Final images from Bhutan: Taktsang Monastery (The Tiger’s Nest)

Jun 20 2011 under bhutan | Leave a comment

Taktsang is just one of those places. Machu Picchu, the Great Pyramids, Angkor Wat, the Taj Mahal —they don’t disappoint.

The hike was long. And in hindsight, the almost comically-large bottle of Johnny Walker Red that we somehow casually made disappear the night before probably wasn’t the smartest way to prepare for a three-hour trek uphill the following morning.

But like I said, Taktsang is one of those places in the world that’s worth almost anything to experience. A location on Earth to which very few others can be compared in any way.

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3:00 a.m. -The revealing of the great thangka

Mar 29 2011 under bhutan | 1 Comment

For days I hadn’t been able to sleep more than a couple of hours a night. On the eve of the final day of Paro Tsechu, it was no different.

And so, despite a state of exhaustion that was beginning to make me feel like my brain had been burned out of my skull, I had no trouble waking up at two in the morning for the unveiling of Bhutan’s “great thangka“. In my zombie state, I stumbled out of bed.

The thangka wasn’t going to be revealed for another hour but already, lines of Bhutanese pilgrims snaked down every street in town, merging to follow the river, and then move up the hill to Paro Dzong.

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Hitching a ride to Paro tsechu

Mar 26 2011 under bhutan | 1 Comment

We started off early, before dawn. I was hitching a ride with a UNICEF vehicle that was making a morning run to the airport. My friend Jake, a journalist with NPR who I’ve mentioned before, was catching the same free ride. Jake was on his way out of the country. I was on my way to Paro for tsechu, an annual Buddhist festival held each spring.

I’d been trying to get out of Thimphu for weeks, dying for a short break from the city. And when Jake told me about his free ride to Paro and I realized I could catch the last two days of tsechu, I figured I had my weekend getaway.

Once in Paro, locating a room wasn’t easy; a sizable chunk of the country makes the pilgrimage to the small town for tsechu. But after a couple of hours and a self-guided tour of practicably the entire town, I found a cheap enough little guesthouse. Bucket showers and no hot water, but a bed.

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Playing with cameras at the Mahabodhi Temple

Jan 7 2011 under india | 4 Comments

Eating dinner a few nights ago in Bodhgaya, I overheard the guys next to me going on about the adventures that they’d had taking photographs over the years. I’d been having a bit of a problem with a new lens of mine and so I asked if they would take a look.

The next morning, one of the guys, David, walked into the same little restaurant where I was then eating breakfast and asked if he could join me.

The next thing I knew, I had spent the entire day receiving lessons in photography from a veteran film producer and camera operator for the Discovery Channel.

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To each their own

Jan 6 2011 under india | Leave a comment

These four Swedes were staying at a hostel in Bodhgaya just down the road from me. The photograph was taken inside the Mahabodhi Temple complex, at the foot of a stupa just a hundred feet or so from the tree under which the Buddha attained enlightenment.

The girl on the right was deep in meditation. The girl on the left was playing a computer game that involved firing a slingshot at monkeys.

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Never trust anybody over 30

Jan 3 2011 under india | 1 Comment

When travelling, I’ve always had good luck with local teenagers. Never trust anybody over 30.

This morning, I found myself trying to get out of a town in northwest India called Bodhgaya. It’s a holy place, sacred to both Buddhists and Hindus. It was under a tree that the town has since been built around that the Buddha attained enlightenment.

I didn’t know that when I was trying to get away from Boddhgaya (Gaya, technically, where the train station is). It was 7:00 a.m. and I wanted to be on my way to Calcutta. But the the man at the ticket window had other ideas. And so like it or not, I was spending the next 13 hours where the last train had left me.

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