Entries from 'India'
A wedding anniversary shrouded by death
- Aperture: f/8
- ISO: 400
- Shutter Speed: 1/500 s
- Focal Length: 85mm
- Camera: Canon EOS 7D
I don’t imagine many American couples celebrate their first wedding anniversary in Varanasi, India. We certainly didn’t plan to, but we honestly didn’t spare much thought to the occasion because we had a single objective on our minds: exiting India as quickly as possible. After just two weeks, we were physically and mentally exhausted by…
Tiger! Tiger!
- Aperture: f/6.3
- ISO: 800
- Shutter Speed: 1/400 s
- Focal Length: 135mm
- Camera: Canon EOS 7D
Sweat beaded on my forehead as we sat silently in the back seat of our safari vehicle, an Isuzu Gypsy with no roof and two rows of bench seats in the back for passengers to play lookout. We had been parked, engine off, for several minutes now waiting, watching…listening. The penetrating silence was interrupted only…
I’m not an ATM
- Aperture: f/2.4
- ISO: 50
- Shutter Speed: 1/1783 s
- Focal Length: 4.28mm
- Camera: iPhone 4S
“Can I have 100 rupees?” asked the young boy. He appeared no more than 7 though he assured me he was 13. He and his friends had just finished playing cricket in the field behind our abode in Khajuraho, the Hotel Isabel Palace. “No, I don’t think that would be OK,” I responded, taken aback…
Adventures in India train travel, Part II: A stampede
- Aperture: f/4
- ISO: 1000
- Shutter Speed: 1/10 s
- Focal Length: 10mm
- Camera: Canon EOS 7D
I hear India train travel can be luxurious. We never experienced that kind of travel. Luxury, to us, was the air conditioning units within the stuffy, submarine-like train cars that ferried us between New Delhi and Agra and later, between Agra and Khajuraho. We rode both routes 3AC, meaning our doorless nooks within the cars…
You look like an idiot pinching the Taj Mahal’s dome (and other observations from Agra)
- Aperture: f/14
- ISO: 400
- Shutter Speed: 1/250 s
- Focal Length: 12mm
- Camera: Canon EOS 7D
There were only two occasions on the World Trip during which I felt my life was actually in danger. One of the incidents took place during our Everest Base Camp trek (more on that later). The other took place in Agra. We arrived in Agra after a two-hour train ride from New Delhi, our inaugural…
Adventures in India train travel, Part I: Shit on the tracks
- Aperture: f/13
- ISO: 400
- Shutter Speed: 1/320 s
- Focal Length: 10mm
- Camera: Canon EOS 7D
The New Delhi station was swarming with people and stray dogs, and the smell of sewage was pervasive. I assumed the stench emanated from the bathroom (perhaps an overflowing latrine?) – until I watched a man suspend his son over the tracks and followed the stream to the rails below. Yep, there was shit on…
“It’s tobacco spit…”
- Aperture: f/20
- ISO: 200
- Shutter Speed: 1/125 s
- Focal Length: 10mm
- Camera: Canon EOS 7D
“Hello! Where are you from?” a stranger asked us as he kept up with our rather brisk stride. We were walking from our hotel in Paharganj to the New Delhi train station, just about half a mile away. Through our online research, we had discovered there’s an international tourist ticketing office in the New Delhi…
10 aspects of traveling to India that may surprise you
So you’re headed to India! (You hardcore traveler, you!) There is very little a traveler can read, see or hear to adequately prepare for a visit to this vast, colorful country. One must simply go and experience it. But to provide a hint of the vast wonders and frustrations in store for you, here are…
Arriving in India
- Aperture: f/2.4
- ISO: 50
- Shutter Speed: 1/312 s
- Focal Length: 4.28mm
- Camera: iPhone 4S
Though I expected to be shocked by the craziness of India, I felt the previous two months we spent backpacking in Southeast Asia had prepared me to handle whatever the subcontinent could throw at me. As it turned out, I was just a rookie world traveler, and India had a few difficult lessons to teach…
As gold elephants gather dust…
Throughout Southeast Asia and India, something repeatedly bothered me, fogging my brain with a cloud of annoyance that grew in size with every temple, palace and shrine we visited. While walking through the Silver Pagoda within Cambodia’s Royal Palace complex in Phnom Penh, I couldn’t keep my big mouth shut any longer. “I don’t understand…