Luang Prabang was named a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1995. The move saved the city’s colonial architecture but the explosion of mass tourism has taken a toll on the city’s identity. According to one recent study, a small plot of land that sold for $8,000 three years ago now goes for $120,000. Many longtime residents are selling their homes and moving to small developments around the city. The old homes are then converted to guesthouses, restaurants and spas. The city is famous for the morning “tak bat,” or monks’ morning alms rounds. Every morning hundreds of Buddhist monks come out before dawn and walk in a silent procession through the city accepting alms from residents. Now, most of the people presenting alms to the monks are tourists, since so many Lao people have moved outside of the city center. About 50,000 people are thought to live in the Luang Prabang area, the city received more than 530,000 tourists in 2014.

Highway 13 is Laos' "Main Street." It's the country's main north-south artery. As Laos' economy heats up, the road is becoming ever more important. It now carries a significant portion of Laos' exports (to China and Thailand) and an even bigger share of imports (from China and Thailand). The road is being improved from the Chinese border at Boten to Vientiane, Laos' capital, accommodate all of the traffic to and from China. As the highway is improved it's changing the lives of ordinary Laotians in ways big and small. Better roads means easier access to big cities and economic opportunity and Laotians are leaving their traditional homes to strike it rich in the tourist sector in Vientiane and Luang Prabang. Better roads mean easier access to schools. Better roads means better infrastructure. One small sign: more and more homes are protected by metal roofs rather than the traditional thatch. Better roads mean little things, like ice cream vendors, can now reach a greater number of customers. These photos were all made along Highway 13 between Vientiane and Boten, on the border with China.

Laos is a Buddhist nation. In the years following the Pathet Lao victory, Buddhism and the Buddhist clergy suffered persecution. But in the last 10 years there has been a renaissance. People are back in the temples, the clergy is growing again, old temples are being renovated and new ones being built.

Salt is made in Boten, Laos, by hand in hot, humid workshops. Briney water is boiled in shallow flat pans. After the water is boiled away, the salt is scraped out of the pan.

China has a huge presence in northern Laos. The highways are being expanded to accommodate Chinese trucks. Chinese workers are building hydroelectric facilities to send electricity to China. The Chinese are helping Laos plan a high speed rail line from the Chinese border to Thailand. But nowhere is the Chinese presence as strongly felt as in the city of Oudomxay and in the Boten Special Economic Zone (on the Lao/China border). Chinese are about 40% of the population of Oudomxay and the SEZ is a like a little bit of China in Laos. It's a little surreal walking around in either place. In Oudomxay, there's a large, state of the art, Chinese grocery and department store well stocked with all the latest food, fashions and fads from China. And no shoppers because the average Lao can't afford to shop in the Communist shrine to Capitalism. In the Boten SEZ, there's a large Chinese market that's devoid of shoppers. There are huge hotels and casinos. All closed (allegedly the casinos were criminal enterprises where customers who couldn't pay their gambling debts were kidnapped and tortured. The Chinese government stepped in and shut the casinos down). And Chinese trucks and buses crowding the narro Lao highways.

The Tak Bat is a morning ritual in many Theravada Buddhist countries. In most places, monks go out singly or in small groups to receive food and alms from people. In Luang Prabang, Laos though the monks go out en masse. Hundreds, sometimes thousands, of monks silently walk single file through the town at dawn as people line the route to present them with the Lao staple, sticky rice.

Photos made in Laos. There are a number of photos of Buddhism in Laos, travel photos from Vientiane, Luang Prabang and Vang Vieng and pictures of daily life in rural Laos.

Arizona Attorney General met with DREAM Act supporters Monday to talk about the lawsuit he's filing against the Maricopa County Community College District to force the district to charge DREAMERS out of state tuition rates. When Horne said he would continue with the law suit, protesters started calling him "Cheater Horne." One protester held a sit-in and was arrested when she was asked to leave but wouldn't.