Temples and Travel

Saturday, September 30, 2017

Photos from 2015

Miscellaneous photos from our trip to Tibet and Thailand in 2015
The first photos are from the flagpole raising ceremony at Tarboche.

There's something happening here

Two moms with two kids

The top of the flagpole

The man sitting on the pole is adding prayer flags to it

Mt. Kailash in the background

A difference in rooms. We prefer hot water, a flush toilet and clean sheets, but sometimes...

A "guesthouse" room on the kora around Mt. Kailash. Laurie and I had the room to ourselves, but, if it had been busy, we would have shared with strangers.

A room at the Vieng Mantra hotel in Chiang Mai, Thailand, a few days later.

Waiting for dark to take photos of the Potala Palace in Lhasa. One or two other people had the same idea.

That's it for this post. I wanted to share a few pictures from our trip to Tibet because I couldn't post from China.

Thursday, September 28, 2017

Laur and I are heading out again, this time for what seems like it will be a frenzied three weeks in SE Asia. I have been reading quite a few travel blogs as we plan for the trip, most of which purport to give vital information about cities or what to pack or how to get from point a to point b. I still prefer reading travel guide books, particularly Lonely Planet and Rough Guides. I used to always read nothing but LP, but lately I have been including Rough Guides in my planning and feel they are the way LP used to be. They are practical, have a mild sense of humor, have good advice and one can get a sense of the writer's personality. That used to be true at Lonely Planet, but the Wheelers are no longer involved with the business and things change.

Packing for a trip. There are a lot of guides online telling how to pack for international travel. I think that, for the most part, if you need to read a guide on what to take then you should just stay home. I once gave a presentation on how to travel independently for several weeks and showed the audience my backpack/suitcase. I use a twenty year old Eagle Creek Continental Journey pack, minus the day pack that came with it. The people in the audience laughed when I held it up - they couldn't imagine traveling so lightly. I start packing long before my trip and repack my bag several times before I go to make sure I can easily get everything in the pack and still have a little room for the trinkets I know I will buy along the way. I try to have enough clean clothes to last a week or more and figure I can wash things in the hotel room sink or have laundry done if I am staying in a place more than a couple of days. I don't need much other than that. Of course, I also carry a camera bag that is big enough to carry my DSLR, a couple of lenses, filters, charger and spare batteries, and a few other odds and ends.

Eagle Creek Continental Journey

The goal is to be able to walk down the street with everything I am traveling with on my shoulders.

Saturday, July 30, 2016

Humayun's tomb

I haven't been able to get a post to publish lately but I see the photo of the giant image of Hanuman went OK so I will give it a shot. I put a picture on Google plus of part of the Red Fort in case you didn't see it.

Delhi is still hot and will be that way until I leave. I have a cold and took it easy yesterday, but today I went back at it. This morning I walked a couple of miles or so to the temple with the huge figure of Hanuman. It is a popular place with a lot of activity. People stopped on the street to pay their respects to the temple or the statue - I couldn't tell which.

I then braved the subway system and changed trains twice to visit Humayun's tomb, a World Heritage Site. The thought is that the design of the Taj Mahal was strongly influenced by Humayun's tomb. I enjoyed visiting it but the Taj Mahal it ain't.

I rode the subway again with a lot of other people and went to Chandni Chowk, a market street near the Red Fort. I was looking for a shawl I saw there the other day but it turned out to be a part of a three piece set so the vendor wanted to charge me for the whole set. I didn't buy a shawl but I did get some terrific jalebis and a very good lassi. Naturally I thought of MC when I was eating the jalebis.

When I got back to my neighborhood the street in front of the New Delhi train station had one of the better traffic jams going on. It was really bothering a lot of drivers that they couldn't blow their horns and plow on through. They were stopped dead but they blew their horns anyway. I was almost hit by a moto (tuk tuk) while I was crossing a street. I guess the driver was so glad to break out of the jam he wasn't going to swerve for anyone.

Speaking of jams, it is a real experience buying beer in India. It is sold out of small shops that treat customers as if they are scum. I was on my way back to the hotel the other night and decided to get a beer to take with me. I looked in the beer store on my street and it was a zoo inside. I went in anyway (being quite a bit bigger than most people here really helps sometimes) and the bouncer pretty much asked me what the heck I wanted. I told him and he relaxed a little. Meanwhile, another customer complained about, I think, the fact that I was going to be served right away. The bouncer immediately threw him out of the store. The clerks in the store are the least helpful people I have seen in a long time.