In a corner of the market, a man was smoking hookah in a water smoker made of bamboo

man smoking thick pipe — Man smoking hookah with a Chinese water pipe

A man with a hat was sitting in a corner of the Luang Nam Tha market. Miscellaneous items were laid out in front of the man. The man, like the others, was here to do business. What made him different from the others was that the man was smoking a large pipe. This is called a water pipe, and it is used to smoke hookah. Smoking hookah incessantly, the man seemed more intent on smoking than on selling his wares.

Although hookah are becoming increasingly rare in Japan, I have never seen a water pipe shaped like this one. The man was not using a stationary type, which is common around the Middle East, but a portable type used around Yunnan Province in China. The man's eyes were vacant, and at first I thought he was smoking opium (opium is still being grown in Laos, and people in the northern part of the country ask to buy it), but he was not smoking opium. The man took one look at me and exhaled a puff of smoke.

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