Here's another photo from hiking the Everest Base Camp route in Nepal. When you're hiking its amazing to see the loads some of the porters are carrying up into the mountains. As a trekker you can of course hire a porter to carry your stuff (it's good for the local economy but highly unnecessary if you're a decent hiker) and some porters will even carry the stuff of two trekkers, plus their own gear. Of course growing up in the mountains they deal with the lack of oxygen a lot better than a normal foreigner would, but still these guys are beasts.

Here is a photo from just outside a small river port city in Myanmar, called Bhamo. We were able to do a boat trip down the Irrawaddy river starting in Myitkyina and this place was the second stop. Although this route is often closed off to foreigners due to the fighting of the KIA (Kachin Independence Army) and the Burmese Gov't. At the time it only had one hotel in town to stay in for $25, and the super duper cheapo backpacker couple in our group was not pleased! I ended up letting the guy stay in my room and the girl got taken in by some other girl so they wouldn't have to break the bank at $12.50 pp a night, lol. While Myanmar can be done pretty cheaply in most places, its no Cambodia or Vietnam!

I was pretty dedicated for this shot. I woke up at 5am and walked the 4km south of town so I could get to this bamboo bridge for sunrise. It spans a few hundred meters over shallow water and well, I've never actually seen a bridge like this made completely out of bamboo, so it seemed very unique to me. Most of the people crossing the bridge are dudes with their motorbikes, farmers carrying their tools, and monks. Just as the sun was coming up I crouched down off to the side with my wide angle lens and took some shots of the people walking by. This was my favorite one.

Wow that picture is amazing. Does the bridge go all the way to the land in the horizon? It looks so much further away than a few hundred meters.

Since I didn't post in the last two days here's another one to catch up.



This is a photo in Cape Town, South Africa. It really is a gorgeous city. Probably the most aesthetically pleasing city in the world, imo, at least the parts overlooking the ocean where all the rich white people live. As a tourist it's almost impossible not to like. It's got good food, beautiful beaches, wineries, hiking, surfing, scuba diving, interesting history, you name it. Plus the rand is weak right now, so it's great value. I was here for a week and still didn't get in all the things I was hoping to do. Although it's a very strange place, as you can really feel some of the racial tensions and huge amounts of income inequality just walking down the street and your interactions with locals. Most of the white locals insisted on never walking alone at night, anywhere, for any reason. And a scooter trip to the shantytowns outside the city was quite eye opening. And I'm from the States, so I'm no stranger to this kind of stuff! But damn.

For this photo I walked along the coast a little bit down to an area called seapoint, where luxurious white condos line the beach with Signal Hill and Lions Head in the background. There's one point where some brokenish concrete pathway stretches out into the water and bigger slabs act as some makeshift seating. The waves come in an crash just in front of concrete steps and it makes for a great place to watch the sunset. Here's a group of young people hanging out and smoking some shisha as the sun went down. I liked their choice of venue.

Here's the view turning to the other direction. Passed out drunk dude in foreground and Lions Head off in the background.

Okay one more of Cape Town, just because it's so damn purttaaaay. This was taken my very first night after flying into South Africa from Dubai. I just checked into my hostel in the late afternoon, grabbed my camera and walked straight uphill in the subdivision, past all the ridiculous houses and up towards Signal Hill. I got some great post sunset colors and very memorable first night. Seriously it's not fair to have a city in such an amazing spot.

Thanks! Yea the bridge goes all the way to land, maybe its more like 500-600m, I can't remember exactly. But I think it's mostly the perspective distortion of the wide angle lens making the background look further away than it is in reality.

Here is a photo from my current location, Phnom Penh, Cambodia. I'm playing live poker here in an attempt to fund some more travels. I mainly started this thread because sometimes I get bored out of my mind during the day. The wanderlust has set back in but the funds aren't adequate just yet. Overall the city itself isn't particularly photogenic but the scene in front of the national palace around sunset is always a winner. And it's like two blocks away from my apartment so I have no excuse not take some photos around here occasionally. Picnics in the grass, all sorts of vendors, monks, the birds flying around, it's a cool spot.

Here's a photo from Rajasthan, the desert state in western India. It's a pretty spectacular place with some amazing temples, palaces, and forts. This photo was taken at the Karni Mata temple in Bikaner. It's also known as the rat temple, as it is filled with 25,000 black rats, which are said to be holy, and Hindus come from far and wide to pay their respects. There's also a handful of white rats, which you have to be especially lucky to spot! To a foreigner the place is certainly disgusting and smelly, but I can definitely appreciate the uniqueness of a place like this.

For this photo I found a pretty interesting viewpoint, a little side door that opened up to the main part of the temple that was also crawling with rats. So I was able to crouch down and get some shots of the people coming into the temple to pray while having the rats scurrying around in the foreground. I was also kind of hidden and out of view, so nobody paid me any mind. This one turned out nicely.

First time I've heard of that place, pretty interesting.

Here's a photo from Lake Atitlan in Guatemala. It's flanked by three volcanoes making it quite the picturesque place. Last eruption was in the 1850's I believe. It's the biggest backpacker hangout in Guatemala, but there are many little different towns along the lake, so you can find whatever you're looking for. Lots of expats have built homes on the lake but only live there part of the year, so it's a good place for AirBNB.

I took this photo walking along the lakefront of the main tourist town of Panajachel and got these nice sun beams breaking through the clouds in the late afternoon. Looks like I wasn't the only one that noticed them!


Yea, I never heard about it either until I was actually in Rajasthan and some of other tourists brought it up.

Amazing photos!

Here's a photo from walking around the villages near Vilankulos, Mozambique. On first glance it appeared as if this woman had a doll standing in front of her, when it actuality she was picking the hair of her albino daughter. You have to feel for albinos in Africa, not only is their life made much tougher due to their appearance, but in some countries albinos are actually kidnapped and murdered so their parts can be used by witch doctors who believe (and their patients believe) that albinos have certain magical powers. I was kind of shocked that this practice goes on in this day and age. The world is still a crazy place.



tyty!

Here's a photo from the Sichuan province of China. The cool thing about the western part of the province is that you can experience Tibetan culture without having to go through the PITA process of going into the Tibetan Autonomous Region (TAR). It did involve some travel hiccups though. I was hitchhiking with a Chinese girl at the time, but a few times we'd come up to military checkpoints and I'd have to get out of the car I was traveling in, go through the checkpoint on foot, walk for a while, and then hop back in the car, so the car didn't get stopped or flagged for having a foreigner in it. Weird. And god damn, does the Chinese gov't like to totally neglect anything Tibetan and the roads to get in/out of this region of the country are so amazingly bad it's pretty crazy.

This was in a city called Litang, which sits at over 4,000m and is the gateway for people traveling into Tibet towards Lhasa. It literally felt like a whole nother world compared to the rest of China. I couldn't tell exactly what was going on here, but there were a group of men walking down the street chanting with their prayer wheels and wearing brown robes, like they had their own sort of religious order, but they weren't monks. This is a closeup of one of the older men in the group.

Dudes just walking randomly down the street spinning their prayer wheels:


Really interesting part of the country. I was exhausted from backcountry hiking so I didn't spend as much time as I should have in this region, which I regret now.

Here's another photo from the island of Lombok in Indonesia. On the Southeast part of the island they have a huge fish market that goes on every Sunday, but it's relatively unknown to tourists. The fishermen are out at night and as soon as the sun starts coming up all the ladies bring their plastic tubs down to the boats to collect all the fish to be sold in the market. It's pretty chaotic. At one point I got grilled to see if I was a journalist, because apparently they also sell sharks at this market and have gotten some heat for it from conservancy organizations. They didn't bring in the sharks until mid morning and at that point my battery was dead. It was the one of the more interesting markets I've been to.

Brilliant photo, on so many levels.

I haven't really posted too many city photos, so here's one from a rainy evening in Shanghai. This was the first stop of my trip this year, as flights from Chicago to Beijing/Shanghai got down to the ridiculous price of $275 on Hainan Airlines this winter. So why not?! I've never been to Shanghai before. The city obviously has a very appealing skyline with Pearl building and whatnot, and a little rain wasn't going to stop anyone from checking it out!

one more:


thanks, that guy looks like he's seen some serious stuff in his lifetime, tough to not take his photo.

Here's a photo from my hometown of Chicago, so it's not really a travel photo I guess, but whatever. It's just a shot from one of the L station platforms with the train heading onwards and Trump tower looming in the distance. I took this photo a few years ago, before all these political shenanigans, but it seems quite fitting now. All aboard the Trump Train!

Don't miss that Jeepney! Here's a photo from Cebu in the Philippines. The Jeepneys are one of the more unique things about traveling around in the cities. They look cool, they're ubiquitous, and they cost something like 20c (or less?) You just have to know where you're going! As a backpacker I enjoyed many hot sweaty rides, which usually got me close enough to where I was hoping to go. In this photo a bunch of school kids have to rush to catch their jeepney, which is presumably about to leave without them. I liked how they all lined up symmetrically in this shot.

Wouldn't recommend taking jeepneys in Cebu now. Great pic and I love the jeepneys too... it's great how much personality the drivers give the exterior.

great photos and descriptions cardshark

Thanks, glad you're enjoying!

What's the deal nowadays? Is just the usual pickpocketing you hear about or something worse?

Speaking of public transportation here's one from India:



I took this one in Rajasthan, somewhere in the desert outside of Jaisalmer. Fairly common scene in these parts. If it's jammed like this bus, women get the seats, men go on top. They must have been stopped, because no one appears to be holding on!

Bonus pic:

The whole area around Cebu has been a mess recently, lots of kidnappings, and violence in general. When I was in Philippines last month 10 Filipinos died in a shoot out when some group attempted to kidnap some tourists at a resort near then.

As far as the jeepneys in particular: I've heard recently that it's not uncommon for the jeepney to stop and everyone very orderly gets out and hands all their belongings to some armed men then everyone goes their own way. No idea what would happen to a foreigner in that situation.

That Indian bus pic... wow. How fast does the bus go?

Ahh damn, kidnappings are pretty big deal! At least they normally go for the rich looking foreigners and not the backpackery types.

I remember walking around the really poor neighborhoods around the carbon market (this was like 4 years ago) with my camera, and three different people came up to me and told me it was a bad idea to be walking around with it, so I eventually took the hint and put it away and headed out. Looking back, I may have really lucked out that day.

For the Indian bus, I don't know exactly how fast they go, but pretty fast! Like normal bus speeds. It's the desert, so the roads were all really flat and in surprisingly good condition. It's not exactly safe, but probably safer than you'd think. Anything goes in India!

Here's another one from the Philippines. I was driving my scooter around the island of Bohol and came across this nice little bay with very flat calm water and lots of little boats anchored. These kids were out fishing while their parents were having a little sunday picnic on the beach. They invited me to join and there was no shortage of palm wine! Locals are very friendly in the Philippines. For this shot I liked the reflection on the water and how the horizon just kind of melts into the clouds.

Here's a photo taken from Indawgyi Lake in Myanmar. Every morning its foggy as hell, which creates an interesting atmosphere for photography. The fishermen leave these bamboo box traps strung together in rows out in the lake and then go out in the early morning and collect them and bring their catch back in. I'm not sure exactly how these traps work exactly, but I did enjoy watching (and photographing) the fishermen bringing in their bounty every morning in the heavy fog. I like that this photo is current day, but it could be the exact same scene a century or two ago.