19 January 2018, Singapore.
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(Ladakh Trip).
Links go to posts with the colour versions of the images (where there may also be more information). If an image does not have a link (or a caption), the preceding one applies.
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Hotel near Gardens by the Bay.
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Inside the Flower Dome.
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18 January 2018, over Australia.
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This is the first of a series of posts on monochrome conversions of images from the Ladakh trip.
These images are monochrome conversions of some of the images from the Abstract Australia post, taken from the air, mainly over Central Australia.
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16th to 18 March 2018, Northern Victoria, Australia.
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Fifty of us piled into a bus and headed off to various locations in Northern Victoria in A Hitch to the Sticks. We were driving to three public musical events and there were also numerous “secret” gigs along the way, adding to the element of surprise and the enjoyment of the moment. The idea was the brainchild of eminent musician Dallas Frasca. It simulates the experience of a road crew touring on a bus, provides exposure to sometimes little-known regional performers and gives a great experience to all involved.
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This is our great friend Marisa Quigley. She was performing at one of the secret events and I can’t tell you about that because there are to be more such events but since her name was on the poster I can include this image.
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Sara Flint.
Sara and Mandy (below) were playing outside the Tatong Tavern. This is a rather stylish looking pseudo-half-timbered pub which was closed to host the music and we were able to relax on the grass in the afternoon sun.
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Mandy Connell.
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Click here for more images from Tatong Tavern, twelve in all, including Benny Williams and Time Robb & the Stealing Hours as well as Sara and Mandy.
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Liv Cartledge.
Later in the afternoon we reached Wangaratta to join up with the Down to the River Festival, which stretched out into the night…
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… while some people stretched out on the grass…
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The Quick and the Dead.
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Rambunctious.
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Monique Brumby.
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Tanya Cavanagh, playing with Monique Brumby.
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Monique Brumby.
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Maryanne Window, playing with Monique Brumby.
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Dallas Frasca.
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Venom and Jeff Curran, playing with Dallas Frasca.
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Dallas Frasca.
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Tully Frasca.
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Click here for more image from the Down to the River Festival, fifty-four in all.
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Mikaylah and Leticia.
In the afternoon of the next day, we are out the back of the Moyhu Hotel.
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Jeff Lang.
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Nicky Bomba.
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Crowd for Nicky Bomba.
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Nicky Bomba and Jeff Lang.
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Nicky Bomba.
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Rick Steward and the Greensmen.
Click here for more images from the Mohyu Hotel, thirty-four in all.
I also have some monochrome conversions for your perusal, twenty-seven in all. Some are from images in this post and some from different images. Click here for those.
Alternatively, click here for all 129 images.
2 February 2018, Leh Palace and Leh, Ladakh, India
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We had walked out of the National Park and we still had an afternoon in Leh. We chose to visit Leh Palace and I combine those images with a few I took in our earlier stay in Leh.
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On the skyline of Leh, high above Leh Palace, is Tsemo Fort (the upper white structure), built between 1555 and 1575 by King Tashi Namgyal. The buildings below it are Tsemo Gompa or Monastery, built by King Tashi Namgyal in 1430. It houses an eight-metre high gilded statue of Buddha. Access is difficult because of a steep climb from a road and fleeting and uncertain opening hours. Women are only allowed access when the statues are veiled. This and the next image was taken from the roof of the hotel we were staying in during our first afternoon in Leh.
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Sunset over the distant mountains.
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The main street of Leh, Main Bazaar Road, the next morning.
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The far end of the same street, after returning from the National Park. Leh Palace is on the middle skyline and Tsemo Fort on the right skyline.
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It would take a long time to walk from Leh to the Palace, especially at altitude and with the maze of roads. We took a taxi up and the road comes in from the side. This is a corner of the top of the palace as we walk in.
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Looking out over Leh from the path into the Palace. In the foreground is Soma Gompa, a monastery built below the Palace in 1840 but disused since the 1950s when a replacement was built in town.
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Another view out over Soma Gompa. The huge “carpark” in the distance is the Polo Ground and it’s not a relic of British India. Polo originated in Persia and is said to have come to Central Ladakh from Baltistan, just north of Ladakh, now primarily Moslem and occupied by Pakistan. King Jamyang Namgyal is said to have introduced it in the 16th century who married Gyal Khatun, a princess from Baltistan. A few months before we arrived, polo was being played here during the 2017 Ladakh Festival.
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The main door to the Palace.
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Construction of the Leh Palace started in 1553 by Tsewang Namgyal, founder of the Namgyal dynasty, and it was completed by Sengge Namgyal (“the Lion King) who died in 1642. It predates the Potala Palace in Lhasa, for which construction commenced in 1645.
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The palace has nine stories. The ground area was used for stables, the first floor for storage and the second by servants. The King’s Audience Hall, the Tsokhang, was on the fourth floor and the King and Queen’s private areas were on the fifth floor. The three floors above that were wholly or in part for religious use.
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A detail of the ceiling of one of the interior rooms.
Remarkably, the palace has no foundations but the inwards sloping walls assist with stability and alternating layers of stone and wood provide elasticity to help withstand earthquakes.
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Stairs leading up to the highest level.
The palace was sacked by invading Tibetan and Mongolian forces in 1685. It was also severely damaged by Zorowar Singh’s forces in 1836 and the royal family moved out from that time to their current residence of Stok Palace on the other side of the Indus.
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An upper floor room including faded remains of a very damaged wall fresco.
The palace is mainly empty apart from the Royal Shrine and some photographic displays. Photography was not permitted in the shrine but there are images from there in Kevin Standage’s blog.
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There were magnificent views available from the roof of the palace. This is Shanti Stupa, a new and elaborate chorten built in 1991.
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Stupas, near the polo field.
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A view from below of Tsemo Fort and Monastery. There was originally a structure here built by the Dards in the 5th century and some of the ruins of that is probably what you see on the near skyline.
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Still in the palace and on the way down now. A view from one of the rooms.
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A prayer wheel beside the road to the palace, incorporating a gate to I think a residential area.
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A view of the palace in the late afternoon sun.
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That was the last post for the Ladakh trip, apart from monochromes. Next will be a live music post, an exhibition post, and some monochrome posts from this trip. After that l will be posting on the Atacama to finish off the posts for my 2015 Madagascar/ South Georgia trip.
2 February 2018, Hemis National Park, Ladakh, India
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After breakfast, we packed up and prepared to walk out of the national park. Here the ponies are being fed prior to taking our stuff back along the trail.
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Our villager support crew is packing everything up with remarkable speed and efficiency.
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A view of the frozen river.
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The ponies pass us by carrying all our baggage. The chairs appear to be going back to Leh too.
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One pony has slipped over crossing the ice on the frozen river. He is soon lifted up and got on his way.
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Back in the cars, here are some views of the River Indus.
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You may remember, this bridge was in the first image of the post Walking In. With some symmetry, this is the last image for Walking Out. These ponies are from another group.
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1 February 2018, Hemis National Park, Ladakh, India
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We are on our way to climb a high plateau behind Rumbak village. Passing through the village, here is a pony and three donkeys in a sheltered pen attached to a house.
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A blue sheep skull in front of a house with animal feed on the roof.
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Here we are climbing up to an intermediate ridge. In the high altitude, climbing is very slow going.
Turning around, Jools is behind me. Further back, Emma (wearing red) is pausing for breath and Tashi, our chief guide and organiser, is monitoring her progress.
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We have reached the intermediate ridge. There is a stupa on a high point in the middle though you may need to click on the image to see it. They occur in places where you wonder about the effort to build them. You can also see a trail up to there.
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I paused for this panorama. Stok Kangri, to the right of the cloud at the left, is the highest peak in Ladakh at 6,150 metres (20,200 feet).
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Some of the others set off immediately for the small high plateau. I followed them after a time and missed the brief period of calm with no wind that those others encountered. This and following images are from the high plateau.
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We are at 4,300 metres or 14,100 feet.
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I called this post “On the Roof of the World”, a phrase which normally relates to Tibet. Well, we are on the Himalayan plateau in an area that is historically and culturally Tibetan (though part of India) and we are at one of the highest levels of Ladakh.
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A closer view of Stok Kangri, highest peak in Ladakh.
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Back in camp, I decided to venture out late at around 9pm when it was dark (and cold) for an image of the stars with the land illuminated by the light of the full moon.
We are at the same point where we viewed the three snow leopards. They were at the skyline at far right or perhaps further to the right.
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There may be some constellations visible, for those who can pick them. Click the image for a larger view.
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31 January 2018, Hemis National Park, Ladakh, India
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On this day we went back and revisited the village of Rumbak.
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This is the route across the frozen river to the first house. There are two considerations here. First, the ice needs to be thick enough to walk on and second, it can be slippery and you don’t want to fall over. You can see footprints on the ice towards the right. In general you find a flat place to cross, watch the colour and consistency of the ice and if necessary, you can throw some handfuls of dirt on it. Disconcerting at first but almost normal after a while.
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I wanted to get some more pictures of the fascinating inscribed stones.
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And in some places there can be a lot of them.
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Inscribed stones and a stupa (or chorten).
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A row of stupas (inside the village).
A stupa was originally used to house the remains of the Bhudda. Later this became sacred texts and images, or the stupas were simply sacred in their own right as a supporting object for meditation. Stupa is the Sanscript word, Chorta the Tibetan and Dagoba the Sinhalese. In China, Japan and Korea, the stupa developed into the pagoda.
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Stupas and residences.
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One of the residences that also doubles as a homestay.
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There were maybe four of these, mini-stupas surmounted by blue sheep skulls and other “sacred” objects, and coated by what may be an iron oxide pigment. I didn’t ask about the significance of these but I wonder whether they are to keep malign spirits out of the village and represent the pre-Buddhist Bon religion, whether rolled up as part of local Bhuddhism or separate.
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More engraved stones.
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This is I think a common redstart on the engraved stones. It is actually out of focus, as with all the bird images in this post, but hopefully I can get away with it at this size.
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The shed and some of the houses in the background have animal feed on top, to prevent them being prematurely devoured.
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This is the Eurasian magpie, bactriana subspecies, unrelated to the Australian Magpie.
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I had wanted to get some photographs of them but they do not hang around when a camera is pointed at them so I sat down on a vantage point near the village and waited.
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This is a Tibetan snowcock, which I had previously seen but also been unable to photograph.
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They are quite different in colouring to the Himalayan snowcock I mentioned in an earlier post. They are in the pheasant family and though they can fly, they seem disinclined to do so in most circumstances.
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There was something interesting the magpies in this small gulley.
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Hello!
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Mmm. That bag looks interesting.
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Are you still here?
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Ahh. Lunch!
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Blue sheep skulls on top of a shed.
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Skull, inscribed stones, stupa and house.
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Down below the camp, at the main river. The platform is covered by inscribed stones and I presume it qualifies as a stupa.
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A frozen mini-waterfall in the village near the camp.
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And the wider view.
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