Kind of bored today, with not too much to say about this particular picture. I will just say it is another stunning example of one of the many species of orchid that can be found in Southeast Asia;-)

Yeah, I know I’ve posted a few pictures of the Padaung Karen Hill Tribe people before. Even though I’ve only visited them a few times during my travels in Thailand, I admit to being fascinated by the reasons why they wear the rings around their neck and arms. In addition to the perceived added beauty of the rings, they told my wife that they also wear the rings to protect themselves from tiger bites (don’t know if this is really true or not).

One of the moral dilemmas I’ve run into is that some people claimed that some of the participants are forced to wear the rings for the benefit of tourists, something that would make me very upset.

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My wife and I went to Chiang Mai, Thailand in 2007 to go see the “real Thailand”. During the course of our trip to Chiang Mai, we had a chance to see a Thai cultural show over a traditional Khantoke dinner, complete with women dancers, men playing with swords, and men playing with fire.

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The only reason I’m posting this is that this is one of my most viewed photos at Flickr. While I don’t think the picture of the Panda Bear is bad at all, I actually like a number of other Panda pictures that I took at the Chiang Mai Zoo that day. I guess it just a matter of taste…I largely enjoy doing a lot of close-up photography work.

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Panda bears seem to be the least aggressive of all of the bear species to me. Polar bear attack? Heard of it. Grizzly Bear? Definitely. Even the Malay Sun Bear seems like it could be aggressive towards humans.  But I haven’t heard of any stories (of a wild panda at least) attacking humans.

This photo was taken at the Chiang Mai Zoo in Thailand a few years ago. Believe it or not, the Thai TV stations even have a channel dedicated to the Panda Bears housed at the zoo (the pandas apparently like sleeping a great deal!).

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