Romanian adventure comes to an end.

And so, my very short adventure in Romania has come to an end. It was not anywhere near long enough to even scratch the surface here photographically, but I did get a glimpse into a couple of regions in this fascinating country. The last stop was Maramures, a region which I heard hadn’t changed much over the past couple of centuries.  Perhaps it was silly to believe this, but for some reason I did or perhaps just hoped that it would be true.

In reality Maramures was both – as amazing as I thought it might be and at the same time more visually abhorring than I could have imagined. It seems that in Eastern Europe things change even faster than in Asia and just as is the case with Asia, progress here is not a thing of beauty.

For whatever reason those who have been denied prosperity for so long seem to have a very crass way of showing that prosperity once they obtain it, with disregard for anything that existed before them. Traditional villages of wooden houses which seem to have been built in harmony with the landscape with consideration for the surroundings are very  few and far between in most of Maramures these days. They are being knocked down, replaced with huge (and I mean huge) brick and cement structures, which have about as much character as you might expect a concrete slab to have.

This “modernization” thing is a story I’ve seen throughout my travels around different countries. I don’t know how it ends, but I do feel that it’s very worthwhile for a photographer to capture what hasn’t been swallowed up by the so called progress. Luckily in Maramures a little bit of magic still remains. While many of the people are living in the soulless structures, they themselves haven’t lost their souls, nor what makes them visually unique to other Europeans. Perhaps most pleasantly, a lot of them are just as kind and as hospitable as their parents must have taught them to be.

I was reminded a little of India, when the locals almost forced their hospitality upon us, only in India the hospitality takes on the form of tea and food, while in Maramures you have to drink their toxic home-made “Tsuika”, a 50 + degree alcoholic beverage, strong enough to burn a whole in your stomach. After drinking five or six shots of it in the first day I decided that in reply to future offers it would be better for  me to drink a tiny bit of it, make a face and say that it is too strong for people from my country, which is not far from the truth.

I would have liked my trip to Maramures to have felt like a trip into a different world, into the past. It wasn’t quite like that, but as I drove my car through the mountains to the Hungarian border, passing old cattle herders in traditional hats, women collecting hay in their unique attires, all while being surrounded by some of the more dramatic scenery one is likely to encounter, I realized – Maramures is still special. It’s not what I wanted it to be, but that doesn’t make it any less special in relation to the rest of the world.

Here are some images of what still remains of the magical Maramures.

Sheep on their way to be herded up in the hills.

That’s the view the shepherd has when he herds the village’s sheep.

We met this man during a foggy afternoon in a small house, seemingly in the middle of nowhere. I asked if we could take a few photos of him outside. He agreed. As I fired off a few frames, he kept asking - “Am I really that f---ing cool? Is that why you’re photographing me? I mean there are so many other people, but you chose me! I must be something special!”

The man had quite a few “tsuikas” and just before he left he decided to chase the dog around. The dog was surprised.

At the same place we found this great, young character. I loved his attire – a child’s sweater with an image of a sheep and a grown man’s suit and trousers.

A village woman after feeding her piglets. The villagers of Maramures are very proud of their animals and gladly show them to anyone half-interested.

Vlad, one of my traveling companions and I met this elder at the front of his traditional house. We asked if we could come inside and see what it’s like. He let us in and posed for a few photographs. He’s 88 years old and all alone, so I think he was happy to chat to us for a while.

Magical morning in the hills. It’s foggy almost every day during this time of year. When it’s not cloudy, the scenery can be rather special.

Morning at the cattle market.

Village woman chopping up pumpkins.

I feel a world away from Romania as I type this entry from my room in Krakow, Poland. It’s been a frustrating couple of days since I left Romania, as I had a lot of my things stolen from my car during my overnight stay in Bratislava, Slovakia. Luckily most of the photography related stuff was with me in the hostel room, but I did have to search all of Krakow for a new battery charger for my Canon 5D MKII.

Tomorrow I hit the road again. After being re-united with my dear wife we have decided to drive to Slovenia. If my car makes it, that’s where I’ll be for the next few days.

That’s all for now.

Holbav – a trip into the past

I finally got a chance to shoot what I wanted, the way I wanted in a small Transylvanian village called Holbav. That’s where the photo of me in the oxen cart was taken (last post).

Though Holbav is only about 20km away from Brasov (the region’s largest city) it is a world away in terms of everything else.  Not much would have changed here over the last 100 years or so. Incredibly, there is still no electricity, no running water and none of the other comforts taken for granted in the “modern” Europe. In other words in many ways the village is representative of what a lot of Romania must have been like a long while ago. This is exactly what I wanted to photograph.

My time in Holbav, though very short, was intense. There are times when I want to limit what I know about a place. I think not knowing helps me to be open to only the positive aspects and to concentrate purely on my photography. Unfortunately that wasn’t the case here.

It’s a long story not worth getting into on the blog, but the bottom line is, I found out too much. That the place is not perfect, that life there is hard and the hardships sometimes have a negative impact on people, naturally. Though my experience was 99% great, being aware of the brute, savage and cruel qualities that occasionally come out of the local population was not something I wanted.

In any case, here are some images from this fascinating village.

Dominicu collecting hay, which had been drying for a couple of weeks prior.

Tony packing hay for winter storage.

Ioan and his oxen. Apparently they are pretty old. Ioan used voice commands and beat the crap out of them to get the desired results. It was often a pitiful scene, which is better communicated through video, which I also made, but cannot share until I reach a fast internet connection.

I don’t remember this old gentleman’s name, though I met him twice. He was a lovely fellow, but sure looked like he was drinking a lot, the second time I saw him.

No electricity means that kerosene lamps. replace light-bulbs. Here Ioan hangs the lamp on one of the few hooks that exist around his house.

Next stop – Maramures – supposedly it’s a photographer’s paradise in many ways. We’ll see. :)

The elders of Braslavschina

I am getting ready to drive from Belarus to Romania via Poland, Slovakia and Hungary, but here’s a post before I go.

I’ve said goodbye to Braslavschina, the region which I fell in love with over my time there. Well, it’s goodbye for at least a month and a half, not forever. :)

There are a few things which I absolutely love about Braslavschina, but it should come as no surprise that for a photographer of people the best part of any journey is the interaction with the locals. The locals I enjoyed interacting with in particular are the elders of Braslavschina, the fascinating men and women who despite living such tough lives, often even in their old age, remain so generally positive and even naive in the sense that they are pure of the cynicism that fills the world in which they live.

I often heard different variations of the same phrase from the older generation in Braslavschina. “Our lives used to be so difficult before, now everything is so much easier. It’s possible to really live now, pity there’s not much living left.” They would say this with a somewhat sad smile, but a smile nevertheless.

In any case, here are some of the elders of Braslavschina which I had the pleasure to meet and chat with.

We met these two ladies along the road. I simply couldn’t resist the scene, stopped my car and approached this “trio”. I asked where they were heading and got a pretty hilarious reply - “We’re taking the goat to his girlfriend.” Said the woman in the dark coat. “Yes, we’re taking the goat so he can have sex”. Said the woman in red and giggled. It turned out that they were sisters and Yulia, the one in the dark coat, with the bicycle was a pretty fascinating character. We hung out with her a bit, talked and took some more photos.

Yulia is 76 years old, she used to work at the stables when she was young and says that she knows everything there is to know about horses. I was a little shocked when she lifted her leg like this to put the reigns on one of her own horses.

Speaking of horses, Edward was looking for two horses that his grandson had tied up somewhere in the area not far from his home. When I approached, he had actually mistaken me for one of those horses. At 86 he lost most of his sight and almost all of his hearing too. Not a good combination. I told him that his horses where nowhere in sight and then after driving ahead realized that they were about 200 meters behind a patch a location which Edward had no chance of arriving at by himself. We drove Edward to the horses, expecting that he wanted to take them home for the night. All the wanted to do however, was feed one of them apples and check that everything was fine.

Father Timothy, (also pictured at the top of the post) worked as an engineer in the government collective farming system most of his life. By chance he had learned some old Russian language as a child and remembered some prayers from the “Old Russian Orthodox Faith”. When the church father passed away, Timothy was approached by the local devotees to take on the responsibility of leading the prayers. After a year of studying (at the age of 65) and leading prayers he was blessed by the “Old Russian Orthodox” Church and sworn in as a Father himself. We had a good chat with Father Timothy, what impressed me most about him was his openness and lack of religious fanaticism. He said: “What happens in the afterlife? I doubt that anyone of us will know the answer while we’re here. I always say that the most important thing is to lead a decent life, and the rest will take care of itself.”

Though we spent almost an hour chatting to this kind old lady, we never got her name. The wheel in the corner is still used for weaving and at the time of our visit she had actually begun to weave socks for her grandson who visited her every now and then. The dog on the bed is named “Bobik” that name is about the equivalent of Fido in the English-speaking world. She said that Bobik was lucky to be let in indoors. He quickly jumped on the bed and made himself comfortable. Good for me, I feel he adds to the shot.

That’s all for now folks. The next time you’ll hear from me, I’ll be…don’t even know where.

The fishermen brigade of Braslav (and some miscellanea)

A couple of days ago I finally managed to hang out with the fishermen brigade of Braslav. What a bunch of characters! My initial impression was that they were rude, mindless brutes. I’ve met people jut like them in India and Indonesia, but never felt the same, perhaps the fact that I could understand everything these guys said formed my opinion.  Every second word was a curse word, every joke was explicit and I think at least a couple of them may have had a good drink during the  work day.

It would be easy for me to look down on them or to get frustrated with their attempts to poke fun at me at every opportunity, this happened even more after they found out I was from Australia. “You have ostriches there right? Instead of fishing do you go crocodile hunting, right?” When I tripped, while moving around in my boots (which are a few sizes too big), one fisherman who found it particularly delightful to laugh at my expense said - “F-ck, watch your step, this isn’t f-cking Australia where the ground is all even and nice!” I found his comment funny and almost beautifully ignorant. I smiled and laughed. I guess that’s something I’ve learned to do regardless of circumstances, over time. As a photographer you almost can’t afford to have an ego, to get angry or to lose your temper, at least not while you are working and especially not while you are photographing people. You have to get a feel for those you are “working” with and while that’s happening, it’s better to shut up, smile and keep shooting.

When I got that feel for the fellows in the boats I realized that despite their brute nature, they were quite decent folks – simple people who work hard and get paid very little. They make the most of the situation and poke fun at each other almost as much as they poked fun at me. Me being with them was a somewhat fun departure from their regular schedule and so they couldn’t resist directing all their “enthusiasm” in my direction.

I guess I passed some sort of test by not negatively reacting to their jokes and just smiling and laughing all the way. They did do some funnily stupid things, one of the older men almost turned over a boat and nearly filled his boots with icy cold water in a desperate attempt to get to shore for a smoke. About half way through the whole fish catching process they stopped poking fun, I got more comfortable and started jumping from one boat to another and lying down on the wet nets, to get a better angle. The jokes turned to amusement and then, dare I say to something close to respect, they realized that I was working pretty hard, just as they were.

The images I got were not as “pretty” as I’d like them to be, the light became flat half way through and stayed that way for almost the entire shoot. They do however give you a bit of an idea of what the process was like. In any case, I’m hoping to get another stab at shooting this thing before I leave Braslav and head towards Romania.

By the way, if any of the blog readers live in or around Warsaw or Krakow, Poland, somewhere on the way to Romania in Hungary or in Slovakia,  then I’d love to meet you for tea/coffee and chat. Just email me from my website or post a comment.

Another thing, one of my images should be on display at the PDN PhotoPlus Expo (Nat Geo Traveler World in Focus Contest) in New York October 22-24. Apparently I won something, but I have not been informed exactly what, maybe it’s just the chance to be exhibited. In any case, it’s quite exciting. :) If anyone from NY will go to this thing, perhaps you can tell me if I actually won a prize and whether my image looks decent in print.

Sasha (middle) is the leader of the brigade, he does a lot of moving around and probably more cursing than anyone else, I guess that’s part of the job.

Sasha collecting fish from the nets. The young folks in green coats are picking out the fish which is smaller than 27cm (approx) putting them in the wooden box and tossing them back out into the lake. Such is the law.

This one’s pretty self-explanatory.

When all is said and done, the fish are placed into wooden boxes, loaded into cars and sent off to the fish factory.

That’s all for now folks. More to come soon.

The lonely Yosef Dorozhko

About a week ago we met a wonderful man by the name of Yosef. I spotted him from my car while he was pushing his bicycle up a hill. Immediately I wanted to photograph him. I turned the car around, caught up to Yosef and asked him if I could take a few photos. He smiled and said to go ahead. We spoke a bit, after learning that Yosef was 81 I was a little shocked. His bike journey wasn’t an easy one, even for a young person (there was lots of pedaling up hills to be done) and here he was carrying on very casually. I sorta invited myself over to his house and asked if I could take a few more photos there. He didn’t mind.

And so began our friendship with Yosef. It turned out that his life had taken a very unfortunate turn of late. He lost his wife and both of his sons fairly recently. He also lost his apartment in the neighboring Latvia, because the cost of all the bills exceeded his meager pension. Yosef had to go back to Belarus, to live in the house where he was born 81 years ago. To make his story more sad, the house where he now lives is fairly isolated and ever since his parents built it, there has never been any electricity. Yosef makes light with Kerosene lamps and instead of watching TV, he reads, prays and talks to his cats.

The crazy thing is, he never really complains about anything. He doesn’t drink uncontrollably, like many younger and much more fortunate people in the neighboring villages. He just goes on about his life the best he can, still managing to crack an occasional smile along the way. Yosef inspired me by his resilience and it seems like our visits to his home have given him a reason to crack that smile more frequently. Tanya and I have gone to talk to the authorities and hopefully he will have electricity some time in the not too distant future.

Yosef has a horse. It was time for him to work on the land during one of our visits and of course that presented a great photo opportunity.I got pretty lucky during my little photo-shoot. It had been raining most of the day, but soon after I arrived at Yosef’s house there was an opening in the sky. I got some good light and even a rainbow.

Yosef adjusts fire-wood in the oven which he himself made. He was heating up a kettle to make tea for us.

Tea time. Yosef sets up the tea glasses and the food for his guests.

Meeting people like Yosef again reminds me of how lucky I am to be doing what I do. These countless chances to meet inspirational people are something I enjoy immensely and when there is an opportunity to have a positive impact on the life of someone like Yosef, that’s sort of like the essence of being human.

More images to come.

The Gypsies of Vidzy

The other day was yet another reminder of why I love what I do so much. I can be pretty cynical, but in general I’d day that I am very optimistic and positive. I like to see the best in people until I am proven the opposite. I don’t see the point in stereotyping and prejudging entire nations, tribes or any groups of people for that matter. What have we got to gain from that?

In any case, it’s no secret that gypsies have quite a reputation around Europe, not necessarily the most positive one by any stretch of the imagination. Belarus is no exception. When I visited the village of Vidzy, one of the more fascinating places in the Braslav region (because of its’ multicultural population) I was given mixed impressions about the gypsies living there. Some folks said that all’s good, everyone lives peacefully and the gypsies are decent people. Others told me not to visit them with all that photographic equipment, because one way or another I’d “loose” it. One young man even told me not to visit them at all because I could be greeted with a punch in the face.

Nothing could be further from the last piece of advice. In fact after visiting three gypsy houses, I found them to be the most hospitable people I’ve met in Belarus yet. If there’s any truth to the theory that gypsies came from India, it was manifested through the instant invitations of the guests (us) for tea. I know that tea probably wasn’t around in India when (or if the gypsies) came out of that region, but still, the hospitality was all too familiar. When we met the local gypsy leader, the “Baron”, as they used to be called, he even offered us lunch, which isn’t so usual these days, at least it’s not offered to total strangers, not even by the very kind village people of the Braslav region.

To be honest I didn’t think anything negative of the gypsies in Vidzy even before I met them, but I also didn’t expect such level of hospitality and their eagerness to share whatever they had left of their culture. We spent about 4 hours just chatting to families and shooting a few frames along the way. The whole trip was another proof of why preconceptions should be left at home when we deal with real people, this is especially important if you’re a photographer.

The gypsy elder; 78-year-old Ivan Yanovich, his grandson Jan and his great-grand niece Xenia. Xenia was very playful and I wanted to show that through her pose/movement in the images, she just couldn’t stay still.

I couldn’t resist shooting a few more frames when the cat came into the middle of the doorway. Again Xenia is squirming and wiggling.

Another variation of the image from the top of the page. Because my wife Tanya and our local friend Anna were doing a lot of the talking with Filip and Vera (pictured) I had the luxury of just watching things like a fly on the wall and photographing whenever I saw a good shot.

That’s all for now folks. More images coming soon along with some stories.

Braslavschina - The most amazing place you’ve never heard of

I have just returned from Braslavschina – the region around the town of Braslav and as I mentioned in my last post, all of my expectations have been surpassed. There are plenty of old, traditional villages, wonderful, photogenic people and there are over 400 lakes – almost all of them ridiculously picturesque.

Perhaps it’s some sub-conscious thing about this region being a part of my “motherland”, but Braslavschina has quickly become one of my favorite places in the world. All I need to be happy is – something to photograph, some place to swim and some nice people to chat to. :) I can find all of that here, plus the kind of nature, which I only thought existed in fairy tales.

Ok, so I’ve fallen in love with this place, I really mean it. I’ve even enquired about prices of land and simple houses here and I have  found out that they are ridiculously cheap, at least by Western standards. If I find something suitable, I’ll soon have my own tiny piece of paradise, perhaps even one right on a lake.

Anyway, enough dreaming. Here’s a brief look at what I’ve seen so far. I’m in Minsk for a few days to sort out some paperwork on my newly bought ‘84 Volskwagen Golf II. It ain’t pretty, but it’s cheap, it’ll take me where I want and it’s mine. I’ll be coming back to Braslavschina as soon as I can. I’ve only scratched the surface, as far as photography goes.

Tolik and Vatsik – two cow herders taking a break. It seems like I’ve got this strange attraction to cattle herders and fishermen, wherever I go. More on fishermen in the near future.

Tolik herding cows with a whip.

Above and below are images of kind elderly ladies from two different villages with the same story. In the really traditional villages there isn’t much youth these days and the old are the living, walking, breathing embodiment of the incredible history of this area.

A prayer inside a church of the “Old Russian Orthodox” faith. It’s very similar to the “standard” Russian Orthodox religion, but all the prayer’s are written in ancient Russian and read accordingly. Only two people in this village can read them – this “Father” is one of them. The “Old Russian Orthodox” faith is almost extinct in Belarus. The three ladies in the background are basically the only attendees.

Father Akim (a very unusual name for Belarus) on his way out of the church.

Every morning this man waits by the side of the road to sell is milk to large government-run co-operatives. Here he is returning home after selling the milk.

Grandpa Alexei was very shy about being photographed. When it comes to photos initial shyness is a common reaction amongst most of the older people. They’ll usually say something along these lines – “Why would you want to photograph me? I’m not shaven” or “I haven’t even got my teeth”. To me however these faces are amazing, they say so much without the need for words. After a short chat and me explaining what I do everyone usually agrees to have their picture taken.

The modern way of preparing firewood – with a chainsaw.  The man – Vasily is one the few younger men choosing to live his life in the countryside. He does however work outside of his village, on construction sites in cities as large and as far as Moscow.

Back to the cow herders – Tolik and Vatsik having their dinner by the fire. I won’t mention what they were drinking.

Vova is another rare find, he is the only young man in his village. The rest have moved out and now live and work in Belarus’ larger cities.  Photographically speaking this is the sort of portrait I am enjoying shooting more and more these days - a shot where the person is surrounded by objects that tell you something about his her life/culture.

Ok, that’s all for now. Needless to say, I can’t wait to go back and shoot some more stuff. I have also filmed some interviews and some scenes that are best communicated through “moving pictures”, but unfortunately my ancient laptop isn’t powerful enough to edit HD video. Well, I guess that’ll all have to wait.

Get Lost Magazine

My image of “Kusti” wrestlers is featured as a double page spread on the inside of this issue of “Get Lost” magazine. Get Lost is a pretty awesome Australian travel publication which takes the reader far beyond the usual tourist destinations. I highly recommend it to anyone who can get their hands on it.

As my fellow travel photographer Jeffrey Chapman pointed out to me in the last post, I was also featured on the cover of the “Amateur Photographer” magazine. Obviously that’s cool and I’m pretty proud of the fact. :) The cover image is above.

I am now in Braslav and in all honesty the region has exceeded any expectations I had. I found exactly what I was looking for and I’ve fallen in love with the natural beauty of the place, as well as the wonderful locals.  A few new images will be up online very, very soon.

That’s all for now, folks!

Back in Belarus

I’ve been in Belarus for almost a couple of weeks now. Most of the time has been spent catching up with family and friends, not doing much photography, but I am making some “grand plans”, so to say. It’s fascinating to be back here. So much changes over the years; especially if I think back to the time when my family left Belarus, shortly after the break-up of the USSR. These days the center of Minsk, the capital of Belarus is not so different from centers of cities in the “Western” world. There are restaurants with foreign foods, expensive cars on the roads and all sorts of “super” and “hyper” markets, where unlike in the past the check-out-ladies say “Thank you for your purchase”. There’s even a futuristic looking railway station, albeit futuristic only on the outside.

But, in many ways Minsk is a time-capsule. Step away from the center into what’s called the “micro-suburbs” – neighborhoods with blocks of high-rise apartment buildings, where most of the population lives, and you’ll see the Minsk of 20 years ago.

In the the streets of the “micro-suburbs”, children still play the same games that they played when I was a kid, old grannies still seat on benches and gossip about their neighbors, groups of youth still hang out the front of the “pod’yezd” (entrances to the high-rise apartment buildings) and there are occasional drunks stumbling around the streets and pissing in elevators. Oh, the memories.

In all honesty though, there is a great vibe here during summer time and I’m glad to catch at least the end of it. I’m writing this entry from my grandmother’s house, about 30km outside of Minsk. She’s a fascinating and wacky character and I’m making a little film about her with the new 5D MKII.

Oh, almost forgot to mention. I’m now connected to a mobile internet, courtesy of my new, awesome cousin-in-law. So, I will try not to disappear for too long, as long as there’s coverage, I should be able to get online.

The light eBook is also coming very soon, but meanwhile check out the wonderful David duChemin’s eBook on 10 ways to improve your craft.

Above is an image of modern youth, hanging out by the leftover relics of communism.

A blast from the past.

Well, again it’s been much too long since my last post. I’ve been busy – yes. But I did have a few ideas that I wanted to share here. Unfortunately my ideas for posts often take very long to cook up and when they do, they sometimes start morphing into something completely different.

I have many things on my plate at the moment. There are several things I’m working on  at once - one of them is another e-book. This one is going to be on lighting for travel photographers and those on the move. It’ll cover the use of off camera flash, reflector and of course natural light. The e-book will be similar format to “Understanding Post Processing” in that I will break down how certain images of mine were created. But there will be more examples, diagrams/illustrations of light set ups and lots of explanations. I’m pretty excited about it, but more on that in the coming days (or weeks).

The post from the beginning of the month “Some words to aspiring travel photographers” seems to have struck a chord with many and as I was sorting through some images from Indonesia, I came across photos from that ferry I mentioned. The one packed with goats, chickens, furniture, dry fish and lovely fellow passengers who chain-smoke and continuously spit on the floor.

And so, rather than bore you with a half-thought-out blog post, I leave you with images taken on the morning of our 16 hour, overnight ferry ride from an island called Lembata to one called Alor. The photo at the top of the page is obviously of the fellow passengers who didn’t impress me much with their smoking and spitting. I guess the image doesn’t do them “justice”.

Bangalore, Pune, Mumbai and Good Bye India.

Bangalore - we didn’t originally plan to stop in this city, but it was the nearest place from where we could get a train to Pune, our final stop before we’d fly from Mumbai. I didn’t want to ride any more either, but all trains to Bangalore were full and you can’t put a motorcycle on a bus.

I planned to ride the 480km from Madurai to Bangalore over two days, but somehow Tanya and I summoned up enough energy and finishing the ride in one day seemed possible.

480km is the longest distance that I have ever ridden in one day on a motorcycle, anywhere. If I were riding in Australia, this distance would not seem that far, really. But this is India and here distance is not only measured by milestones along the road. It is measured by how many cows, chickens, goats, children and women with firewood on their heads you almost hit (because they almost jumped under your wheels) as well as how many buses and trucks almost hit you (because they are bigger and don’t care). It’s a long distance, almost unbearably long. Your butt feels like it’s burning on the motorcycle seat all the way, but you finally pass the pain barrier after 400km, you stop feeling or caring.

Bangalore – the “I.T. City”, “The future of India”. You could have fooled me by the last 20km of road that leads there. Countless potholes, puddles of black water, construction, everywhere and that horrible, dark smoke, the whole thing felt like traveling through a post-apocalyptical landscape, and then you reach the city itself. I’m sure that Bangalore is as amazing as people make it out to be, but whatever it has to offer, it can offer to someone else. I had no time to discover its charm under the black cloud of traffic smoke; I was to finish my “business” and to head off.

At the railway station we sent what was left of the motorcycle back to my Gujarati friend Hardik, who is now in Ahmedabad (Gujarat’s commercial capital). Then it was our turn to go. We’ve become soft when it comes to public transport. We avoid buses because of the loud music and no leg-room; we avoid the sleeper class on the train because of the countless beggars and hawkers that pass through every other minute and we even avoid the “Three-tier AC”, because it still feels somewhat crowded. So we got two “Two-Tier AC” tickets for our 24-hour train ride to Pune. “Two Tier AC” means that you have a compartment with four beds in it and two beds along the corridor, what it does not mean is that you will get the peace and quite that you long for on a tiring journey. I had to force myself to sleep to the sound of continuous burping, farting and snoring of fellow passengers. At 11:30 pm a young boy with a loud, squeaky voice decided it was a good time to have a conversation with his father about Superman. Oh, the joys of travel on the Indian Railways!

Pune – just a one night stop here, a quick catch up with a friend - Rahul, a young man who had recently spent a year in Germany, a year which radically changed the way he now looked at his own city, his country for that matter. The first time I met him I told him that I thought Pune was very modern and developed. “Modern, developed?! No, this place is not like that! You see a high-rise glass building and then you walk inside and you see the people there, spitting on the shiny floors, throwing their shit around. That is modern? Developed?” With his unusually cynical views and his stories about Pune’s Koregaon Park and the infamous “Osho International Meditation Center” Rahul certainly kept me amused and entertained. I hope I meet him again one day.

Mumbai – the city of dreams for millions. I never liked this place very much, but make no mistake about it, it is absolutely, incredibly fascinating.

One more friend to catch up with in Mumbai – Santosh, an independent filmmaker who works as a sound engineer in various Bollywood drama-series out of necessity.  Santosh is one of the most intelligent fellows I have come across on my Indian journeys. Whenever I meet him he tells me countless stories about various places we come past in Mumbai. These stories have probably played a part in forming my view of the city – yes there is crime and there are slums, but there is so much more that you will simply pass by if you are visiting by yourself. So many cultures and sub-cultures and everyone has a story, a fascinating story.

As we walked to a restaurant in Colaba, a place where I usually eat, we passed through the parts of the city where the horrors took place in December. It’s eerie when you hear what happened and picture things, but now, just a couple of months later life goes on as before. Sure there are a few policemen with machine guns, but you couldn’t even imagine what took place in the very same streets, where today people are laughing, drinking and celebrating life. That’s how India is. It doesn’t stop for anyone, nor does it compromise or change because you want it to. It is every bit “The Incredible India” of the romanticized advertisements and it is every bit as dark and hopeless as its worst slums, its deranged beggars and its corrupt politicians.

This trip has exhausted us more than any of our previous visits to the country. I don’t know why exactly. Perhaps it’s the distance we’ve covered by motorcycle or perhaps it is because we understand things a little more now. The naivety is gone and it is not only the exotic, beautiful India that we see these days. We realize just how hard it can be to survive in this country, to live with dignity or to at least make it possible for your children to live with dignity. We haven’t learned something that we didn’t know before, but it has really hit home this time. Our realization however, doesn’t make this country any less fascinating. It is a matter of time until we come back. Although I want to spend a few years seeing other parts of the world, I know that just like this time, when India calls – you simply pack up and go.

Photo: The image at the top was taken on a previous India trip. I shot it in a neighborhood about 500 meters from the famous Taj Hotel in Mumbai. It wasn’t quite what you’d classify as the slums in India, but not much better. Insane contrast, the richest of the rich were staying at the Taj, while the poorest of the poor were living in less than ideal conditions and all that separated them from each other was a five minute walk. It’s the old cliché about India – the land of extreme contrasts, but it is so true and it is still tough to get your head around the whole concept when it comes to the rich and the poor.

Madurai

From Kanyakumari it is a 250 km ride to Madurai. We've made it...barely. After over 10,000 km on the road over the past three months, our bodies are aching in places we didn't know could ache. The two-wheeled machine which has been transporting us all this time is "exhausted" too. It experienced another "major injury" - another crack right through the middle of its chasis on the way to Madurai, but somehow we managed to pull through to our destination. Madurai is a fascinating city. My short time here would not do it any justice. However, I decided to at least have a peek at it, rather than to simply pass it by. Parts of the city are particularly photogenic. The fruit and vegetable market inside the city is as bustling and challenging to photograph as the fish market in Kollam. I came to this place every morning, I suppose more to absorb the atmosphere than to create any compelling images. Later in the mornings I'd go to the temple, the most famous temple in all of south India and arguably the finest example of Dravidian architecture - the Sri Menakshi. To my huge disappointment there was restoration work being done to the Sri Menakshi during my visit. Its giant, elaborately decorated towers were covered with faded, dry palm leaves. I was left only with post card images of what it looked like and my imagination of how it may look after the restoration. Thankfully the inside of the vast temple grounds was very much intact and buzzing with religious activity. I have a strange feeling in Hindu temples; it is as if I am both - a complete alien and totally at home there. All the rituals, the hundreds queuing up for darshan (blessing) or prashad (blessed food) and bowing to the Gods carved out of stone; on the surface none of it makes much sense to someone like me. I'm not religious by any stretch of the imagination, in fact I'd say I'm anti-religious at times, but the essence behind every religion is very human and when I think of that, I, as a human being can connect with it. I feel that behind the multitude of layers, the rituals at Hindu temples or for that matter any sites of worship, stand two universal factors - misery and hope. Misery and hope go hand in hand in and around the Sri Menakshi Temple. A poor farmer's family spends the night on the pavement by a make-shift fire, a deformed man begs for money, a newly-wed couple makes an offering and the fat businessman who has "made it" bows down to the Shiva statue - there is a degree of hope and misery that drives all of these people. They plead for a better life, money, happiness, forgiveness and they all hope that they will be heard by the divine. There isn't an individual in the world that doesn't suffer or hope. And as for surrendering to the divine, if it's not God that a person looks to, it's love, work, alcohol, drugs. The essence remains the same, only the layers around it change. Knowing this makes me feel at ease about the blanks in my knowledge of Hinduism. I can fill in those blanks. What makes me comfortable is the fact that those in the temple are humans, before they are anything else. Their actions are a manifestation of their cultural upbringing, but these actions are driven by the same misery and hope that I and every other human feel. We spent three days in Madurai. Our next stop is Bangalore. How we have to get there is another story.

At the edge of the world...or India.

Kanyakumari is where India ends. It's as far south as you can go before you face nothing but endless water. I thought it a rather romantic idea to reach "The world's edge", to ride all the way to Kanyakumari on the motorcycle, and finally we have made it. I've got no idea exactly how many kilometers this place is from Rajasthan, where we began the journey, but mine and Tanya's bottoms say "It's pretty damn far!" Besides being a major place of religious pilgrimage, the biggest attractions of Kanyakumari are sunrise and sunset watching. Because the town is located on a narrow tip, right at the very bottom of India, it is possible to see the sun rise and set over the sea, and you only have to walk a couple of hundred meters from one spot to the other. As a result every morning there are hordes of mostly local tourists who line up to watch the sunrise and to photograph each other in silly poses at the sunrise point. In the evenings the same deal is repeated at sunset point. The whole area around those two spots is kitschy beyond description and rather irritating, due to the countless numbers of people trying to sell you tourist junk at every corner. But should you venture outside of the tourist zone, you will see a very different side of this region. One day we decided to ride along the coastline road that headed north-east from the "Edge of India". The whole way felt strange, fascinating and edge-of-the-worldly. Sparsely populated fishing villages, government housing, likely erected after the 2004 Tsunami and churches, in almost every village, they seemed so out of place due to their grand design and enormous size that dwarfed anything we had seen in Goa. Without a map, a description of the area in any guidebook or any useful information from the tourist office the ride was exploration for the sake of exploring, a journey into the unknown. There were no demands for pens, chocolates or money along the way. It was beautiful "unadulterated" India. When we got back into town I was faced with the same dilemma that I have encountered a few times on this trip - a bit over three months to cover a relatively small part of India, but ultimately so little time. We have less than ten days until we fly back to Sydney and so the journey towards Mumbai must begin soon. The next stop is Madurai, we ride from there to Bangalore and travel by train for the remaining days.

Photos: Top and middle: A child of a salt worker, patiently waiting for mother with his juice bottle. I photographed this at a salt making field (or whatever you would call a place that makes salt). We came across it while doing our little exploration trip. We came back a few times, wanting to see the mother and son again, but they were no longer there. Second from the bottom: Tourists at sunset point. Bottom: This one's for my mum. She hasn't seen her son in over four months. Yeah, it's kinda cheesy, but till I get back I guess a photo is all she can see of me.

Last Days in Kerala

Let me paint you a mental picture - it's early in the morning on Munro Island, the village street is still quite, golden light shines on the greenery that's abundant everywhere you look and a water canal flows to the right of the road. By the same road is a group of little schoolboys, one of them is urinating, facing away from the road. Suddenly he notices Tanya and I pass by on the motorcycle and turns around, without zipping up his pants or finishing his 'business' he screams "Hello! School Pen!We decided to spend our last few days in Kerala photographing things that you can only see in this state - the backwaters, the boatmen, the sand collectors (see image below). Munro Island was a pretty ideal location. It is beautiful, that is no secret and it's that beauty that attracts countless houseboat tourists and spreads the "Hello, school-pen, chocolate, rupee!" disease among the island's population.The incident described above is ridiculous and that's what I think of the whole thing, it's ridiculous and stupid beyond words. Even the adults murmured those dreadful words, encouraging those I photographed to demand a pen, chocolate or money for being photographed. To the defense of the people in my images, none of them asked me for anything. They really were as dignified as I hope they look in the images.The negatives aside Munro Island is a special part of Kerala that is hard to resist. Here you can still see people living unhurried, traditional lives. There are no roads through the middle of the island, instead the canals are the island's highways and the only practical way to get from place to place, you constantly see men and occasionally women getting around in small boats. Our highlight on the island was hiring a boat from a village family and going about by ourselves. Judging by the astonished looks on local people's faces it seems that no foreign visitors ever do this, but we loved exploring and learning this particular boat riding technique. In Kerala's backwaters people don't usually paddle with oars, as the waters are rather shallow they have a long piece of bamboo which is used to push off from the ground under water. We got one oar and one long piece of bamboo. After some trial and error Tanya took over the role of the navigator and used the piece of bamboo to push off and change direction when needed. I paddled with the oar and looked for potential photos.The atmosphere on Munro Island is very peaceful and laid back, at least it's like that along the canals. Different story near the roads, where I saw and heard something that absolutely shocked, puzzled and horrified me - loudspeakers on trees and electricity poles. Every day the loudspeakers blasted out some insane tune, so loud that it crackled from distortion. Why would anyone want this in "paradise"? I guess, it's just another Kerala mystery.Alumkadavu, the magical place by the lake which I wrote about in one of my past posts was our last stop in Kerala. We liked it so much the first time that we decided to go back for a day, but, well, the magic was sucked out of it this time around. Why? LOUDSPEAKERS! Thankfully they weren't on trees, but what we heard was bad enough - 24 hours of temple music so loud that we could hear it as if it was at full volume in our own room, and it was actually on the other side of the lake. We came back to this village to absorb the peaceful vibes and to get some photos of people fishing on the lake. Neither happened, but I did get a few images of one of the "public ferry" boatman over a few rides with him (image at the top of the post). He was a nice guy and a hard worker, who didn't mind me snapping away and occasionally rocking the boat, he was too agile to care. He'd walk right along the edge from the font to the back of the boat and vice-versa.

I am now writing from Tamil Nadu, a state that shares its' border with Kerala. So, "What will I remember about God's Own Country?". Well, it is remarkably beautiful and full of colorful, ancient traditions that are very much a part of people's lives today. These people are mostly gentle and kind, and dignified, but I guess I'll hear "School-pen, chocolate, rupee!" in my nightmares for some time to come, probably accompanied by temple music playing at full blast from a loudspeaker on a tree.

Photos:

Top to bottom:

- Boatman of a public "ferry", Alumkadavu

- A fisherman with his morning catch at a small fish market, near Munro Island

- Coconut loading. We were riding around Alumkadavu at sunset, looking for something interesting to photograph and found these men loading coconuts into a truck. They were a bit surprised, in a pleasant way, the man on the right opened up one of the coconuts and gifted it to me.

- Sand collecting, Munro Island. Seems like this is a big industry in Kerala. I saw these guys working while we were on our way back from our boat ride. You can't really get a decent shot from the boat, nor can you get it from the shore, so I went chest deep into the water. The workers cracked up with laughter, but continued their job. I shot a few frames. The next image is from their boat, it's worth exploring different angles if you have a chance.

The Little Tea-Shack at the end of "Beach Road"

During one of our days in Kollam we wanted to find out where the "Beach Road" led to, so we decided to ride it south, as long as it followed the shoreline. After passing a couple of fishing villages and beaches we came to a corner, there the road branched off inland. A small shack stood on that corner, smoke was coming out of its windows and people with tea glasses stood outside. Having come to the end of the "Beach Road" and not having any desire to head back to our room, we got off the motorbike and went into the smoky shack. Inside I found one of my favorite photographic places in Kerala.

The shack was a small eatery that served basic food and tea to fishermen and other village folk. There are countless numbers of such tea-shacks all around India, but this particular one caught my eye. The blue wall, with everything on it was like a tapestry that told a short story about the place and the people who live there. Anyone who's been to South Kerala will recognize the symbols of the state in the photograph at the top of the post. The 'subjects', the owners of the tea-shack - Manuel and Anitha Sebastian are husband and wife; they are Catholic Indians, of whom there seems to be a lot along the coastline of South Kerala.

I made three visits to the tea-shack; I would go there later in the morning, after photographing fishermen by the sea. The top image was taken during my last time there, in the first two I couldn't get the couple together; one or the other would always be busy with customers or in the kitchen. Despite not really being able to speak to each other, sign language and some familiar words helped me explain that I wanted to take some photos. Manuel and Anitha found me rather amusing. They thought it was really funny, or crazy (in which case they masked shock with laughter) when I photographed them through the window which expelled the smoke from their cooking. It was one of these cases where photography seemed to brighten up people's mundane, daily routine and they gladly welcomed me into their lives, for a brief moment in time.

Customers kept coming in and out of the shack. After it was known what I was doing inside, it seemed that some came with the hopes that they too would be photographed. Here are some more images from the "Little Tea-Shack at the end of the Beach Road".

One early Sunday morning I realized that no one goes to work on Sundays, no fishermen would be going out to the sea. Since I had already gotten up early I headed off to the tea-shack in hopes of catching some customers having tea there. This gentleman had just come from church and was reading the news with a glass of tea in his hand. I asked if I could photograph him, he smiled and agreed. Initially he stared directly into the camera, but I asked him to look a little to the side, to make the portrait more casual.

Anitha cooking parothas, while Manuel prepares them. Manuel managed to communicate to me that everyday they go through 400 parothas, no small task for a tiny place like theirs. This was taken through the window that sporadically expelled smoke from the cooking fire.

Manuel pauses while making parothas.

The rest of the images are pretty self explanatory. All were taken with natural, light that came from the sides, through the windows.

These are the Good Times

At last we have reached a place which validates our reasons for coming to Kerala - North Travancore. This will be the last of what we see of "God's Own Country" before we move on, and we'll certainly be left with a nice impression. The region represents the Kerala which I had hoped existed, but only had glances of so far - North Travancore has fishing settlements and harbors, quiet villages along the backwaters and in the city of Kollam there is even an atmospheric, bustling fruit and spice market. I have encountered all that I had hoped. The region is a paradise for a photographer, or at least a photographer with a motorcycle, as the places of photographic interest are not exactly within walking distance of each other.

The Photos

One of my biggest photographic obsessions is fishing villages and fishing harbours. I love of the sea and seafood, and sometimes I not so secretly wish for a lifestyle like the fishermen that are in my images. I am fascinated by these men, they're brave, tough and while often crude, they are always full of life and humor.

In Kollam, the biggest city of North Travancore I finally satisfied my last for all photographic things fish-related. Along the shoreline North and South of Kollam Beach there are a few picturesque fishing settlements. Now, picturesque doesn't mean that they're ideal places to hang out. The stench of fish fills the air, rubbish is everywhere and in the morning, walking along the shoreline is like walking through a minefield. Let me explain - the fishermen, like most of their fellow countrymen make crapping one of the first priorities to begin the day, but unlike most of their fellow countrymen they take a crap directly on the beach. I'm sorry for devoting attention to this, but the crap really is a big part of the experience of a morning walk along the shore - one wrong move, and you're in trouble.

While shooting the image at the top of the post I was confronted with a rather strange predicament. As usual I had to look under my feet to avoid the "mines" on my way towards the fishermen, but then as I went into the water, Tanya noticed something floating and being thrown back to shore. It was a piece of crap that simply wouldn't agree to be taken away by the sea and it seemed as if it was stalking me. Now I had two things to worry about - the waves that could damage my camera and the floating crap that could leave me with a psychological scar. In-between crouching for the shot, standing up when the waves came and dodging the piece of crap I managed to get a few images, this is one of them.

They say that this fishing technique is as old as time itself. The net is taken out from the shore, it's spread by a few boats, sometimes over quite a distance. When everything is ready, the boats signal to two groups of men on shore, one group at each end of the net. The groups begin to pull and start moving sideways towards each other, to form a circle with the net. When this is done, the pulling gets more intense, everything within the circle is captured and as the net makes its way towards the shore, the pulling becomes more difficult. More men join in (this shot was taken towards the end). The final moments are quite amazing. The fishermen chant to encourage each other, their voices join into a melody that resembles a primeval war-cry, the tempo gets faster, as the catch approaches the shore, the volume rises. The full net is carried onto the beach, the fish are sorted and distributed among the families of the fishermen. If the catch is good, some big fish will have made their way into the net, it is usually sold and the money is divided. On this occasion the catch was nothing more than a load of tiny silver fish, which will only be used for curries or dried under the sun. A few disappointed looks, a few sighs, but this is just another day at work for the fishermen. The net is packed up, washed in the ocean and spread out to dry till next day.

Men unloading sharks from a boat at Neendakara Fishing Harbour. This was probably one of the most, if not the most bustling fishing harbor that I had ever been to. You'd think that it would make an ideal photographic spot, which it can, but not without difficulties. The light was great, it was early morning, but there was just way too much happening. You really had to decide what you wanted to focus on or you'd shoot a lot of everything and nothing really worthwhile.

South of Kollam Beach - An elderly fisherman packing up the net, while crows and eagles circle in search of leftovers.

Top: Old fisherman pulling in the catch, South of Kollam Beach.

Middle: Fishermen push the boat out to sea, as the sun is about to rise, South of Kollam Beach.

Bottom: A fisherman and his wife in a Catholic settlement North of Kollam Beach (most of the fishermen in this area seem to be Catholics).

Top: Namboodiri caste (Keralan priest) man and boy atop a decorated elephant during Gaja Mela, Rural Travancore.

Bottom: Couldn't resist taking a shot of this tea maker at Gaja mela. There was a power cut (very usual all over Kerala) and the only light came from the kerosene lamp and the fire, making his little tea-hop, seem rather mysterious. I shot a few frames of the man and had a couple of teas while doing it. When I asked how much for the tea, he waived his hands to sign "don't worry about it". I insisted, but he repeated the same thing. That's the generosity and hospitality I have come to love in India.

Going South or "Chocolate, school-pen, hello-ten-rupees!"

Whenever tourism hits a place in a developing country it seems to create the "chocolate, school-pen and hello-ten-rupees" (or whatever other currency) phenomenon. A mushrooming of expensive restaurants with rubbish food follows and then all the prices for regular services skyrocket. I really dislike the way tourism from the 'rich' world shapes the 'poor' world. The sort of interaction between the two breeds cynicism, and for a photographer of people cynicism is a very dangerous thing. What will your photograph say if your subject sees you as nothing more than a moneybag and you see the subject as someone who will do anything to get a piece of that money? I would never want to take photos that way.

Is tourism bad? I've got no answer to that. As far as what I’ve seen, the negative impact often outweighs any positives. Of course it ultimately depends on what your priorities are. If you'd like to have everything at the snap of your fingers because you have the money and you don't mind that your relationships with people in these so called "third world" countries are nothing more than transactions, then tourism has worked out well for you. If, however you want to genuinely experience a culture and not be confronted with a price-tag for a smile or a hello, well then you're really outta luck. Since I belong to the latter category I avoid tourist "hot-spots" like I'd avoid the plague. But it's impossible to avoid them completely, some are on your way, others lure you in with something you simply can't resist and then there are times when you think it won't be as bad as people say. My next couple of stops after Thrissur fell under a few of those categories. Cochin lured me in with the images I had seen of the Chinese fishing nets and tales about colorful colonial architecture. Allepey, dubbed the Venice of India was on the way, and the Venice thing sounded tempting.

I probably romanticized Cochin like no other place in India and when you do that you set your self up for disappointment. But Cochin didn't really disappoint me as a visitor, it was in many ways what I had imagined, however this city did tease me and didn't give me what I wanted, photographically speaking. I only saw hints of what could have been, had the day of the week been right, had there not been a crowd of tourists photographing the same person I wanted to photograph, had the fishermen at the Chinese nets not tried to get money out of me for "allowing" me to see how they work. There are countless stories in that city and I'm sure that many are very photogenic, but having only a limited amount of time and only one life, you think; is there another place I'd rather be? And there are, quite many, so we moved on.

Allepey was our next stop. I heard that it was not that special from a few people I'd come across, but who could resist at least having a glance at "Venice of India". Having never actually been to Venice I don't know how Allepey measures up, but it was indeed not that special, as far as personal impressions go. The town did give me an introduction to the backwaters of Kerala that I had seen in so many photos and, in the surrounding areas I was given a dose of that real tourist-equals-moneybag welcome.

Paying three times the price for a supposedly traditional, yet crappy, small fish dishes at an eatery on an isolated island was inevitable. The next boat back was two hours away and the eatery was the only thing on the island. Getting knocked out by half a liter of "Tori" (a palm drink with an alcoholic effect) on the same island should have been expected by someone who can't remember when he had his last drink. The tori induced nap did prove to be practical, as the tiny portion of food left a lot of time to kill. The next day at nearby Marari beach we were briefly stalked by very cute little girls who demanded pens for a made-up school exam and after hearing a negative response kept nagging my wife,” Please open the bag! Please let me see what is inside your bag!" Oh, Kerala, God's Own Country!

But just as our levels of cynicism peaked, there was an unexpected stop at what's at least pretty close to being a magical little village by the lake - Alumkadavu. The first house boat (those things that tourists pay big bucks to rent) was built in Alamkadavu, and unless I met an imposter, then I accidentally stumbled upon the gentleman who was in charge of making that very first boat. These houseboats are impressive and I really mean it when I say it. They range from small and basic to close to 30 meters long and luxurious. I'd really love one of these, if I have good enough fortune to afford it, which seems like I won't anytime too soon, since the price quoted to me was $110,000 Australian Dollars for a fully furnished, air conditioned boat. Still, one can dream.

Alumkadavu is a tiny place, but it's famous for the 'vallom' (traditional boat) making at the same place where the first houseboat was built. It's also famous for a mini coir industry. Coir is the fiber of a dry coconut shell and it’s used for all sorts of things – insulation, mattresses and ropes.

This brings me to the photos.

- The first image is of a small passenger boat. There are many of these boats navigating the Ashtamudi Lake and the surrounding canals.

- Men fixing a house boat. Apparently the boats can go eight years without needing any real maintenance. I was shown one boat which was 40 years old and in need of only some simple work.

- The view from our room in Alumkadavu - a house boat ready for departure, after spending the night by the nearby dock.

- A woman weaving a rope from coir.

- In Alumkadavu we had our food at a tiny local eatery and while we waited, I snapped a few      frames of this man making parothas (a kind of pancake made up of thin layers of flour). While I photographed, the man kept saying "Good, good. One parotha. Thank you! Thank you!" I think that was about all he knew in English and he seemed to have lots of fun repeating it. Quirky character. Shot with a Sigma 20mm f1.8. I am loving this lens more and more. I hesitated getting it a couple of years back. Now I realize that I have only really used my Canon 24-70 f2.8 and the Sigma. Awesome lens! Not without imperfections, especially on a full frame camera, but at f1.8 and a relatively wide angle I can shoot stuff like this, which would be impossible otherwise.

Thrissur, Men in make up and using a flash on an elephant

Thrissur - the cultural capital of Kerala, but just where do you begin to look for the culture? The Keralan towns I've come across are nothing like those of North India. The culture is not on display for you, you don't see turbaned men and traditionally dressed women with tribal tattoos walking the streets, as you do in Gujarat and Rajasthan, even in parts of Delhi. You have to dig a little deeper and the government run Thrissur tourist office was where I began digging. Good idea, although the tourism officers could not provide me with any practical information on where to find a festival or see Kathakali, they did direct me to the right person - Mr C.A. Menon, an charismatic, white-bearded gentlemen, somewhat eccentric and passionate about his culture and sharing it with anyone interested. As he sat on his antique reclining chair and I on his antique hanging bed, that used to belong to a Sultan, he spoke with excitement about a festival that was to take place at Guruvayoor, in an ancient Krishna temple 30 km form Thrissur. "This only happens once a year! You are very lucky! There will be elephants and an oracle who will get into a trance and throw colorful powder on himself! This is a ceremony to appease the Goddess Kali! It will be very special!" And so we rode Guruvayoor. The procession was in full swing, deafening music, even more deafening fire crackers, an oracle, who threw all sorts of things on himself - red powder, yellow powder, rice and various vegetables and there were elephants. They swayed from side to side and flapped their ears, looking rather sad and bored by the happenings. When all was finished, we didn't quite know what to make of everything. The next day Mr Menon sent us to see another procession, unfortunately it didn't leave a positive impression on us. The peak of this procession came when five elephants, some as big as a bus reached the temple. A few hundred men, drunk out of their minds, cheered, danced, sang and threw rice (a ritualistic thing) at the beasts. These elephants again swayed and flapped their ears to the mayhem around them, while the mahouts occasionally poked and hit them with thin sticks. I thought that at any minute I could witness a "When animals attack!" moment, but somehow these magnificent creatures kept their cool and didn't stomp on anyone.When I saw Mr Menon again, he asked me what I thought. I didn't have the heart to tell him, so I simply told him that the processions were an amazing spectacle, which they were. The same night Mr Menon gave us the location of a performance of an ancient form of Kathakali - a classical dance, which Kerala is world-famous for. The make-up part and the preparations were even more impressive than those I had witnessed at the Theyyam performances, but, and I don't mean to be an ass and seem like I am winging, after watching Theyaam - the somersaults, the fire-walking and the biting off of chicken heads, the subtle movements of Kathakali almost put me to sleep. Call me ignorant, uncultured, whatever - Kathakali just ain't that exciting. That doesn't mean that it's not photogenic, it is, extremely (which I think the images suggest) but the part behind the scenes is really the only thing that captivated me. Now, my opinions don't mean that what I've seen is not worth seeing, I guess it's just better not to expect any "magic". The day after the Kathakali we would see another elephant procession. This one would take place at night and could potentially be more colorful and bright than the first two we had seen. It was, and we got to see the elephants getting dressed up for their "big moment". With the fear that the elephant could get pissed off at my dear wife when the flash in a soft-box sets off I asked the mahouts whether it was OK to use our little set-up while photographing, they said it was. We took a few shots, but we were feeling a little down. Tanya in particular wanted to see elephants and get close to them, and now when she did, they were in chains, swaying and flapping their ears, their tiny eyes looking sad and lifeless (perhaps that's just how they look). When the time for the ceremony came, the firecrackers exploded in a very loud collective bang, the music started and the elephants began to sway, feeling like we had seen all that we wanted to see it was time for us to leave. My stay at Thrissur wasn't disappointing, it just wasn't amazing. There was even a bit of "magic" in a place that I discovered accidentally - a Vedic school, in a 500-year-old building. Here thirty children spend most of their days chanting Vedas. From my understanding Vedas are Hindu scriptures that contain all sorts of wisdom. The children that come here belong to a particular cast of Keralan Brahmins, which is responsible for chanting the Vedas, like hymns, during various religious functions. This part of the Hindu culture was on the verge of extinction, but it seems that in the past decade the parents' interest to send their children to the school and spend four years learning how to chant has been renewed. One of the teachers explained: "Eight to twelve is the crucial age, if the Vedas and the way to chant them are imprinted in the boys' minds at this stage of their lives, they will never forget. My Guru learned to chant when he was a young boy like them, then he stopped for fifty years. After retiring he returned to the temple where he learned as a child and with a little practice it all came back to him." The amazing thing is that the chants can last for an entire day and nothing is written down. The words, along with countless tones are memorized, and it has been like that for as long as anyone can remember. It was hard to get any detailed explanation of what the whole purpose of the chanting was, but the scene was otherworldly. The sound of the chanting and the sight of young students in traditional dhotis against the ancient, weathered building made you feel like you are in a totally a different time.

Photos: From top to bottom: A temple elephant in his costume and his mahout (elephant carer, trainer). This is one of the images I shot with a flash. Same deal as usual - Tanya holding the flash in a softbox on the side. A somewhat cliched shot of a Kathakali artist looking in the mirror as he puts on make up. I tried to make this image better than anything I'd seen in the past with the help of the flash set-up. Here, I got Tanya to stand near a light-bulb which was illuminating everything with a yellowish light. We used a gel to warm up the flash and placed it so that the flash light would come from the same direction as the light from the light-bulb.This resulted in matching light which was more intense, thus I could use a lower ISO and a higher shutter speed. More make-up. Same gel, but the flash is slightly moved away from the light-bulb to illuminate more of the artist's face (in make up). Last preparations - the Kathakali team is putting the final parts of the costume on the artist. I wanted to have the artist's face illuminated, but I also wanted to have those shadows in the back. The flash was moved to the far left side of the light-bulb. Result - light is coming from both sides, more intense from the left. A student chanting. He was trying very hard and grimacing all the time. Bottom: A group of young students chanting. The chanting images are shot only with the available light, which there was really not much of. I tried a few later with a flash, but this was one of the situations where you either shoot in natural light or have at least two flash units to better simulate this light, otherwise you simply kill the atmosphere.

Incredible India!

Vythiri, Wayanad - As we took our seats in the little restaurant the waiter brought out two glasses of water; he held the glasses from the inside so that his fingers were completely immersed in the water that we were meant to drink. When I was a child we used to have two types of juice served at the school canteen. Everyone liked only one flavor and so whoever would get to it first would dip his finger into the juice glass and proclaim - "This one' s mine! I dipped my finger into it!" None of the children would drink the juice which was probed with someone else's finger...I guess that mightn't be the case here.The fingers in the glass of water are a common sight in local restaurants all over India. It's such a small thing, but it always reminds me that the world which I come from is so different to this country that keeps luring me in with something new every time. It also reminds me that from our "Western" point of view there are so many of these little things which India just "doesn't get" and this is somewhat puzzling because regarding some of the bigger issues India has so much to teach the countries that "get" the little things. The things that India doesn't "get" are numerous. They often surprise, even shock first time visitors, but usually they become somewhat funny, once they are long gone and exist only in the back of one's mind, as stories to tell friends.

Here are some of these little things: - An omelet-maker scratching his crotch then serving you the omelet with the same hand. - A cleaner in a fancy restaurant sweeping the rubbish near you while you eat, forcing you to lift your feet as he sweeps under your table. - Sitting on the train looking lost with an empty plastic water bottle and a local saying "Give it to me please", taking it and tossing it out the window. - A devotee at a temple reading religious texts into a microphone and occasionally coughing, snorting and spitting up phlegm while the sound is magnified to the full capacity of the speakers. - VERY loud wedding processions. Loud means the sound from the speakers on the street will make your hotel room on the third floor vibrate like the inside of a night-club on a Friday night, oh and all the fun happens regardless of what time it is, meaning that the vibrations will occasionally get you up in the middle of the night.

These are light-hearted examples, but occasionally there are those things that make you cringe long after they happen. I still remember how shocked I was, when for the first time I saw a youngster at Haridwar (a holy Hindu town) push a huge pile of rubbish into the Ganges - the holiest river for Hindus around India. Later I learned that it's normal here. Every picnic spot, every waterfall, beach and lake is polluted with wrappers, plastic bottles and whatever else. It mightn't be as bad as the industrial waste of some "first world countries" but close to a billion people throwing crap wherever they please can't be good for the environment, and it's just damn unpleasant. Am I criticizing the same people of India which I love? In some way "Yes", but I'm not doing it to say that "We" are better. Far from it. It's not like Indian general public don't have any idea about personal hygiene. Normally people don't even eat breakfast before showering and brushing their teeth, while most dwellings, these even include some that I've visited in the slums are spotless clean. I figure that teaching children not to throw rubbish into a river should be a much easier task than the one the "West" should undertake - teaching children to care for each other the way so many people in India do. I like to be naive and imagine that one day we'll all "GET IT" and the world will be one big, happy place :). My cynical side though, tells me that the day is still not even within sight. Anyhow, I've been influenced by my experiences over the past few days. Perhaps all of the things that one becomes used to in "Indian India" became more apparent after our stay at Bylakuppe - "Tibetan India". Bylakuppe is not crowded, it's not loud and there are signs everywhere warning people not to litter. The signs are not always obeyed, but at least their presence means that there is some awareness. Our hotel room in Bylakuppe was spacious and quiet and had a view of a beautiful green garden from its window. This made our stay in the crammed room with "wall views" in Mysore that much more painful. But the most painful part came at night. Around 1am we were woken up by the sound of a TV at near full blast. Just as the noise died down and I began to doze off I was woken up again, this time by the sound of the "service buzzer" - an extremely annoying invention used to bring a hotel worker to your room. The problem with the service buzzer is that it makes a buzz so loud, the whole hotel hears it and hears it well. The room service however, only comes after the irritating sound is repeated several times. On this night the buzzer was pressed without any desire for room service - it was located near the bed and a hotel guest had simply pressed it in his sleep. The buzzing continued for about two minutes. Maybe I woke up the guilty party with my swearing in Russian (to make it less offensive :)) as I walked around the corridor trying to figure out where the buzz was coming from, in any case, thankfully the noise stopped. It's possible that this "wonderful" night contributed to us not wanting to stay in Mysore the next day, but more likely it was the fact that Mysore didn't offer us anything new. The fatigue of constantly moving around is catching up to us and we desperately wanted some peace and quiet, as well as something interesting to photograph :). Too much to ask for in India, sometimes, but after bouncing around a few towns in the breathtakingly beautiful Wayanad district we found what we wanted - a little YMCA hostel with a few private rooms, located amidst some spectacular tea plantations - my photographic subject for the next few days. Wayanad is not all perfect though, thanks to the hordes of mostly local tourists that do the things I previously mentioned make me cringe - eat, pollute and crap all over Wayanad's star attractions - the Pookote Lake, Soochipara Waterfalls and many more places. Thankfully we've had the peace and quiet we craved, I photographed what I wanted and now, rejuvenised, we're ready to continue our way to the most Southern point of India - Kanyakumari. Trissur, considered Kerala's cultural capital will be our next stop.

Photos I mostly photographed at one tea plantation, which was located not far from the place where I stayed. Coming back and photographing in the same place is beneficial because not only do you become familiar with the location, but the people you are photographing also become more familiar with you. The people at this particular plantation were absolutely wonderful. They were childlike in the way they became excited when they saw two foreigners enter their world, which I imagine for them is rather mundane. All eyes were on us. A smile would be met with a huge grin and shy laughter. In the distance we could hear the workers quietly telling each other what to say - '"What is your name?" "What is your native place?" and then someone would work up enough courage to ask the questions out loud. Our answers would be met with even more excited laughter and commotion. It seemed as if the workers were saying to each other "It worked! They understood us!". Taking a photograph of the women usually led to the women cracking up with shy laughter, while those that were outside of the photo would joke and say "Smile please!", until I would point the camera at them and they'd also crack up. Photographing at this tea plantation was one of those beautiful, simple, childlike experiences which makes me feel happy I'm doing this. Photography gave me a reason to be in what is simply a workplace for the people in my images and it brought a little laughter into their lives. If I could shoot in such stunning locations and have it this way all the time I wouldn't complain :). From top to bottom: First: A worker carrying a bag of tea from the store-room onto a tractor, which takes the day's harvest to a factory for the tea to be processed. Those bags weigh about 50kg each. Second: A crowd gathers outside the Mysore palace. During the festival of Dussehra and every Sunday from 7-8pm the whole palace lights up with ninety-six thousand lightbulbs. Just after the photo was taken I joined the crowd. Third: View of the workers from the bottom. Fourth: Tea Plucker (as they are locall called) named Vindhu at work. Fifth: Carrying the harvest on a foggy morning. Sixth: Weighing the harvest at the store room. Seventh: Sun sets over the tea plantation.

The Spirit of Travel, Cool in the Hills and Tibetan Monks

If I do not see another Theyyam performance for the rest of my life I will not be devastated. Don't get me wrong, watching these was amazing, surreal, but maybe this is the case of too much of a good thing being not that great. "Theyyam Overload", perhaps. The highlight of our little endeavor into the world of Theyyam must have been the second time we met up with Vipin - the Theyyam artist I mentioned in the previous post. That day, in many ways embodied what travel is all about. It started horribly, we were 'evicted' from possibly the most amazing hotel I've stayed at. Our room's balcony had a view of the Arabian sea. Every morning we watched dolphins splash around within 50 meters from the shore.Long and strange story about the eviction - in short, the hotel was meant for government employees only, but somehow we managed to stay for five days, then some genius finally decided it was enough. The main point is - once you've tasted the good life, it really, really sucks getting back to mediocrity. Getting told to 'vacate' our perfect room and to exchange sea views for views of a sea of traffic on one of the towns busiest and noisiest roads set up what could have been the most disappointing day of our journey, yes the place was that good (and cost about as much as a McDonald's value meal). But that wasn't the end of our bad luck. First we couldn't find any half decent hotel to move to and then my meeting with a professor at the Folklore Academy, the man who had promised to hook me up with some Theyyam artists was cancelled due to an unexpected meeting that could not be put off. I wanted to see him to get reliable information on where I could see more Theyyams. Having been given the wrong information the day before we traveled a couple of hours along a dreadful, traffic filled road for nothing. Now I had to face the fact; I had come to the region to photograph something that I couldn't even find, I really wasn't getting anywhere. Ready to cry like a child who's been told he's not getting a bicycle after all, I decided instead to go to Vipin's village and give him the Theyyam photos I shot on the night I met him. Vipin was happy to see me and to receive the photos, I couldn't quite match his enthusiasm. But that all changed when he told us that there was a Theyyam performance in his very village. In fact there were two performances that night. These weren't Theyyams aimed at mass audiences, media and tourists, instead I witnessed what was probably as close to Theyyam as it had been hundreds of years ago - raw, sometimes brutal and always full of energy. By late night we had seen a Theyyam performer, possessed by the divine spirit behead four roosters...with his bear teeth, another performer walk through fire and yet another, dance around frantically to some of the most incredible drumming I've heard. We called it a night close to 11pm - real late for rural Kerala. Vipin had been called home a couple of hours before and we were left in the dark, in the middle of nowhere, dependent on our memory to get back. After almost getting lost in the narrow, dark village roads we somehow made it to the main highway that led to Kannur. As we rode the motorcycle back to town, we reflected on the day that pretty much summed up the realities of this life on the road. We were reminded once again that even in the face of the biggest disappointments something amazing could be just around the corner. Knowing that Tanya - my wife was sitting behind me on the bike, ready to face all the obstacles with me also made me realise just how lucky I am. The Theyyam stuff, the heat of coastal Kerala and continuous, hectic rides to the surrounding villages again left us feeling a little drained. We had been contemplating going to Coorg - a hilly region with a cool climate, to refresh for a couple of days, then we'd head back down the coast to Thrissur - one of Kerala's cultural centers. On the map Coorg isn't far from Kannur - 113km. But as always, in India - expect the unexpected. A relatively small patch of the road, known locally as the forest road, was how shall I say - damaged. The damage was so bad that the road looked like it had been bombed continuously for 16 km. I figured that I had traveled on similar roads before, so I didn't make that much of it. BIG mistake! Almost 10km through we started hearing all sorts of noises from our beloved motorcycle. We stopped, I lifted the bike seat and there it was, my worst fear had come true - the motorcycle frame/chasis was broken, snapped right in the middle. To avoid messing things up even more we couldn't continue traveling with all that load and Tanya on the back, and so my poor wife had to walk 6km up a winding, hilly forest road, while I slowly and carefully navigated my way around giant pot holes towards a better road. We decided to stop for the night at Madikeri - Coorg's biggest town. Our chances of fixing the chasis in this remote region were slim, but Madikeri was our best bet. Again we were facing a very unpleasant situation, but as has happened countless times in India, a stranger came to the rescue. After failed attempts to explain what I need and a few rejections from mechanics and welders who understood, we unexpectedly came across Joe - a catholic Indian man from the coastal city of Cochin. Joe was looking to buy a motor to use for a crop-sorting machine on his spice estate. He came to the same place where we were trying to find out whether our problem can be fixed. After hearing our predicament Joe took it upon himself to help out the guests in his country. The next day his two equally helpful nephews Jeremy and Ronald were involved and although the task became a job of epic proportions (Madikeri is a relatively small town) it was done by the end of the afternoon. It was a little late to head to our next destination and we decided we'd stay another night in Madikeri, that was until Ronald, Joe's nephew called. Ronald found out that I was interested in checking out some tea or coffee plantations/estates and so he invited us over to his estate for the night. We couldn't resist. Another potentially horrible situation had turned in our favor. The next morning we woke up in a mini forest of coffee and pepper bush, as well as some very tall (and apparently expensive) trees. The golden light played it's role in making everything magic. Tanya and I wondered around, appreciated the surroundings and shot a few frames. We expressed our gratitude to our new friends, who saved us and turned a potential disaster into one of the most memorable moments of our journey. Then it was time to move on. Next stop - Bylakuppe - a Tibetan refugee settlement. That's where we are as I type. Bylakuppe is a peaceful place, full of maroon robed monks and monasteries. It ain't Himalaya, but there's still something special about it. Monasteries and monks are always photogenic, so we've already spent a few days photographing here. Tomorrow we head off on a little detour, to avoid the dreadful 'Forest Road'. We'll probably end up in Mysore for a few days, then it's on to Wayanad. This cool climate and nature stuff has inspired me to spend some more time up in the hills, in India's forested areas. Now to the photos. From top to bottom: Monks rushing out after the Morning Prayer, Sera Jey Temple, Bylakuppe. Coffee berry picker at Ronald's estate, Coorg. Morning along the road in Coorg, Kushalnagar region. A mahout washing his elephant at the Dubare Forest Reserve (Forgot to mention we went there. Shot this while standing knee high in water filled with elephant urine and crap ) Bottom: Inside of Sera Jey Temple, Bylakuppe.