obviously, a big one to follow in astronomy, if for no other reason than the fact that it was found the old fashioned, detect-the-wobble way. Its discovery demonstrates how much astronomy is a field still rewarded by grunt work and luck. Expect similar discoveries to roll in over the coming year or two.

The WISE Satellite Project, which maps the sky in the mid-infrared range in an effort to get a better pictures of our galaxies and neighboring ones. It launched last month, and while it doesn’t sound all that dramatic, but it is actually really awesome what this technology will be able to see. NASA’s press releases on their missions are always – understandably – dry as toast, but the link here to a Scientific American article on the project brings home how cool it is: discovering the undiscovered, preventing asteroid impacts, finding out what we know we don’t know. So cool.

And finally, an article that is very winter appropriate: a look into the history of cooling and the coldest temperatures on earth. Everything temperature has gone political these days; sometimes it’s nice to go back to a discussion of core samples and weather patterns.

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Current Science Events I’m Tracking

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A reader emailed me earlier this week to ask what my favorite book of 2009 was. I thought it was a great question, considering how many books I read and review here on this site.

But it isn’t a hard question. Hands down, my favorite book for 2009 was Nurtureshock: New Thinking About Children

This book totally vindicated a lot of my own thinking about children (my children and other people’s children) as well as taught me a tremendous amount about what I do not need to be worrying about. Parenting today is filled with a lot of worry. In fact, if you don’t worry obsessively, you are generally thought to be a bad parent. It’s actually quite remarkable to watch this social pressure in action: worrying is almost part of the club membership these days.

This is not to suggest there is not a lot about raising kids that deserves to be worried about, or to suggest that I do not worry. I do. A lot. Nurtureshock is a great tool for focusing your parental concerns productively and in ways that are based on a lot of scientific study. For that reason alone, it is my favorite book of 2009. The fact that it is really interesting, easy to read, and quite informative is even better.

So thanks, read4efr, for asking!

If you liked this latest post from Yield to Pedestrian, please consider giving it a thumbs up at StumbleUpon. Have a great day!

Nurtureshock: Favorite Book in 2009

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