Adventure, Travel, Photography, Culture
We spent the afternoon in Agra, home of the Taj Mahal. I didn’t realize it until I got to the Taj, that it is part of a huge complex of grounds and buildings. Photographs have a difficult time conveying the sheer scope of the place. What sets it apart from other sacred Islamic sites I’ve…
For millennia Western China has been awash in the cultures of Central Asia. Some of their stories have been immortalized in The Arabian Nights and The Travels of Marco Polo. Uighurs are a Central Asian Turckic people living in the wind swept deserts of Xinjiang Provence in Western China. I hope you enjoy this photo-essay of a seldom seen…
How does traditional art influence your image making? Mist covered mountains on paper and silk paintings have filed my imagination since my late father brought one home from a trip to Beijing long ago. He loved Asia and China in particular. I think it’s because of his influence that I have also had a…
I previously wrote about our experience at a Nomad Kyrgyzstan Yurt camp. A remarkable experience, recommended if you ever get the chance. Here is another photo I wanted to share that shows the vastness of the high altitude Central Asian Steppe near the Chinese border. Yurt Camp, Kyrgyzstan Steppe.
I met this lovely young lady while visiting the remarkable Samanid Mausoleum in Bukhara. When she saw me jotting down notes and taking photographs she approached me in that wonderful way children often do. She spoke excellent english and asked question after question from an intelligent curious mind. A while later she took me around…
This is a black and white conversion of horses grazing at Song-Kol Lake in Kyrgyzstan. It was early on a bitterly cold morning. We had spent the night in a yurt and were headed further into the mountains on our overland passage to China. The sun had just come up to illuminate the distant mountains…
While we know it today for it’s magnificent blue and white porcelain, the Ming Dynasty is credited with closing off China from the rest of the world, putting an end to over a thousand years of cultural and economic exchange along the Silk Road. It was the Ming Emperor Zhu Di who moved the capital to…
In the ruins of the ancient city of Kashgar, we visited the Mor Pagoda. It was the first Buddhist Temple established in China and dates from the 2nd century AD. Ancient Kashgar was an important city along the Silk Road but was abandoned in the 10th century after internal strife and a war of succession…
We once again have access to youtube. This video from Bukhara shows a typical Silk Road Caravanserai. Thank you to Archaeologist Bekhruz Kurbanov for sharing his expertise.
The road from Son Kul Lake to Tash Rabat is considered the most dangerous road in Kyrgyzstan because of the 33 Parrots. Our guide Sasha explained that the Russian word for “fear” sounded just like the English word “parrot”. This pass was the most stunning yet and the 33 referred to the number of switchbacks…