Favourite Portraits

Now that I'm back in Singapore, the hardest part of sorting through, discarding and editing all the photos from my trip has ensued. Here are a few of my favourite portraits:

Off Thread: Google Earth Street View

Google earth's controversial street view is now live for London and 20 other cities. It's pretty amazing, the sheer volume of data this project must have generated. This, for the record, was my favourite haunt in London- Lahore One on Commercial Road. Pakistani food. Best Chana Masala I've ever had (and trust me, I've searched far and wide). The sheekh kebabs are excellent too. At one point my housemates and I were coming here once a week. They even gave me T-shirt (which was 5 sizes too tight- ended up using it as a cloth)



And this is Cafe TPT in Chinatown. Another regular haunt.

Route Map

Found these maps to illustrate where I've been. I started out in Calcutta, going to Varanasi for a long weekend (10 hr train ride), flew to Delhi (2 hr flight), trained to Agra (4 hrs), Agra to Jaipur (4.5 hrs) and Jaipur back to Delhi (5 hrs). From there I trained to Shimla (kind of on the right of Amritsar on this map) (10 hrs).

From Shimla, in Himachal Pradesh state, at the bottom left of the map, the road trip took me to Sarahan, Sangla, Chitkul (bottom right), and then up towards Kalpa, Nako, Tabo and Kaza. As the pass that brings you all the way around the big loop is only open mid April-ish, we had to drive all the way back the same way we came from, 2 days in total, or about 450km (average speeds on the windy narrow roads are about 20-30km/h)

Back in Singapore

So I'm back in Singapore now, waiting to get some stuff for work sorted, and should be starting work in a couple of weeks. I'll be continuing to post updates over here as I edit and sort through the 2500+ photos I took over the 2 months, and then I'll decide what to do with this blog.

Road to Kaza and the Curious Cow

Here's another picture of the curious cow.



World's highest petrol station! In Kaza, 12 km from Ki Monastery.

The drive to Kaza was pretty amazing. Along the Spiti valley, next to the river, one side of the mountains lies in the rain shadow and looks like a desert, whist the other side is completely covered in snow. Thus, on the road, looking out the left window you see snow, and out the other window is a completely different landscape. Bizarre! Lots of other bits of secondary school geography suddenly made sense as well- glaciers and U-shaped valleys, terminal moraines (remember that?!?), rivers and sedimentation patterns- really cool to see it in real life.

Tibet

Well not quite Tibet, but this was the closest I could get to the Tibet border, which lies on the other side of the mountain. Just a little further on the valley there is an ITBP (India Tibet Border Police) camp and a few small villages further up, and then the Tibet Border Police. Speaking to some of the locals, it's an 8-9 hr hike to cross the border and locals need special written permission to cross it, previously only available from Delhi, but now you can get the letter of authorization from Shimla. Stuff in Tibet is apparently much cheaper, but the border police control the flow of goods across the border, limiting it to small quantities of household goods (vacuum flasks, cutlery etc). Foreigners need an Inner Line Permit, available from Recong Peo (takes an hour to get done) to travel the road closest to the border. Costs 150 Rs.

Dhankar Village and Monastery

Another cool monastery at the top of a mountain, also very very old.



The monastery is on the left of the picture, with some houses above it on the right. The rest of the village lies below.



House above the monastery



Kids (those little specks on the bottom left of the photo) walking from the old part of town to the new part along the road.



Indians are crazy about cricket.



Really want to get myself a bike licence. Next trip to India- the road trip from Manali in H.P to Leh in Ladakh. Best done around September. The drive itself takes 2-3 days. Any takers?



Curious Cow

More Technicolour India

Nearer Shimla and Hatu Peak

These were taken on the first day out of Shimla and at Hatu Peak, near Narkanda, at an elevation of about 3400m.

Kinner Kailash and Kalpa by moonlight

I've stopped bringing my tripod around when travelling- hate using them and never do so, and lugging the extra weight around ain't fun. But every once in a while, a scene opens up that leads you to curse the omission of the metal tubes. These were taken with the camera plonked on the top of a small pillar, propped upwards by a T-shirt and mobile phone. These exposures were taken at the maximum auto shutter setting possible on the D700 of 30s, at F8 or so. I did, however take exposures up to about 240s (counting out loud) at F22 in bulb mode with my finger held on the shutter button, trying to keep as steady as possible. Not fun. Not at -2 deg Celsius with a breeze in your face. Those longer exposures had quite a lot of blurring of the clouds- but not enough to have that lovely creamy effect- and so weren't as successful as the shorter exposures. Note to self: purchase a remote release cable at the next available opportunity. And an 8 stop ND filter too.

Back in Shimla

9 days and about 900 km later and I'm back in Shimla. The countryside was amazing- some of the nicest scenery I've ever witnessed. Sad to say, my time in India has come to an end- 10 hr bus ride to Delhi tomorrow morning, and I fly back to Singapore the following night.

These photos are of the Ki (also spelt Key/Kye) Monastery in the Spiti Valley. This was the furthest I travelled from Shimla, about 400km away, in a sideways U shaped journey east and north of Shinla. The monastery is 1009 years old (!) and some of the rooms actually look like they are a thousand years old, with old timber and faded, moth eaten scrolls on the walls. Funnily enough, the monk that was showing me around and who I had chai with had been to Singapore a couple of years back, and a bunch of Singaporean monks had stayed at the monastery for a few of months- some kind of monk exchange programme.

Offline for 10 days

Dear readers, I hope you have been enjoying the photos and many thanks for the kind words and well-wishes on my journey. I will be going to around the India-Tibet border, more specifically, Kinnaur and Spiti, for the next 10 days, and so might not be able to update this blog until I return to Shimla. Hopefully I shall return with some nice photos.

Jon on Chitpur

Jon, my old neighbour in Kolkata, writing about the Calcutta Rescue leprosy clinic:

"Chitpur is Calcutta Rescue’s leprosy clinic and it sits right on the banks of the Hooghly River. It’s a surreal experience to work there – the breeze coming off the river is lovely, and lepers sit around rubbing a protective coat of Vaseline into their fragile, senseless, deformed limbs. Nearby, workers carry river muck by the head-balanced-basketful from barges that line the bank. Ulnar nerves shall bulge no further, interosseus muscles shall atrophy no further. Not since dapsone, clofazimine, and rifampicin......." (continues) click here for full text.

Black Sky

Created with Lightroom using the greyscale adjustment sliders. There is a slight halo around the outline of the object but can't be seen at normal print distances.

Shimla

Shimla really does remind me of a Swiss chalet town, just with nice curry. The British left quite an imprint on this town, which is still the seat of government in Himachal Pradesh, including calling the main pedestrian street thru the town 'The Mall'. This is the library:

Christ Church, built sometime in the mid 1800s (I forget):

The view from my balcony in the evening- (40% off season discount, at 500Rs a night, or S$16, has TV with sports channels too!):

View from the balcony in the day:

Trackside Conversations

Kolkata Rickshaws