Nuala's Blog

India 11: Jodphur to Jaisalmer

2012-03-12T06:06:00.001-07:00

India 11: Jodphur to Jaisalmer

Jaiselmer is the last post before the Pakistan border. It used to be a great trading centre where the camels stopped before continuing to Pakistan. Then the British opened the Mumbai port so the traffic went that way instead.

The roads here are good and not too crowded. The terrain is scrub desert. The houses are few and far between and very simple. It is the first time we have seen African style round mud houses with straw roofs. These dwellings are slowly being replaced by stone houses. There is no shortage of stone. Huge quarries line the roads. In the towns we passed, crowds of poorly dressed men hanging around waiting to be hired for the day. The scene was reminiscent of the docks in Dublin way, way back when Moses was a boy. Again this system is slowly changing and men are being employed to work the quarries on a contract basis. There is a whole industry around stone quarries.

The stone quarries

Men are needed to dig, cut and transport the stone. Hoists, tractors and lorries are used to load and move the stones all around the area. Each area of Rajasthan has its own particular stone. Jaisalmer is known as the golden city because the stone is yellow.

It’s a small place and mostly contained within the city walls. There is a museum and some big houses to be visited. I am afraid we opted for a short museum visit and headed for the “German Bakery” where, we had heard on the grapevine, there was great coffee and Danish pastries to be had. The information proved to be correct so we just chilled out and took in the scene, met and exchanged life stories with a lovely lady from Surrey. We embraced and left maybe never to meet again. But that is the nature of backpacking in India.

Our accommodation was fine but the food was not so great. We were a little put off by the sound of the cook clearing his oesophagus and coughing the content on to the kitchen floor. Barry’s stomach played witness to this alarming lack of hygiene later in the day. However he was able to get together with a group of Indian lads to watch most of the one day cricket match which eventually held Indian in the competition and gave one of their players a record breaking number of runs. Every Indian male seems to have an encyclopaedic knowledge of cricket and they are delighted that Barry knows so much about the sport.

Last night we planned to spend the night in a tent in the desert that lies to the east of Jaisalmer towards the Pakistan border. We packed a small backpack and left the rest of the gear in the good hands of the hotel guys. After Barry’s cricket session, anyone touching our stuff would have got shot…. Our jeep arrived and we hopped into the back and headed off. About 35km west we came to a halt. Sitting at the side of the road were two camels and the camel driver.

Tiger and Rocket waiting to take us in to desert

Apparently we were to continue into the desert on camel back. Well there has to be a first time for everything so Barry struggled aboard the bigger of the two camels while I climbed on to the second. My guy was called Rocket, a misnomer if every there was one, and Barry’s was called Tiger. If you have ever rode a camel you will know that the most difficult part is when the animal stands first on his front legs and then on his back legs. If you manage to hang on at this point you are home and dry. Off we trotted into the fading sunlight. Piru (or a name that sounded like that) asked if he could ride behind Barry and Barry could hold the reins. I imagine these camels could do this route blindfolded. Up and down we went sauntering along when all of a sudden Piru’s mobile phone rang. We nearly fell off the camels laughing. In India the mobile phone is set to replace the cow as the most venerated object. Everyone has one and the reception is perfect, even in the desert. It has revolutionised communication, especially in the parts of the country where distances are large and transport uncertain.

The desert around here is mostly scrub but we arrived at what we all think of as sandy desert. Our tent was pitched, a delish dinner was cooked, cups of chai were had and then we sat around a camp fire. There were two other happy campers in the next dune and we could see and hear others on the horizon. Finally it was time to go to bed. The tent was comfortable and the bedding very heavy as it gets very cold in the desert at night. We settled down and dozed off to sleep to the sound of the camel herders mobile phones and endless chat. I imagine it must have been about two o’clock in the morning when I felt something running along the bed cover. I leaped up just in time to see whatever animal it was exiting the hole in the corner of the tent. It was a little difficult to settle down again as it had been impossible to close all the gaps around the bottom of the tent. So between my disquiet and Barry’s still rumbly tummy we did not have a great sleep but we thoroughly enjoyed the experience.

Back on the road again we headed to Bikaner as our last stop before returning to Jaipur. We had a great discussion with our driver, Bilal, about corruption in India. This topic was prompted by watching the police, outside a roadhouse chai stop, as they stopped lorries at random. Apparently they do this purely to collect bribes. Everyone knows and no one does anything about it. Police are appointed locally and paid by central government. In order to be selected for the police you have to bribe your way into the system. Hence you accumulate huge debts even before you start. The debt has to be paid off so you take bribes to earn enough to repay the debt. If you live long enough you will pay off the debt and become rich. The bribes they receive double their income. The average police monthly wage is about 500€, double it with bribes and you have 1000, a huge salary in India. A camel driver earns 50€ a month. No one trusts the police. Bilal’s opinion is that the government is good at writing the law but not applying it. Does that remind you of anywhere?

India: The culinary experience

2012-03-11T20:04:00.002-07:00

As you have probably gathered I am interspersing our trip with some observations on different aspects of Indian life.

India: The culinary experience

Some of you have asked what we are eating so I decided to let you in on our culinary experiences. Let it be said we have had the full spectrum of Indian cuisine ranging from the equivalent of a low class “chipper” to the most exquisite of food. As many of you will know when you travel in Asia your bodily functions become all consuming. Our stomachs contain different bacteria so it is inevitable that most of us will experience some level of discomfort. When you add to this the loose or non-existent hygiene standards then it should come as no surprise that “Delhi Belly” or the “Kathmandu quickstep” or whatever, will be a given, unless you have the constitution of an ox, which I seem to have.

Again you will know that most Indian food is hot and spicy. The spices used here in India seem to affect different parts of the pallet. Some will cause your lips to burn, some will initially not have any burning effect but within a couple of seconds your whole mouth will be on fire, others will catch the back of your throat immediately. I haven’t worked which do what.

We have tended to eat vegetarian food as most people here do. Tonight was the first time Barry had chicken and it was delicious. Restaurants are well used to foreigners not being able to take really firey food. Since almost everything is cooked to order they can add or subtract the quantity of fire power on request. Without at least some of the local spices the food has no flavour whatsoever. We eat plain rice with everything and chapatti, either buttered, with garlis or plain, and almost always curd. The latter tends to cool the effect of the spices in the main dishes. We can rarely finish all we get and are offered the rest in a “doggy bag” should we want to take it home.

Eating establishments vary as they do anywhere. You usually get what you pay for. We eat here in Jaipur in the local equivalents of our Cucuron haunt the “Temps Moderne”. For a full meal and either water of beer we pay about €8 for the two of us. Tonight we decided to push the boat out and have a real slap up meal in one of the best restaurants in town. We treated ourselves to a rickshaw ride there but the driver had no idea where it was. “You my guides” he said. Luckily Barry has an unbelievable sense of direction so we brought him to the door. First observation was that there were almost no women eating there. I counted 28 men and one woman, in our immediate surroundings, beside myself. We were the only foreigners. Although the restaurant is mentioned in the “Holy Planet” it states that couples and families frequent it. Hence the long-haired hippie brigade, finding themselves here in India, give it a wide berth. Food is cooked in a glass fronted kitchen and the manager invited us in to see the tandoori and kebabs being cooked. For our meal and two beers each (we were really living it up, one was Carlsberg!!), we paid €26. One of our local haunts costs about €7 or €10 if we have a beer.

For some reason foreigners tend to congregate in the same restaurants, those mentioned in the Holy Planet, so when we discovered this we give them a miss and ask local advice or find the ones that are out of the way. So far it has paid off handsomely.

We take lunch in our ‘dyslexically’ spelled namesake Mohans. This means “the great” so we are thinking of changing our name to Mohan! When we are travelling we buy bananas and oranges and bottles of water from a street vendor. We pay “white prices” which means about 70cent for six or eight bananas and four oranges. The fruit is delicious. We avoid already peeled fruit or things like tomatoes or salads becase of the lack of hygine.

Like everything else in India food can be an amazing experience or it can be a disappointment. Without the spices it is boringly bland, with them it can be delicious, but the balance is tricky. We roll with the punches.

India 9

2012-03-11T05:34:00.001-07:00

India 10: Ranankpur – Jodphur

The Blue City

Yes Jodphur is the place from where jodhpur trousers came. Apparently when the Jodphur polo players came to the west to play they were wearing jodphurs. The westerners found these very comfortable and they adopted them. Eventually they became a fashion statement and a must for those riding horses.

It is also known as the “Blue city”. Most of the houses were painted blue, once upon a time, using indigo coloured paint. However time and the general level of dirt and pollution have rendered the ensemble a bit of a faded, grubby(ish) collection of boxes poised perilously on top of each other. The blue colour supposedly kept the houses cool and repels insects. If the latter is true I can’t, for the life of me, see why everyone here does not paint their house blue…

We are still trying to get our heads around the caste system. Just when we think we have made some progress Bilal gives us another twist on the story. In the lower castes, but the Indian scholars among you can correct me here, the colour of the turban fixes you squarely in a particular caste. Lower castes wear white or yellow turbans, middle class wear orange, pink or other light colours while wine or red puts you firmly up there with the higher echelons. Within the castes (maybe not all castes, who knows) multi-coloured turbans denote certain tribes. For example leaving Ranankpur the other day we passed through a village where many men were wearing black and white(ish) turbans. These people are weavers. They display and sell their rugs, blankets and carpets along the dusty roads. Some of the woven material looked beautiful and we had a hard time convincing Bilal that we really could not carry a carpet back to Europe and anyway we have sufficient carpets in our lives. Many turban wearing Indians seem to come from the lower castes but certainly not all as we have seen very smartly dressed business men wearing them. The turban is worn by the senior male member of the family and passed to his son immediately after his death. The one constant seems to be that men wearing a loin cloth are from the lower, very poor, castes. Apparently, similar to our surnames in Ireland, your name here, more or less, indicates your caste. Once you are born into a caste, be it upper or lower, there is no moving up or down. Artists beget artists with or without talent, weavers beget weavers and so on up and down the scale keeping people firmly in their place. It is a touch of the “above” or “below” stairs in our bygone days. Just as the below stairs mob rose up from their lowly status, here in India, I am convinced the younger generation will dispense with this system and progress will depend on intelligence and not where on the caste scale you happened to be born.

Jodphur is famous for two things, the Maharaja’s palace and the fort. Both are stunningly beautiful.

The present Maharaja is a real entrepreneur. His palace is partly opened to the public, part hotel and he struggles by with only a couple of hundred rooms, poor chap. Inside his compound the grounds are spotless showing it can be done. Rubbish receptacles hang from trees, the first we have seen here in Rajasthan. The memorabilia on display in the palace gives a great insight into the lives of the Maharajas down through the years. They certainly didn’t stint themselves with their hunting trips to Scotland and Zimbabwe and visits here and there. In the fort museum there is an amazing display of Palanquins used to transport the rich and famous either on elephant back or carried if there wasn’t an elephant handy. One such transporter, made of closely woven cane, was used to carry the wife of the Maharajah about in London in the 1930s. Tradition dictated that ladies could not be seen by gentlemen, other than members of the court. This system is called purdah. This transporter was a sort of box with front opening doors so that the lady could be sneaked into the darkened windowed Rolls Royce.
The paparazzi were no different in the 1930s. They dashed around trying to get that saleable picture of the lady. Finally, The Times photographer succeeded in getting a picture of her ankle. The Times was ecstatic and published this the next day. The Indian government was less pleased and ordered all the copies of the Times for that day to be bought up.

In Jodphur we stayed in a Haveli which used to be a sort of nobleman’s house. Could be compared to a ‘mas’ in Provence or ‘the big house’ in Ireland. The guy who runs it used to own a ball bearing factory but there is obviously more money in foreign tourism than ball bearings.

2012-03-10T05:31:00.001-08:00

India 9: Ranakpur & Kumbhalgarh

2012-03-10T05:22:00.000-08:00

Quick change of plan this morning after consulting a map of Rajasthan. I spotted a Wildlife Sanctuary en route to Jodhpur in the vicinity of Ranakpur so we decided to get Bilal’s input on the possibility of staying around here instead of spending all day in the car and then spend two days in Jodhpur visiting yet more temples… “No problem”. He knew a budget hotel in the area and we were sorted. We are now installed in a very simple hotel surrounded by wooded hills with birds cooing and calling all around. As we arrived we both stopped short, brought back for a moment to very early mornings in the Gambia when we were awakened to the song of the bull-bull bird. Here it was again but this time much cheekier. He was sitting on the dining table waiting for our crumbs, much the way European sparrows do. Beautiful green parrots are flying all around. The vegetation is lush which comes as a surprise as we passed through very barren hills to reach here.

However the Internet does not come with this splendid isolation nor is there a TV where Barry can catch up on the never ending cricket scores. You cannot win ‘em all.

We did however do our daily visit to a temple. This time the very famous Jain temple of Ranakpur. It is almost beyond belief that this temple was built in the 15^th century. There are 1440 marble pillars, each hand carved with the most intricate work, holding up marble cupolas also carved in beautiful detail. It is truly splendid. It is surrounded by lovely gardens where flowering bouzonville tumbles over walls and creeps up trees. When we returned to the car Bilal was wielding a cricket bat. He always travels with it, he said, to keep the monkeys away. With that a frisky little monkey jumped on to the roof of the car with a bang before leaping directly up into an overhanging branch.

En route we passed many establishments defined as ‘resorts’. This got me analysing language as it is spoken here in India. Each region has its own local language, Hindi is the national language and many people speak some English. Many who cannot read and write can manage a few words of English. However it is sometimes difficult to interpret exactly what is being said. One sentence had me puzzled until I managed to destruct and reconstruct it. “Only personal body count” turned out to mean the guy being spoken about was “selfish” – see what I mean. Similarly “resort” would have little in common with what would be expected of a European ‘resort’ and there are endless other examples.

India: Accommodation

2012-03-09T04:02:00.002-08:00

A bit long winded but if you can be bothered here goes.....

I thought I would give you some idea of what to expect in the line of accommodation if you are travelling to India. As in most countries it depends on your budget. You could travel to India and sleep in more luxurious surroundings than you could believe possible but you will pay. We passed a mini Maharaja’s type palace about 30 or 40 km from Jaipur. I believe it would cost you a cool €700 to lay your head on one of their, I am sure, spotless pillows. A bottle of water, I believe, will knock you back €2 when the going price, even for foreigners, is a sixth of that. Can’t imagine what a beer costs since in a country where only foreigners drink beer the price per 75cl bottle is a staggering €2.5 minimum. I suppose when you have lots of money 2 or 3€ seems ridiculously cheap but when you are on a budget every euro counts.

If you have a reasonable amount of funds to spend or you don’t intend to splurge them on high living you can get really nice accommodation in old Indian grand houses called Havelis. These cost between 75 and 85€ if you accept first price. However if you are old and grey and if there is no one else waiting to pay first price you can get the same accommodation for €30. However there is little relationship between price and quality.

We, in general, use “budget” accommodation which is a rung below the above. This costs below €20 per double room. Again what you get for that is totally variable. You can be lucky and get a TV and hot running water all day or you can get no TV and a couple of hours of tepid water. In one place the hot water almost scalded us and there was no cold to regulate it. There is accommodation to be had way cheaper than that but we have not had to check it out so far…….

The beds are another issue. In Bikaner we were transported back to Gambian days sleeping on straw mattresses. Believe me in the tropics this is the way to go. Somehow developing countries have the idea that westerners like VERY hard foam on solid wooden bases. I imagine we have bruises to prove their point. Bed linen is as variable as everything else. If you’re lucky it can be Persil white freshness but generally it tends to be greyish. Two sheets, top AND bottom is a real treat. Sometimes the top blanket has a muslin bag over it and sometimes not. It’s amazing how grateful you become for a soft pillow.

Socket numbers, in a room, can vary between one and ten. Quality varies between one and minus one hundred. They are British type sockets but people jam any old plug in so they are totally wrecked. Getting power often depends on building pyramids of clothes and books to keep the plug held in place. If you are lucky the ‘electrician’ cum ‘plumber’ can materialise a multi-way with an Indian plug to hold it in place. Having said that the “Moonlight” in Jaipur where we are at the moment has perfectly good working sockets. But that is when there is electricity.

Lighting in bedrooms is either very muted i.e you can’t see to read or very frequently there is at least one if not two fluorescent tubes providing extremely bright surroundings. Very often there are lights with ornate shades suspended from the ceiling or on the walls but none of the thirty-five light switches illuminates any of these or the bulbs could well be long ago died.

So that gives a sort of overview of what to expect. One thing is for sure, we have yet to find one place with all the services in place but there again we have not found anywhere without at least some of the above.

The overall impression is, people are warm and very friendly and some of them are total shysters – so what’s different? They are very ‘business’ orientated so will try to extract as much cash from you as possible. But then if I were trying to support an extended family I would probably do the same.

One word of advice if you are coming to India and want to have the true Indian experience don’t book your accommodation in advance, just wing it and never pay the asking price.

Final comment:

Don’t always believe the ‘Holy Planet”

India 8

2012-03-05T06:20:00.003-08:00

India 8: Udaipur

The 23^rd and 24^th seem to be lucky days to get married here in Udaipur, so half the population is either getting married or going to a wedding today. We watched a very nervous groom receiving his last instruction from his parents before he mounted his white horse to go search his bride. The whole performance was accompanied by the usual chaos of music, dancing and shouting. Father was most anxious I took photos of the whole affair. Everyone was having a rollicking good time except the poor groom who looked totally panic struck.

We took a boat ride on Lake Pichola to gawk at the rich and famous that stay in the Lake Palace Hotel, a former palace of the Maharana. One lady was being accompanied down the jetty from the hotel with a parasol toting punkawallah. So you will be happy to know that the days of the Raj are not dead yet. From the boat we looked at Jagmandir Island and it’s Maharaja’s palace. Hard to believe that all this luxury was up and running in the 1600’s. On boarding the boat we were a little surprised to be issued with life jackets as the lake was flat calm but when one of our fellow passengers stood up to take some photos the whole thing inclined perilously to one side. Us Sherkin Islanders tended to think it was time to shout “trim the boat” but our Hindi doesn’t stretch to that…..

We followed the boat ride with a visit to the City Palace and museum, which was also very interesting. It is a bit down at heel but the exhibits are well presented and the audio is well done. It was quite crowded although everyone tells us this isn’t the high, high season. By the time we finished it was really hot and sticky so we decided to visit the Vintage Car museum, which displays the 22 vintage car collection of the Maharana. We decided on this deal because lunch was a small, added, extra and we were starving. The lunch was delicious if a bit on the spicy side. The cars were magnificent and the guide took real pride in his job. He told us all about each car and that they are taken out for a short tour of the garden once a week to keep the motors running. Besides this outing their main use now is for films and some royal weddings.

Back through the mad crowded alleyways we did a bit of purchase haggling and then back to a cool beer.

Trivia item, not sure if it is true, but a Maharana is a kinglike hereditary leader with a moustache and a Maharajah is the same but with a beard!! Go figure…..

Indian scam

2012-03-04T03:33:00.001-08:00

I am slipping this in as it happened yesterday...

India: Scams

This will be short and sweet. We are pretty hard headed travellers but today we (nearly) got caught by scammers. I was buying mustard seed in the market and a very nice respectable gentleman came up, helped us find the seed and was talking to us very calmly and told us about this NGO that was helping widows in Rajasthan. These supposed women were dying and sewing various types of textiles. He said the tuk tuk drivers would not go there as they did not get commission. All sounded plausible. He said he would ask a local driver to take us there. I am a total sucker for NGO work and especially for women’s groups. We were a bit suspicious but not too much so until they sales talk started in the factory. The material was nice, the table cloths and bed spreads were wonderful but the prices seemed high. Compared to European prices they were still reasonable. So we paid a small(ish) deposit and the guy would deliver to our guest house this evening. Meanwhile we checked them out on Google and found that they are a total scam. The dyes, supposedly natural, washed out, the package you got delivered, nicely packed for travelling, wasn’t what you ordered.

So when the guy turned up we had a whole story concocted. Barry went down to meet him I followed a bit behind and took a flash picture of him. We had printed out the trip advisor reports of the scam. Barry told the guy he was a travelling representative for lonely planet and other groups. His job was to expose scams like theirs. He said the police were well informed about them and that they would be receiving a call from them. He said it would be easier on them if they gave us back our deposit, which he did and he took himself off. He had to call the boss who obviously told him to get the hell out of here as fast as he could and to give the “old geyser” his money back.

So we are no worse off financially but saddened again at the level of dishonesty. Thank goodness for the Internet as these guys will not be tolerated much longer and will have to go legitimate or risk punishment. Irritatingly, they could make a good business out of the stuff they had….

Moral of this story is, we should have known better….

2012-03-03T04:57:00.002-08:00

India 7: Pushkar to Udaipur

It was a long drive passing first through the brush and cricket bat sellers area of Ajmer market. The highway is completed much of the way but this does not guarantee that you won’t meet a truck heading towards you on the fast lane or a buffalo or a human being meandering across the six lanes. On the toll sections it is quiet as the old trucks won’t pay but on the non paying sections every form of transport whizzes by on all sides and even when there is no side they fly up on the road shoulder. The trucks have signs painted on the back inviting you to “Blow the Horn”. Horn blowing is an Indian art. There are levels of urgency ranging from ‘I’m here’ which is a ‘toot toot’ to a continual blast which means ‘if you don’t get out of the way NOW I’ll drive right over you.

We passed through large wheat growing areas and eventually came to Rajsamand the marble and granite area. Hundreds of trucks, laden down with huge marble blocks, grind their way along to the cutting and polishing areas. Kilometre after kilometre of polished marble stacks stand outside these workshops. White with a black vein is the commonest colour though we did see beautiful pink, grey and bronze colours as well as green polished granite.

Arriving in Udaipur after six hours on the road Bilal, our driver, pointed out JK House which is the residence of the biggest marble exporter in Rajasthan. It is a walled compound surrounding a villa that would look right at home along the French Riviera. We visited a beautiful public garden which was established in 1704. Then to our little gem of a guesthouse called Amer Villas, worth noting the name, for those intending to travel to India. It is only open three months. There are a couple of things that could be tweaked to make it perfect but it is clean, friendly and the food is to die for.

The garden in Udaipur created in the 18th Century

We watched the sun go down at sunset point , Monsoon Palace,

a couple of hundred metres above the city while chatting to two Israelis. Returning to our hotel, through the tiny crammed streets, which would make Cucuron, village streets seem like a highway, we got stuck in the chaos of a traffic jam. Remember you could almost touch both sides of these streets, which have two way traffic. Remember also that traffic does not file one behind the other, as we would expect, but everything, cars, vans, motorbikes and scooters as well as bicycles, people and not forgetting the buffalos all try to travel alongside each other. The idea seems to be to reduce the space between any object and its neighbour to less than a millimetre. We have no idea what caused the chaos but it may have been a wedding party

The wedding procession

making it’s way to the wedding house or it could have been the intricate balance of this moving mass becoming undone. Whatever it was it was bedlam. Everyone was honking horns, shouting and revving engines and a buffalo just couldn’t understand why he could not get along the street to wherever he was going. But by some sort of miracle and the continual edging forward we got through. The situation became very tense but dissipated just before it exploded into a riot. In the end everyone was smiling and happy and we all headed home to the best meal we have had since we arrived in India and that includes one or two expensive(ish) Jaipur eating-houses.

Not best pleased that I am photographing the chaos - sorry I missed the buffalo which was just to the left!!

2012-03-02T09:27:00.002-08:00

We have been on the road for the past nine days with only intermittent internet connection. Hence what you will be reading wt happened about a week ago.

India 6: Pushkar

We arrived in Pushkar today in luxury. We decided to take a driver for a couple of days so that we can see some of western Rajasthan. We are enjoying the luxury of a €20 a night establishment which is a big step up for us. We have a suite of rooms as the guy on the reception took pity on us and gave us the deluxe room for the price of a simple one. Needless to remark he didn’t have anyone else willing to pay the price for luxury. Pushkar isn’t the place where the rich come. Maybe the famous would but definitely not the rich. Maybe even John Lennon was here when he was finding his spiritual self in India. Modern day hippies, and even a few who seem to have forgotten to go home in the sixties, hang out here.

It’s a place of great Hindu worship. Many Indians come to bathe in the lake and Gandhi’s ashes were caste on the water here. We strolled down to see this spectacle only to be accosted by bogus Brahmin priests. I gave my guy a long lecture about his behaviour so he pushed off eventually. Boy are they persistent. It is such a pity as the lake is a very tranquil place and I would like to have meditated there but I was so mad and out of sorts dealing with the “priest” that we just walked away and further down the lake we were able to sit quietly.

The lake at Pushkar

There are lots of ‘dos and don’ts’ here – no holding hands or kissing in pubic, no bare arms or legs, no alcohol or drugs but relieving yourself in public is just fine.

Returning home along the bazaar we met a wedding party being accompanied down the street by an Indian Brass Band! Everyone was having a really good time. The groom was dressed very elegantly atop a white horse and dancing ladies surrounded the bride. The noise was deafening.

Pushkar is a centre of art and crafts. Colour dyes for painting and moulds for printing were on sale beside plastic kitsch. Further down the street the camels were struggling up from their slumbers to participate in, what I imagine is a daily event, a camel train with tourists aboard.

Some of the art work

2012-02-28T04:43:00.002-08:00

India 5: Amber Fort

Amber used to be the capital of Rajasthan. Today it is a fading pinkish structure with hordes of people coming and going. It’s about a five-minute walk form the bottom up to the fort or you can take an elephant ride. We opted for “Shank’s mare” (an Irishism for our own feet). We chose to do battle with the elephants on the way up as we missed the more direct set of steps, which ascend most of the way. We had to be careful that a huge bull elephant did not decide to have a comfort stop right in front of us. Under foot it was pretty slippy as these poor guys trudge up and down all morning carrying tourists up to the fort. Apparently a goat used to be sacrificed here every day up until the 1980’s. Having once participated in this particular ritual in Africa I have no desire to repeat the experience. Restoration is apparently taking place but there was little evidence on our visit. We had a look around and I decided I would like to come back in the early morning to try to catch the light and miss the tourists. We’ll see how things pan out.
Meanwhile here are a couple of shots.

2012-02-27T04:40:00.001-08:00

India 4: Travelling by public transport.

Most tourists here use tuk tuks or regular taxis to visit the Amber Fort about eleven kilometres from Jaipur. A tuk tuk ride would be hard on the vertebral column but no more so than the regular bus. We opted for the latter to have that real bone shaking experience. There are myriads of buses big small and every size in between, all in various states of dilapidation. We had been told by our newly acquired, Czech, gem buying, friend that it was a big blue bus. Various small “city buses” came and went with the attendant scramble and much roaring and shouting. When, even a sardine would have trouble squashing on, the bus took off. Eventually our bus arrived and we were beckoned forward. We knew the vast cost of this trip would be 10 rupees (15cent) per person. We had furnished ourselves with two grubby 10 rupee notes and off we were. The last two remaining seats were where one would put luggage normally. In India baggage does not warrant a special place. The area was covered with some plastic covered sponge so we felt blessed. Only problem was finding enough space into which we could fold our legs. People on the bus were most helpful and kind, much more so than those paid to work in the service industry. I wonder are we, the tourists, conscious enough of Indian customs or do we offend with some of our behaviour.

All in all the bus trip was great and we got to the fort and back in one piece. I’ll put up some photos of the fort in the next post but we are not great temple watchers. I like the architecture and the way the buildings sit in their environment, when they were built and for what purpose is also very interesting. But the pilgrimage and worship aspect is less interesting to me.

Tent dwellers on the side of the road

We're in the next row behind...

Meanwhile here are a few views from the bus'

India 3

2012-02-21T10:20:00.004-08:00

India 3: Hand printing on material and paper making:

About 16 km from Jaipur in a little village called Sanganar we visited a hand printed material factory. The owners are very happy to show you around the factory and to explain the techniques used to hand print. All the dyes are vegetable so there are no harmful chemicals. First the material is stretched out on a table. An outline of the design is stamped on the material using a wooden mould. In the photo the outline is already on the material. Then the colours are filled in using several other block moulds, depending on the number of colours to be added. The one we saw being made was a two colour process, red and blue.

Inside the factory the men and women were working at sewing machines adding trimming to the edges of some material of making things from patchwork pieces. The place was piled high from floor to ceiling with material. Not sure how much is for local sale and how much for export. They also make Pashmina shawls which I was assured sold in John Lewis of London for 1000 pounds…. The guy selling was a smoothie, he would sell you his mother if he needed to, but he was not prepared for a tough African hand. When he ‘forgot’ to put all my purchases in the bag I doubled back and demanded another meter of material to assuage my anger… I got it. I told him I would publish it on the Internet if he did not comply. It worked.

We then headed for the hand made paper factory. Here there was a “no photography” policy but when I asked the lady guide she was quite cooperative. She indicated what I could and could not photograph. The paper is made from scraps of material. These are squashed together in a bath, then rolled between two metal sheets, dyed in a bath of vegetable dye and then dried. While we were there they were busy with a Government order for file covers. About twenty women and men, sitting in different areas, were folding these and stacking them for delivery.

The textured paper one finds for sale in Europe is also made here. Flower petals are added just before the compressing. A small number of products are on sale in the shop. No haggling is expected – the price is the price. It makes a welcome change where every trip involves a session of haggling.

We then drove on down the river (which is a polite description for a flowing cess pool…) where the screen printed material was drying in the sun. You can see this in the photos. The young men, standing up to their waists in water, which has been pumped up from this cess pool, swirl the material around. They then pile it up on the shoulders of a guy who takes it off to the drying racks. These stand about 20 meters high and are a sort of bamboo framework. Materials are sorted by colour. There was also a lot of pristine white muslin hanging up to dry. Unfortunately, we learned that Hydrogen Peroxide is used to whiten the muslin. The waste water from this drains back into the river and the cycle begins again. So when you next buy a piece of lovely white muslin spare a thought for the guys standing in those pits.

When the material is dried the women fold it and it is then transported by camel to wherever it is stored. The people working here were so good humoured. They pretended to capture me so that I would take a photo of the boss man. I wanted to take the ladies as they were much more colourful but as we all know, in the third world we women come pretty far down the pecking order….

It is interesting that people in what one might call the ‘service’ industry are not very friendly. With some exceptions, of course. But people working in the factories or those travelling on the public transport are extremely helpful and friendly. Of which more in the next blog…

India 2 Jaipur

2012-02-19T22:52:00.007-08:00

IPhotos to follow when the electric socket stops fizzling and the third phase is up........

Today is Monday and we are settled in our second accommodation in three nights. The first, we choose from the internet and booked in advance – bad plan… Our taxi driver, on our arrival night, warned us that it was a bad choice. However you have to be careful of what you are told as most of those involved in the myriad forms of transport have a deal going with some hotels or guest houses. On this occasion we should have listened. The hotel itself looked fine superficially but it was not clean and the beds were rock hard. The staff were morose and in mortal fear of the “boss” who finally showed up just as we checked out. Lesson learned.

Yesterday we moved to Aititchi Guest House. Unfortunately it seems to be exclusively young and not so young foreign travellers. It is in the “Holy” Planet and hence deemed to be habitable. It is indeed very clean, very cheap and the two guys running it know exactly what foreigners want. I think I saw one of these guys refusing access to two Indian tourists, but I cannot be sure. I sincerely hope I was mistaken. The beds are a great deal more comfortable and the sheets are white rather than pale grey! It is also the hang out for some really interesting people. We met a guy who had just arrived from Kathmandu on his 100 year old motor bicycle. Yes that’s Kathmandu in Nepal. He is headed to Bernkastel in Germany for a rally of FN bikes. He has a web site called www.oldblokeonabike.com Check it out.

This morning arrived, on time, for our appointment with the tourist guy who was going to arrange a trip west of Jaipur for us. He did not show up on time so we called another guy we had met on the plane from Mumbai who was another tourist guy. He was good fun and about 2m tall!! He is organizing a trip for us and we are about to part with the money for this today. Let’s hope the driver turns up on Wednesday. Watch this space.

After tea in Mohan’s (another version of which mahan, means great, we are told), a reasonably quiet spot, we headed for the Old city on foot. Almost no tourists walk so you are continually hassled by tuk tuk and rickshaw drivers asking if you want to take their transport. There is almost no signage so getting about is a little tricky.

The old city, called the Pink city for reasons that are not so obvious, it is plastered in a sort of darkish ochre, is a mad rabbit warren of little streets, set out in a grid pattern. Waste water runs openly along the alleyways. Rubbish cascades from between the houses and every now and then there is a urinal manned by a mangy dog. Have I given you some idea of the atmosphere?…. Tourists mostly walk around the bigger streets of the pink city in phalanxes guided by someone. Every conceivable need can be fulfilled here. You can buy any spare part for your bike, pedal or motor, a bolt of material for your sari, your fruit and veg or have your wedding invitations printed or any thing else you might fancy for that matter. It is teeming with life.

We took a tuk tuk home.

Last night we ate at what is supposed to be one of Jaipur’s better budget restaurants. It was very crowded and not the best Indian food we have had. The staff were from all corners of the world. Because it was so crowded we had to share a table, which turned out to be a great experience. Our fellow diners were a young Polish couple who were delightful.

Now we have to buy a days Internet access to get this lot uploaded.

India 1

2012-02-18T08:26:00.001-08:00

Today is the 17^th February and we have arrived in Jaipur from Hyderabad via Mumbai. Our flight was delayed so yet again we arrive in an Indian city in the black dark. Before I return to write about Hyderabad my first impression of Jaipur is that it is a lot less chaotic than Hyderabad. Our taxi driver from the airport did not drive like he was escaping from a burning car park. The road in from the airport, which is situated 12km south east of the city, is wide and well paved. I was a little amused to see one camel leading another along the side of this highway. They were totally unperturbed by the traffic. Approaching nearer the city we passed an ambling elephant going about his night time delivery business. Our taxi driver spoke excellent comprehensible English and was more than willing to impart information. How much of this turns out to be fact we shall learn over the next few days. He was not impressed with our choice of hotel which he said was not good value for money at 21€ per night… He could recommend much better for 15€ - watch this space. Our first impression of the hotel is that it is adequate and reasonably clean but the night porter was not a ball of laughs. Again we shall see how the next couple of days develop. We have only booked a couple of nights here and then we will be free to savour the delights of 15€ per night accommodation.

Back to Hyderabad. We arrived there at 3am on 14^th February and, as we had been instructed, we found the radio taxis and negotiated a price for the trip into the city. It is advisable when travelling to India to buy the latest version of the Lonely Planet, or whatever travel bible you use, as this country is moving ahead a pace. We thought the taxi was taking us via the scenic route as our “Holy” Planet said the airport was on the edge of the city and we had chosen a hotel near the airport or so we thought. However a new airport has been constructed which would fit the Ryanair description of near the city. It took us a good forty minutes, travelling at least 100km per hour, to reach our destination. The Yatri Niwas Hotel is situated with ‘an up close and personal’ view of the ‘fly over’. There is, however another road between the hotel and the fly over which appeared to be ‘sort of’ one way. The noise and the traffic are an experience.

The reason we wanted to start our India experience in Hyderabad was that my brother and sister-in-law have been instrumental in gathering funds to develop a home for the children of long term prisoners and other abandoned children. By a succession of happenstance they got to hear about the home. They raised and continue to raise funds to expand and improve the lives of the forty-nine children. The home is run by a wonderful sister. The children are fed and educated and receive lots of love. They realize how lucky they are and are achieving great things in their education. The children’s education is sponsored. Anyone can become a sponsor and my sister-in-law ensures that every rupee goes directly to the children’s education.

Most of our time in Hyderabad was spent speeding around the chaotic streets in tuk tuks,

narrowly missing cars buses and people. No one hesitates even for a second. Horns are blown continually. That smell which is poverty is everywhere. We got to see and experience the real India for which we are truly grateful. We met some amazing women who are battling against all odds to try to improve the lot of the forgotten and almost forgotten. The good news is that they are succeeding. They are getting some local support from successful business people. So in time India will, hopefully, use some of its own amazing wealth to help its own people.

Here are some photos of the beautiful children we met.

and the sun sets at the end of a snowy day

2012-02-01T10:46:00.000-08:00

Provence in the snow January 2012

2012-01-31T02:00:00.000-08:00

We woke up to this morning to the snow! I think we must have taken the snow back from Combloux in our bags....

It is market day but there are only about three stalls around the pond.

No one moves here when there is a flake of snow but it is really beautiful....

Martin said the photos were too small so I have made them bigger - tell me if it takes too long to load.

Combloux January 2012

2012-01-29T07:33:00.000-08:00

Just back in Provence from a lovely week in the French Alpes.

Here are some photos

Maastricht January 2012

2012-01-21T10:12:00.000-08:00

A short visit to Maastricht produced some lovely crisp cold weather. Trips to and from creche through the park, afforded some photo opportunities. I am trying out the slideshow facility here on blogger and hope it works. Would love your comments!!

Maastricht

La Pastorale des Santons de Provence

2012-01-08T23:42:00.000-08:00

Still with the Christmas theme of cribs and the Christmas story as told here in Provence. The pastorale is a bit like Swan Lake brought up to date in music and costume. The nativity story is transported to somewhere in Provence. Joseph and the pregnant Mary are trudging along trying to find somewhere for Mary to deliver her baby. The Mistral, that persistent south of france wind, is blowing a hooley. They find the stable with the animals asleep and the story rolls on.

The pastorale is performed every Christmas time all over Provence. We were invited, by our lovely neighbour, to listen to a fifty year old vinyl version of this Pastorale while we sipped an aperatif.

Link to UTube recording:

It was as fresh and as funny as if it had been recorded just last year. The angel Gabriel, l'ange Boufareou, is the narrator. In the absence of anyone else the animals help and advise Joseph. Eventually some local people come by, the police man, the fishmonger, the gypsy, the drummer man and his wife, all bearing the gifts of their trade. Cameo life stories of these people are narrated alongside the main story line. The choir sings some traditional Christmas and provencal songs. It's funny and sad and a wonderful way to familiarise children with the Christmas story without frightening the wits out of them.

Another neighbours Provence crib:

The beginning of 2012

2012-01-07T11:46:00.000-08:00

I never did get my local observations of pre Christmas "goings on", in this part of the world, finished. This was because Christmas just sneaked up on me. The Christmas tree

has now been banished to the terrace and awaits the tree collection.

With Christmas cleared away we were free to go to the local cinema, just twenty paces from our house. This emporium is reminiscent of the fifties cine houses with its plush red seats and high ceiling. One is greeted by the owner. The other patrons shake hands all round before entering the dark interior and then the owner slips upstairs to start the reels rolling. Today we were treated to Werner Hertzog's "Cave of Forgotten Dreams" ("Cave des rêves perdues"). This is an amazing documentary on the Chauvet Caves in the Ardechè region of France. In typical Hertzog style it comes at the discovery from an artistic point of view rather than a dry factual historical presentation. We move through the caves in 3D.

The cave paintings are simply breathtaking. Both charcoal and red ocre seems to have been used to sketch these animals. The detail, the beauty and the movement of the animals took my breath away. The notion that we moved from static art to movement in art, in modern times has had to be completely rethought. These caves were discovered in 1994 and, with carbon dating, are thought to have been inhabited at two different historic periods. The first period was between 30,000 and 32,000 years ago and the second was 25,000 to 27,000 years ago. It is almost incomprehensible that these paintings could be so old. The caves, it is thought, were not exactly inhabited but were decorated and used for rituals.

The paintings were preserved because of a landslide which blocked the entrance and changed the atmosphere inside which caused the walls to be covered with a thin layer of calcite coming out of the limestone rock. The caves then became filled with the most amazing stalactites and stalagmites. As Hertzog moved you through the caves these sparkled in the lights. The film crew were only allowed a very short time to film so as not to destroy the atmosphere.

The film ends with a Postscript which shows the nuclear power station only 30 km away from the Chauvet caves. Crocodiles, in a pond heated by the nuclear power station, are albino. One asks oneself what have we learned in 30,000 years. Which brings us to our Cafe Philo discussion from last night. The title of the discussion was "L'espèce humaine est-elle nuisible?" which translates as "The human species is it harmful?". But that is a discussion for another day.

Gaston waiting for his crib performance

2011-12-14T23:38:00.000-08:00

this is for Martin!

11 December - Christmas in France

2011-12-12T02:28:00.000-08:00

Provence continues to move towards Christmas with stately elegance. Yesterday, our neighbouring village held their "Marché de Nöel". Vaugines is a village of about 500 citizens and is a short hike from our own village. We walk each week with the 'Vauginoises' and it is thanks to them that we have grown to know and love the Luberon Mountains.

Christmas Markets are a somewhat contentious issue for the people of Provence. The reaction depends on whether one is trying to earn a living by selling ones wares or whether one is part of the community wishing to maintain Provence as it was in bygone days. I have a foot in both camps. On the one hand I am happy to sell what I produce, on the other I love old traditions and feel the brash new world shrugged off some of the best. Keeping some of the old, while embracing new technology, would seem to be rational. After all, I could not share our Provence Christmas if it were not for new technology.

The Vaugine Christmas market took place around the tiny, normally very quiet, village square. Stands selling santons or figurines, for the Christmas crib, locally made arts and crafts, bric-a-brac and food stalls surrounded the square.

Children were given donkey rides while their parents sipped coffee or something stronger in the cafe.

The jugglers, on stilts, swayed into town and delighted the children with their art.

Finally the day was brought to a close with the presentation of the living crib.

I had to leave before this was completed but standing outside the stable was a very hefty looking beast, two big lambs and a donkey, protesting loudly at not being allowed into the stable.

As I left the sun was sliding behind the mountains to the south of the Durance river

3rd December Christmas in France

2011-12-03T10:59:00.000-08:00

Today the leaves blew off the gigantic plantane trees which surround our mill pond. It was the first sign of Winter.

It was also the day when villagers put their crib creations on display to be judged. These are, in the main, simple homemade works of art. Most are traditional but some are really abstract. One local artist used specially selected stones to represent the figures of his creche. Another used paper cut outs to populate his crib.One original idea was to use a gourd, pear shaped and cut almost in half to accommodate the family and beasts. Another creation nestled in a very old leather hat box or rather hat case, yet another was a two tier arrangement on a cake trolly.

Simplicity, lack of brash bling was the general sensation, the true message of Christmas

1st December - Christmas in France

2011-12-01T14:11:00.000-08:00

Christmas in France is a lot calmer than it is in either Ireland or the UK. During the month of December I will try to give a flavour of what a French Christmas is like. Tonight 1st December we had the village parade. This morning each house along the route had night lights delivered together with a request to put these in the window while the parade passed. Most of my neighbours did as requested and the result was really lovely. Restaurants and businesses switched on their Christmas lights. The parade marched to the Etang. This is an old mill pond just outside the walls of the ancient village.

The school children had made boats which were tied together in a long line. Each boat had a small night light on it.. There was three chains of boats.

The lights on our Christmas tree were then switched on.

Finally the fireworks started. Having these fireworks on the pond adds to the drama as all the fireworks are reflected in the water of the pond. It was a spectacular event for such a tiny village.

October Diary in MACRO

2011-11-06T05:11:00.000-08:00

1st October: The month started calmly enough so I had time to take a macro of a flower

2nd October: Classic cars came to Cucuron to start their rally on the 2nd of October, the Luberon Marathon day. The race ended by the Etang in the village.

4th October: The 3rd October was either too busy or too boring to find a suitable image. I did the fruit shopping on the 4th and the peaches were delicious!

5th October: A beautiful sunny morning with the sun shining in our mezzanine window making shadows on the wall

6th Octobr: And so the house has been shrouded in scaffolding and netting to protect the passers by. One month later we are sill looking out at scaffolding.

7th October: We participated in a farmers market lunch and had a look around the farm where I found this lovely twirl. It is part of the courgette like vegetable called chou chou. I had never seen it before.

8th October: I must have been pretty short of ideas on this day. I do remember reading on the chaise longue and looking up at the halogen light and finding it interesting - so there you have it.

9th October: My painting brushes live on my table in font of me in this lovely bamboo holder.

12th October: Being incarcerated in a scaffolded house is quite depressing so we escaped to have a walk around the village where we discovered that the Autumn had crept in while we were napping

13th October: This will give you some idea of what it is like to live behind plastic coated windows smeared with cement...

15th October: So we escaped the doom and gloom of cement covered windows and headed north to Maastricht where I found this image intriguing - what do you think it is?

16th October: A pretty ribbon on our duvet

18th October: While Ben was in creche we lunched in a rivrside restaurant where the table was decorated with a very pretty fruit arrangement

20th October: Every morning in Maastricht Ash, the cat, visits us. She is now an old lady but her whiskers are as strong as every!

21st October: Maastricht sunrise through the window.

24th October: Michael D, the new Irish President, as seen on the Google debate. This is a capture of the computer screen. I find it interesting that the next picture of Sarkozy was taken from a HD television. The latter is so much clearer.

27th October: President appeared on TF1, French television, assuring us all that he and Anglea Merkel had sorted Europe's problems.........

28th October: The last MACRO of the month as we headed off to Disneyland, Paris with our grandchildren, a world which demands wide angle photography.

Conor's arrival

2011-09-30T11:06:00.000-07:00

On the 6th September Conor Mahon was born. He is the fourth grandchild and the second grandson. The girls Ellie and Brigid are five and three respectively. Ben, our other grandson is six months old. We are overjoyed with our expanding family.

We are very happy to report that Mammy and baby are doing well even if Conor has not quite got the hang of sleeping...

Ellie and Brigid are thrilled with their baby brother and Ben will be delighted with his cousin when he is old enough to play with him.

Visit to a sculpture garden

2011-06-23T14:20:00.000-07:00

This was surely "the good wine 'till last".It's the West Cork garden trail time of year and at the end of a week of garden visits we were blase, we had visited some fairly large gardens and some not so large. Each garden had had something to offer but on the Wednesday we set off from Sherkin Island on the early ferry and headed for Glengarriff.

Three miles beyond on the Kenmare road we were lured into the entrance by huge creeping hands running alongside the road. An old Austin (I think I am useless at car models) with a map reading sheep atop marked the entrance gates.

The owner met us at the small bridge with a map and a list of the sculptures. We really needed a coffee so he lead us to huge picnic tables and served us coffee and warm scones with cream and jam. On his advice we set off on the trail in the opposite direction to that indicated on the map. A party of school children were following the normal route.

In front of the house as you set off there are several pieces of sculpture. All are animals dressed as humans. They are painted greenish black to blend in with the lush natural surroundings. Everyone makes you smile but some are meant to be thought provoking. "50 degrees - too little too late" is a reclining baby elephant wearing a bikini with a giant bottle of sun lotion alongside.

The trail runs alongside a cascading river. The paths are protected with rails made from tree branches. The bridge across the river sits on two giant tree trunks. You have to be alert not to miss the hidden and half hidden pieces of sculpture. Some are more evident like the huge silver fish suspended from its line over the river. But you have to look at every rock and tree trunk or you will miss something.

Weird faces grin at you from rock faces or tree trunks.

Some pieces are very funny like the pig in the bubble bath with the title "Because I'm worth it"

Interactive games are placed where children can play with them and all along the way there are explanations, both serious and amusing, pieces of information and poems. Each written piece is laminated and framed on a wooden mount. It is impossible, on a single visit, to take it all in.

From the pond at the top of the trail a huge green frog grins at you while it looks normal that a fish is suspended beside him. A metal door in the side of a huge rock houses the most destructive animal that ever lived. Children are encouraged to open it and have a peek..... scary stuff.....
All the while you are being informed about the flora and fauna, about the creation of man and his environment.

This is a truly magical experience and I would advise anyone visiting West Cork to take the time to wander here.

Dry stone walls

2011-05-19T03:57:00.000-07:00

We had to move one of our dry stone walls, around our house here on Sherkin Island, this year. We are very lucky to have a dry stone wall expert resident here on the island, Allen Phillips. His arrival to commence the work on this new/old wall got me thinking of the ancient tradition of dry stone wall building.

The "new" old wall with Barry's gate reinstalled

We have been building dry stone walls, here in Ireland, for 5000 years. However many of the walls that can be seen along the whole western coast line date from the mid 1800's. Sone walls were built not only to enclose the land but to clear it of the many stones. The building technique does not require any foundation and despite this the walls are incredibly sturdy.

There are a couple of stone wall types. There is the single stone width. The stones standing vertical with, at regular intervals, a very large stone. Then there is the larger wall with at least a two stone width. Sometimes the centre is filled with smaller stones and shale. A large stone is placed across the width in places to brace the whole structure. :Long ago the base of the wall had the smaller stone to keep out rabbits and the stone size increased s the wall grew in stature. These walls defy gravity.

Patrick McAfee has written several, rather dry, excuse the pun, books on the subject of dry stone wall building here in Ireland. We need to persuade our Sherkin Islander to write what I am sure would be a much more interesting book on the topic! One thing McAfee is good at, is statistics. He tells us that on the Aran Islands there is 1500 kilometers of dry stone walls. The Silent Valley Resevoir Dam wall, in County Down, is 35 kilometers long. To my knowledge Mr McAfee has never visited Sherkin so we have no idea how many kilometers of dry stone walls we have here on the island. We do know however that the tradition is being kept alive and Allen is adding meters if not kilometers to our existing walls every year. He uses the ancient techniques and escues all modern technology when building. Allen does not believe in using cement, spirit levels, or other contraptions, as his eye is more accurate than any spirit level on the market.

Allen's curved wall

A wall built by Allen over ten years ago

The original stone house

Many of the original houses are stone built but a lime mortar was used in the later builds. In recent times many, like our own, have been pointed as the lime mortar lets in as much dampness as it keeps out!

John Hinde Photo Competition

2011-03-30T10:00:00.000-07:00

Those of you who are Irish and of a certain age will remember when John Hinde postcards hit the Newsagents shelves. The man himself was born in Somerset in 1916 but came to Ireland, after a stint with a circus, where he set up a photography company. The John Hinde postcard had little to do with reality and a lot to do with whats called today "post production"

Irish radio set up a competition, with sponsorship from the John Hinde Company, to find the John Hinde Photographer of 2012. The radio station received 947 entrants. One photo per photographer was permitted. Sixty five finalists were chosen and I was delighted to be among those with my image of the Beacon in Baltimore West Cork.

One very worthy winner and four equally worthy runners up were chosen from the finalists. I was not among them but happy to have been short listed.

The winner was Jacky O'Donovan. You can see the finalists not the Youtube slideshow

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ydotyKEoUE8&feature=player_embedded#at=26

Cucuron Carnival

2011-03-27T04:04:00.000-07:00

We are a village of less than 2000 souls but every year a great number of the residents turn out for the Carnival parade. This takes place, rather bizarrely, several weeks after Mardi Gras. I made a collage of some of the photos I took of the occasion so here it is:

Ben is Born

2011-03-25T03:22:00.000-07:00

Ben Eoin Mahon Savage

On Wednesday evening Ben Eoin Mahon Savage decided to finally push his way into this chaotic world. He had hung on for eleven days after his due date as I am sure he wanted to present himself under the fire sign Aries. Fireworks ahead for his parents. He weighed 3.5kgs (7.4lbs) and is in fine form. His Mum had a tough time but like Ben is in fighting form now and home.

The happy grandparents will be traveling north on Tuesday next to help out and to steal a load of snuggles.

His cousins Ellie and Brigid wanted to know if they could Skype with Ben yesterday!!

We were thinking about the meaning of life and all that since we became grandparents for the third time so Martin Videcoq's lecture, in the Bibliotheque de Vaugine, entitled "Life on Earth and elsewhere", was very timely. Martin went through the evolution of life on our planet Earth. He moved from the very simple life form, bacteria, over half a million years ago to our own vertebrate life form. He indicated the elements required to sustain life. But the jump from individual elements to that first bacterial life form is still unexplained.

Then he looked briefly at the other planets in our solar system to see if they have the required chemical make up to sustain life as we know it. Some are too hot some too toxic but hidden beneath the icy surface on Mars there appears to be oceans of water which could be sustaining life.

He then turned his attention to other solar systems and the likelihood that life forms exist elsewhere. We had fun using the Drake equation to try to estimate the probability of life existing elsewhere and then the probability of us being able to communicate with these other life forms.

We left the evening having wet Ben's head with a glass of local wine, thinking of how small and insignificant we are in the overall universe.

You can follow Martin's blog at the following address:

http://seulsdanslecosmos.hautetfort.com/

Les Gorges de Véroncle

2011-03-21T06:32:00.000-07:00

We only walked this gorge yesterday, spare a thought for those who constructed the mills all the way along it. The dozen or so mills were built between the 16c and the 18c. The canyon is naturally wild, isolated and almost inaccessible. To service the mills an ingenious system of channels, dams and ducts were constructed.
The walk starts innocently enough. From the village of Joucas to the head of the canyon one passes through rural fields. At the first mill, Moulin des Grailles, Raven's Mill in the Ocitan language, a man was tending his garden. Further along we came upon our first obstacle, a metal ladder. We had to scale this ladder to get from one level to another.
The ruins of the mills show an extraordinary attention to detail in their architecture. The massive rock structures were incorporated into the mills. The flow of the head waters was used to direct and utilise the immense power therein. Massive mill stones are still strewn about the ruins.
Luckily there was no water in the canyon yesterday. I cannot imagine how one could advance along the canyon with a raging torrent. At one point we had to climb up onto a ledge using a metal rope. The ledge was extremely narrow. A short distance along this ledge we let ourselves down again into the gorge using another rope with knots at the appropriate distances to stop us sliding down too quickly.
We proceeded along the gorge crisscrossing the rocky base.
The Moulin de Jean de Mare was our next destination. Before we reached this mill we walked up the side of the gorge and then we needed to descend again. We reached the edge of the canyon. Peering over we could see the metal steps in the side of the canyon with a rope dangling alongside. Further down there was a metal rail. Further down again there was a rough rocky path. The distance between the metal steps seemed enormous. There was no way back. I was first to go down, followed by Anne-Marie and finally Barry. It was scary stuff. There is no photographic evidence of this descent, my legs were too shaky.
We arrived at the mill where a group of walkers were making merry with bottles of wine and sandwiches. Perhaps they were celebrating the fact they were still alive. At this point we did not know if there were more hazards ahead. I feared we would have to scale the walls of the canyon to eventually climb out. Of course the flour had to be transported out when the mills were in use. Our ascent was a lot smoother and we eventually did reach the village of Murs.
It had taken six and a half hours to get this far and we still had another five kilometers to rejoin our car. The rest of the trip was uneventful except that some joker who had erected the distance signs seemed to think the further you travelled the further away your destination became.
It was an amazing day but be warned if you want to follow this walk when the French say "passage sportif", to describe the walking level, they mean mountain climbing experience would be useful!!

Gas from schist rocks - what next!

2011-03-12T06:23:00.000-08:00

This morning we attended a protest meeting on the north of the Luberon mountains. Unusually for Provence the weather was overcast and very threatening. Notwithstanding this a fairly large group of pony tailed (the male participants), colourful, even pipe smoking young and old people gathered in Coustellet to listen to children and other concerned representatives of various regions and associations beg us to pay attention to what the multinationals, aided by governments are proposing. Since we are running out of petrol the proposal is to drill down as far as 3km to release the gas from schist rocks. What will this do to the environment?
Why can governments not invest in alternative energy instead of pulling the heart out of our planet? If you hear of any activity of this nature near you, please support those that try to protect our environment and PROTEST...
A few images from the occasion

You might spot someone you recognise to the rear of this colorful fellow.

These people came all the way from the Ardeche..

From the southern to the northern Alps by train

2011-03-04T09:23:00.000-08:00

This is an amazing train journey. From here it takes most of the day. On the return trip I got invited to travel in the cab with the driver Guillaume. Taking photos in this position as the train zigzags along is a lot of fun. Guillaume opened the cab window for me so I was able to hang out the side - hence some ot the photos are a bit squiff..

Meyragues waiting room, Provence

Our guard

Guillaume and me pulling up at Monestier station!

Watch out tunnel coming up FAST

Guillaume

Out the side window as my nose freezes off

Hanging out the side window!!!

Scary Irish bus ride

2011-02-28T01:38:00.000-08:00

Note the state of the windscreen, the shade blind and in addition our bus driver was reading the newspaper while driving on ice. A very skilled or very stupid technique - he got us there. You decide!

Our scary bus ride in Ireland

For the book worms among you

2011-02-22T03:48:00.000-08:00

Eileen Battersby in conversation with
Anthony Cronin and Dermot Bolger

in association with Dublin UNESCO City of Literature
and the National Library of Ireland

Wednesday, 2nd March 2011
from 6.30pm to 8.30pm

National Library of Ireland
2 Kildare Street, Dublin 2

€ 5 entry*

book your place now

* ticket can be exchanged for a €5 voucher,
redeemable at the Festival Bookshop between 4 and 6 March

The programme for the Dublin Book Festival
(2-6 March) is available at www.dublinbookfestival.com
or download it here (PDF).

Copyright

2011-02-21T23:58:00.000-08:00

For the photographers among you the following is interesting information about copyright. It is from the STOP43 group who are trying to get the law on copyright updated to reflect the present usage of photographic works. For detailed information go to:
http://www.stop43.org.uk/
Summary:
We promised the new Government that we, creators, would produce New Thinking to replace the inequitable and unworkable ideas behind Clause 43.
Here it is.

Our proposal is currently being rewritten for submission to the Government’s Intellectual Property Review. Meanwhile, we have produced a list of
Frequently Asked Questions
to make it more accessible.
======================================
This information was picked up from a paper on:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/02/18/photographers_orphan_works/

The geology of the Luberon Mountains

2011-02-19T12:38:00.000-08:00

Leaping out of bed on a Saturday morning at the proverbial crack of dawn is never an attractive prospect but when one has leaped out and presented oneself at the spot from which the proposed geological walk is due to take place and finds oneself alone on a cold empty street, then one is not best pleased. Were we in the right place for "kick-off"? Was the start time 9am or perhaps earlier? No answers were forthcoming, The Marie was firmly closed, barred and bolted with only ourselves and a rather oddly dressed lady. She, it turned out, was due to be married there at 11am and was wearing some of her wedding accessories.

We returned home and lived a highly domesticated morning which we did not expect to have. At 13.30 the phone rang and the leader of the walk wondered why we were not outside the Marie with the rest of the group.... We rushed to join them and there followed four hours of extremely interesting geological information. We were a small group of six adults with three children ranging in age from four to eight.

Our guide showing us examples of what we could find

We started on the hill up out of Cucuron towards the Hermitage Church on the Luberon foothills. Our fist stop was in front of a rocky wall alongside the road to the village school. This "wall" was created 15 million years ago by being pushed up out of a deep sea by the encroaching African continent. the rock type is "molasses" (or that is what it sounded like to me). We (or rather our guide) could tell its age by the wealth of shell fossils to be found there. Even the children could find examples after a couple of minutes. Our guide showed us his hoard of shark teeth, found in this particular spot over time. One has the right to collect fossils which are dislodged but not to disturb the rock to remove specimens.

Looking out over the Luberon

Our next stop, off our normal path, was up to a superb vantage viewing point. Here we found rocks a mere 8 million years old. This part was formed by being pushed up from a tidal sea not so deep as the first step. This particular rock is extremely fragile and it is amazing that it has not been destroyed by time and erosion. We were able to find sea snail fossils, some of them totally intact after 8 million years.

Showing us the fossils we could find

From here we descended again to our normal route. Alongside a road we take possibly once a month, our guide showed us the remains of roman tiles. These he was sure were dumped on the side of a little stream which descended from the Luberon. The equivalent of our builders, the Roman lads had just dumped the rest of the roof tiles after finishing some villa. In the marl where this stream had once flowed remains of a primitive type of horse have been found. the horse looked, from the examples we were shown, like a cross between a zebra and a small horse.

From here we ascended towards the Hermitage and were shown a conglomerate rock formation. In our naivety we had thought that the stones on these paths had been cemented at some time in the past. But it was water flowing down from the mountain which hardened the marl which then cemented the stones together. Most of the top of this Luberon hill is made of this conglomerate. As we descended again we found the strata we had already seen on the other side of the hill.

We digressed to look at a quarry where two totally different types of rock had been pushed up together, the origins of which were 80 million years apart. My memory could be playing tricks on me here as by this point, three hours into the walk, my concentration was lapsing.

The Romans dump site!

The walk was an inspiration. Our younger companions a delight with their interest and tenacity. I do not know many children of four years who could manage to climb for four hours. It was a tribute to our guide that he was able to maintain their and our interest.

The moral of this story is how unfamiliar the familiar can be or how much there is to learn about things you have passed a million times. Our guide was not only a geologist but his deep interest in nature made him familiar with how and what various birds and mammals ate and how they ate them.

2011-02-13T05:57:00.000-08:00

Some more images of the Camargue

Luc Hoffmann

2011-02-07T06:59:00.000-08:00

Hands up all those who know who Luc Hoffmann is. Until yesterday I had no idea. He is the grandson of the founder of the Hoffmann la Roche pharmaceutical empire and is a doctor of Natural Sciences. It is his amazing interest in ornithology which brought him to my attention. In 1948 he bought some land in the Camargue, an area in the south of France famous for birdwatching.
Yesterday we were on our way, at sparrow fart, to photograph the Gaschole lighthouse in the early morning light. As always we got side tracked en route. I had spotted a white stork standing atop a pylon and wanted to photograph it. Another car pulled up behind us. The driver wanted to know where La Tour Valat was. We had our map and knew we were very near it. He asked were we going there to the ornithological open day. We said we were now! That's how I came to learn of Luc Hoffmann. The Tour Valat is a research centre where around 60 students are based. A lovely American lady explained to us how the place had been set up by Hoffmann. He spends about half his time there working to preserve the Camargue wetlands. His foundation also supports preservation projects in other parts of the world, notably West Africa. So I felt we were destined to "meet".
Eventually we continued on our way to the Digue de la Mer and had a wonderful walk to the lighthouse
.

On our way home I spotted some lovely Camargue horses in a field and wanted to photograph them. I was on the outside of the field and a steep ditch divided us. Along came two ladies on horseback and invited me inside.

It's a private area but the owner, none other than Luc Hoffmann, is happy to share it with those who are sensitive to what he is trying to do. I was thrilled but as I snapped away my ears were almost blown off by the duck hunters who were busy blowing the guts out of the wetlands residents.

Hoffmann's daughter Maja founded the LUMA Foundation which support artists to create works of art in imaging.

The Plague Wall

2011-02-03T05:36:00.000-08:00

Barry at the "supermarket" stop

A look-out post

Info plaque

Sounds scary doesn't it - well actually the Plague in question broke out in 1720 in the port of Marseille. The wily burgers of Cabriere D'Avignon, Provence, erected a stone wall to keep the pestilent carrying Marseillaise on the south side while they remained bug free on the north. It takes a plague to prefer the north side of the Luberon mountains to the south... A wall 25km long was erected with look out posts along its length. Wo betide (as my beloved mother would have said) anyone caught trying to go northwards. However there was the small matter of food supplies. The port of Marseille was the main spot where food imports would have landed in 1720. To get the supplies across the wall a sort of latter day "supermarket" was established. Food was handed over and one assumes coins were thrown back and 'voila' there was no lull in local commerce.

The plague crept up as far as Avignon but apparently did not jump the wall. A lesson there for H1N1 curtailment??
We walked along about 10km along the wall on Tuesday and here are some images as proof

Barry walking the wall

trip to ireland

2010-12-23T06:29:00.000-08:00

Well that was the nightmare of all nightmares. End result I got pleurisy. We travelled back on the day Paris closed down. Only problem was Beauvais airport did not close down... On arrival in a relatively snow free zone there were no busses to Paris. Five hundred very excited, mostly young, people thought they were going to be stranded for life in Beauvais. Chaos ensued. The bus authorities, assisted by the Police Municipale managed to aggravate the chaos. Suffice it to say after about three hours in freezing temperatures we boarded a bus, on which a young Italian lady lost total control when she discovered her other half was still outside the bus.. Arrived in Porte Maillot to find a phantom city, no cars, no busses and no taxis. We set out to walk along the centre of the Avenue de la Grande Armeé. We arrived at our hotel at 3.00 am tired and very unhappy. Next morning I thought I was dying so we decided to head back south. A visit to my homeopath confirmed I had pleurisy. Treatment without the aid of antibiotics means that I will be unlikely to have a recurrence. However my body is wrecked from fighting the invasion.
Our stay in Ireland with the family and on Sherkin had been wonderful. Here are some pics of the trip

Heuston Station

Out train window

Another out the train window

Uneven surface warning!!!

Airport on arrival

weather what else

2010-11-30T00:28:00.000-08:00

Would be really interested to see your photos of the weather in ireland at the moment, if you have a blog. I took this one in Sherkin on 5th January 2010 with a Nikon D200, s=1/350, f10. What should I call it?

reporting results of competition

2010-11-26T03:32:00.000-08:00

The "Tormented Sky" competition closes on 8th January so I probably will not know before February if I have been selected. However I will get a critique anyway, based on four criteria which I will report. Thank you to everyone who offered their choices.

competition for publication

2010-11-22T23:43:00.001-08:00

I would like help with deciding which images to send to Chasseur d'Image, a French Photography Magazine, to try to get published. The subject title is: Tormented Skies. It is suggested that this could include heavy menacing clouds, rays of light traversing a dark background, rainbows on dark skies or heavily contrasted images after rain. Here are the images under consideration:
(Je crois que mes amis français et française arrivent à comprendre l'anglais)

Casares, Spain

Cork airport, Ireland

Cucuron, France 1

Cucuron, France 2

Rainbow on road to Cadenet, France

Returning to Sherkin Island, Ireland

Tarifa, Spain

Tipperary, Ireland

These are reduced images from the originals: