A photographers guide to trekking
Dusty pass, very high up in the Bolivian Cordillera RealDuring our round-the-world trip, we did a lot of treks. Mostly we did high-altitude treks in the Andes and the Himalayas, but also a few in the jungles of Laos, Cambodia and Thailand. During these treks, I always took my camera and a few lenses along in the hope of capture a few good photographs. Here are a few tips I learnt along the way. Hopefully they'll help you out!
(more...)Buddha Park: It’s concrete and it’s wierd.
Buddha Park, or Xieng Khuan, is located about 25km outside of Vientiane, the capital city (or town, really) of Laos. To get there, we hired a tuk-tuk from the centre of town. The journey took about 45 minutes or so.
The park was built in 1958 by Luang Pu Bunleua Sulilat, a priest-shaman who attempted to integrate Hinduism and Buddhism into a single religion. After the communist revolution he fled to Thailand where he built another sculpture park in Nong Khai.
To put it mildly, Xieng Khuan is one of the most bizarre collections of statues we've ever encountered. Amongst the reclining Buddhas and three headed elephants you'll find all sorts of crazy monsters, some with multiple heads, some multiple tails. Others with abducted maidens in their hands. Everything is made from concrete. Unfortunately we didn't have a guide; it would probably make much more sense if you did. As it was, we didn't have a clue about what it was that we were looking at. It was puzzling but still extremely interesting to visit, and we would highly recommend visiting it.
Buddha Park, Vientiane, Laos
Reclining Buddha at Buddha Park, Vientiane, Laos
Three Headed Elephant at Buddha Park, Vientiane, Laos
Buddha Park, Vientiane, Laos
Statues, Buddha Park, Vientiane, Laos
View of Buddha Park, Vientiane, Laos
WTF?
Statue at Buddha Park, Vientiane, Laos
Statues at Buddha Park, Vientiane, Laos
Kate at Buddha Park, Vientiane, LaosVientiane, capital of Laos
Vientiane must be one of the most laid back capital cities in the world — like the rest of Laos everything seems to happen slowly there. We spent four nights in Vientiane where we treated ourselves to a fabulous guesthouse called Hotel Khamvongsa. The fast internet connection allowed us to spend some time catching up with the rest of the world and planning the next steps of our trip.
Vientiane does not have a huge number of sights to see, but it does have some great restaurants and the laid back atmosphere makes it a good place to chill out for a few days. One of the highlights for us was a visit to COPE which is an excellent and very moving exhibition on unexploded ordinances (UXOs) - definitely worth a visit if you are passing through. There are two rather strange sights to see around Vientiane. The first is the oriental Arc de Triomphe known as Patuxay (Victory Gate) which was built using cement donated by the Americans to be used to build a new airport. Not quite as impressive as the original, it is still worth a walk up to see the city views. The second is Buddha Park (aka Xieng Khuan) which is about 25km outside of Vientiane. The park was built in 1958 by a priest/shaman who wanted to integrate Hindu and Buddhism and contains of a collection of rather bizarre concrete Hindu and Buddhist statues.
We hired bicycles to get around, which was very easy as it is pretty flat and the traffic is minimal and slow. On these, we could venture a bit further a field to Pha That Luang, a massive golden Buddhist stupa of great importance to the Laos people, which was unfortunately closed, but from what we could see was quite spectacular.
One of the highlights of Vientiane was definitely the food — we had a lot of excellent international food (French and Italian), but also some great Lao food at the stalls along the Mekong. Great for visiting at sunset, these stalls sell a huge variety of food and walking along them you can see all sorts waiting to be eaten - live frogs and fish in buckets and all manner of vegetables.
VW Beetle, Vientiane, Laos
Tuk-tuk, Vientiane, Laos
Market Vendors, Vientiane, Laos
Vientiane Night Market, Vientiane, Laos
Lao-style Deep Fried Fish
Beerlao
Street Food, Vientiane, Laos
Buddha Statues at Wat Si Saket, Vientiane, Laos
Buddha Statue at Wat Si Saket, Vientiane, Laos
Damaged Buddha Statues at Wat Si Saket, Vientiane, Laos
Wat Si Saket, Vientiane, Laos
Tourist Monks
Buddhist Monks with camera phones, Vientiane, Laos
Patuxay, Vientiane, Laos
Pha That Luang, Vientiane, LaosWant to see more photos or want to see bigger versions of them? Visit our Vientiane Photoset on Flickr, or view a Slideshow.
Udaipur
Udaipur was definitely the highlight of our trip to India. It was the smallest city we visited in the country, but definitely our favourite.
We spend three nights in Udaipur. We arrived on the overnight sleeper train from Jaipur at six in the morning and checked into our Hotel, the Mewar Haveli. Almost immediately I noticed a big difference from the other Indian cities we had visited to date: people were much friendly, helpful and not necessarily trying to sell you something.
Udaipur Photoset on Flickr / Slideshow
Udaipur is set on the Pichola Lake. Two palaces, Jagniwas Palace and the Lake Palace are built on islands on the lake. Surrounding the lake, numerous other palaces have been built, and in the distance, the Monsoon Palace is perched above the city. Octopussy, the Bond movie, was mainly set in this city, and if you need proof, numerous bars around town show the movie every night at 7pm sharp.
The Lake Palace Hotel resembles a giant wedding cake and it’s used as the ultimate wedding venue for the very rich. Several nights during our stay there were weddings at the venue with amazing fireworks displays to add to the amazing scenery.
We managed to see the surrounding countryside by hiring an old Royal Enfield motorcycle (more about that in a future post), and visited the Monsoon Palace and Ubeshwarji, a Shiva shrine, in the hills high above the city. The Monsoon Palace is definitely pretty from far, but far from pretty – it’s derelict, but the views are excellent, and riding out into the countryside and up the pass to visit Ubeshwarji was definitely a highlight of the trip.
We also explored some hills and villages surrounding the city on horse, which made a great day out and I would highly recommend it – we went with Krishna Ranch and it cost us INR950 for a 4 hour trip, with lunch included.
Jaipur
We spent two days in Jaipur and stayed at the Pearl Palace Hotel. This is definitely one of the best budget hotels I’ve ever stayed in. If you’re ever in Jaipur, I would highly recommend staying at the Pearl Palace.
Delhi and Agra
Although we’re travelling for almost a year, we somehow managed to end up in the position where we could only spend 10 days in the vast, varied country of India. We could have easily spent 6 months exploring the country!
The brevity of our visit meant that we could only spend one day in Delhi and one day in Agra.
Delhi
In Delhi we hired a driver and taxi for the day (for INR1000) so that we could see as much of the city in a short a time as possible. With our driver, we visited Humayun's tomb, the Lotus Temple (below), Dilli Haart for lunch, Rajpath and the president’s house and ended up in one of the swanky bars in Connaught Place for drinks and then dinner afterwards.
Agra
We caught the train from Delhi to Agra. It was much better than I had expected. We were told by many of travellers to expect the worst, but in reality the station was fairly orderly, the train clean and even on time.
We arrived in Agra and met an Indian work colleague from the UK for a great lunch in a revolving restaurant above Agra. Afterwards we headed off for the Red Fort. After fighting our way through the masses of touts that stand outside every attraction in Agra (and most other places too) we were completely amazed by this incredible building. I’ve not seen anything like it anywhere in the world! Our only regret was that we didn’t have a guide, so we may have missed some interesting bits.
That night we tried to find a good restaurant or bar, but found little other than the ones in hotels. Agra seems to have very little to offer away from it’s incredible architectural wonders.
Next morning we visited the Taj Mahal. I got up early (6am) to avoid the crowds and get the best sunrise photos. Kate arrived later, but was unable to gain entry as she didn’t have any cash and none of the ATMs in town were working. Eventually she managed to pursued one of guards to let me out to give her cash, then readmit me.
The Taj is easily the most incredible piece of architecture I’ve ever seen. The symmetry and precision and attention to detail have to be seen to be believed. What makes it all the more amazing is the fact that everything was done by hand before the invention of laser cutters, GPS and all the other tools which would be essential in building such a building today.
Wakeboarding at Princes
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