A new Narcissus Gallery

Since I frequently travel alone, I've gotten into the habit of capturing certain moments on the road by literally turning my camera on myself. The arm's length self-portraits that result are usually kind of interesting, and -- several years ago -- when I rehauled RolfPotts.com, I posted a number of these self-photos into a tongue-in-cheek collection I called the Narcissus Gallery. Over the years, a number of readers have written in asking when I would update the Narcissus Gallery, and I always told them that I'd do it when I had a moment.

Well, finally I had to chance to sort through some old photos, and I'm posting my findings into a New Narcissus Gallery below. Pictures are posted in no particular order, though you'll notice that I don't have any shots from 2002-2004, when I was in the habit of traveling without a camera. Each hyperlink below pops up into a new picture window.

• Covered in dust after walking amidst the huge mass of humanity at the 2001 Kumbh Mela gathering in Allahabad, India.
• On the deck of the 55-foot sailboat Assos while on assignment for Outside in the Greek Cyclades last fall. The article from this experience, "Cycladian Rhythms", should hit newsstands in the Spring/Summer Issue of Outside Traveler any day now.
• Exploring a Tokyo gameroom with my cousin Mary's boyfriend (now husband) David Homa while on a visa run from Korea to Japan in 1998.
• Hanging out with Laotian kids in the isolated village of Ban Na, Laos, in November of 2000. My report of this journey into central Laos appeared in the January 2003 issue of Conde Nast Traveler.
• Checking out the amazing monuments of Bagan while bicycling across Burma in the spring of 2001.
• Cruising in the front of a cyclo-rickshaw in Phitsanulok, Thailand in early 1999.
• Aboard a rubber speedboat in Burma's Mergui Archipelago while on assignment for Conde Nast Traveler in November of 2001.
• Making friends in a Burmese island village in the Mergui Archipelago. The written account of this experience, "The Last Archipelago", appeared in Conde Nast Traveler in July of 2002. The sea gypsies of the region (not pictured) were later made famous when they "read" the sea and escaped the Asian tsunami of 2004.
• Exploring the village of Kalpa in the Himachal Pradesh region of Himalayan India in 2001. The wacky events that followed this self-snapshot (including detention by the Indian army, and being subjected to several hours worth of porn videos in a sacred Buddhist village) were summed up in my essay "Something Approaching Enlightenment", which appeared last year in Lonely Planet's By the Seat of My Pants humor anthology.
• I'm not sure where this 1999 shot was taken, but given my beard and "birth-control glasses", it was probably some village in Laos, either before or after I drove a fishing boat 900 miles down the Mekong.
• Dandied up and ready to hit the town during a bachelor party in Montreal last fall.
• Enjoying the lap of luxury above the Chao Phaya River in Bangkok's Oriental Hotel in the summer of 2001. The tale of this hotel experience, "Room With a Skew", later appeared in the July 2002 issue of National Geographic Traveler.