Chris Allan

With 1 week left of this photographic adventure, the Sunday night blues have started to move in and we are desperately flinging ourselves at whatever India can offer. A brief photographic hiatus in Mumbai left me struggling to find momentum again, but lazy, colourful days in Goa soon got the trigger finger itching again.

Beaches and sunsets in Goa, Tea plantations in Munnar, Mediaeval fishing nets in Fort Cochin and finally a bamboo raft adventure in a wildlife reserve in Kumily, provided the locations and inspiration for the photographs below.

Looking forward to seeing many of you again when we fly in to Johannesburg on the 8th of March, a little scruffier than we left, but ecstatic to be home again.

For more details on our adventure don’t forget to check out Emily’s blog www.emilyallan.co.za

Namaste.

With the perspective that time gives, situations and experiences that didn’t seem humourous at the time, suddenly take on a new light.

In the interests of cross culture understanding I decided to start a guide to cultural differences in India for first time westerners..

A Tourists guide to India Ver 1.0 :

Sounding of the Horn while driving:
There are many meanings that this may be intended to convey. Here are some:
-Don’t anybody do anything crazy, I’ve managed to get to 100kph and I want to maintain this speed while overtaking the five of you
-Hello
-Bitch … that was my gap!
-I’m overtaking on a blind rise/corner and if you are coming in the opposite direction you had better slow down.
-Slow down and let me in, I’ve started overtaking 5 cars and now realise that I won’t be able to do that before having a head on with the car coming towards me.
-I am just adding pressure to make sure the guys in front move faster.
-Move out of the way cow/beggar/child/tuk tuk/camel/elephant/tourist!

A Good Purchase:
This is any business interaction where you don’t end up paying 500% of the product’s worth, don’t receive fake currency as change, don’t end up buying fake goods and actually buy what you walked into the store intending to buy.

Safe Driving:
There is no such thing in India. Take out extra insurance.

A Cow:
This animal is only similar in appearance to the source of milk that Westerners know. An Indian Cow is able to digest plastic, part traffic like moses did the red sea, negotiate its way through city streets without a GPS and demand respect that powerful men only dream of.

Head wobble:
This is similar to the sounding of the horn, as it can have multiple meanings. It can mean:
-It’s my pleasure
-I’m not sure
-I know the answer to your question but I’m not telling you
-You’ve caught me out, but I’m going to wobble and smile my way through it.
-Yes
-No
-I don’t know what to say
-“tum tum tiddly tum” To the latest Bollywood track

Women:
As a western male in India there will often be times where you should not look directly at, talk to or take photographs of the women that you may see. Western women on the other hand are stared at, whistled at, photographed and harassed. Often Indian guys will see themselves as helpless flirts or misunderstood Cassanovas. Confronting a particularly forward flirter will result in much head wobbling.

Burping, Spitting (preceded by the noise of phlegm harvesting from the depths of ones lungs), nose blowing sans tissue, male urination in public: These are all A-Okay in India.

Farting and eating with the left hand: These are frowned upon. Big time.

Samoosa:
Packaged dynamite. These are not marked according to level of spicyness. Assume that they will result in extreme heat at both ends of your digestive system.

Despite the negative spin above, we are actually having a great time and have found our latest destination, Kashmir, to be a breath of fresh air after the smoggy, skanky, sinful city of Delhi.

Hope you enjoy the selection of photographs below.

All the best
Chris

Travel in India changes a man. Experiences that would have left me white knuckled and nauseous a few months back, now pass by unnoticed as I doze in the crumbling seat of a wildly careening Tuk Tuk.

I hardly notice the smells both exotic and interesting, or hear the hocking of a loogie, the incessant hooting or the tout touting. I hardly see the child squatting, the fumes belching, the beggars begging, the con artists scamming. Nor do I notice the constant gurgling of my stomach any more. All these things are common in the cities of India and they bombard the senses of the freshly arrived traveller, threatening to engulf, churn and spit one out onto the grubby third world pavement, to be picked at by the constantly circling, squawking kites and city crows.

But in amongst that metropolitan mess are moments, characters, cultures, and colours that that leave you grinning from ear to ear. In India, as a foreigner you are both a hero and a target, just as likely to be invited in to share a family feast on the floor of a kitchen with three generations watching your every mouthful, as you are to be scammed, lied to and taken advantage of, for every penny you own.

But lets hit the reverse button for a second…

A week long wait for Indian Visa’s in Kuala Lampur meant we had an excuse to explore the island of Sumatra in Indonesia. The “To Do” list read like something that David Attenborough might have scribbled down.

Sumatra To Do List:

Visit the jungle to see Orangutangs in the wild.
Trek up a volcano
Visit a crater lake, and explore the island in the middle

Despite jungle vomiting, near death experiences in battered local minibus taxis, torrential downpours, leech bites and kamakaze mosquito attacks, we had a spectacular time and managed to snap a few good pics along the way.

Visa’s in hand, we boarded a plane to Delhi on the 24th of December and toasted friends and family around the world over a cellophane and tin foil aeroplane dinner, with a surprisingly good, albeit miniature glass, of red wine.

Christmas brunch was spent on a smoggy rooftop alongside soaring kites (birds of prey), twirling kites (paper and wood and cellotape) and a cheesy Christmas scene you might see outside a department store. Our “Winter Wonderland” was created by our santa hat wearing indian hosts from balloons, cotton wool and tacky decorations and was their end of year pride and joy.

So curry and naan replaced turkey and potatoes, lassie replaced egg nog and the Christmas carols that played on repeat for three solid days on the hotel sound system, were punctuated by the incessant hooting from the manic street below. It was a Christmas above expectations.

Fast forward through train trips and long awaited reunions with friends in the desert province of Rajhastan. Forward past road trips and sunsets and camel treks, cricket matches and even past a “hookah pipe new year”, with fireworks and friends in a city called Jaipur. Forward until today… having just recovered from a bout of Delhi Belly, and preparing for the rest of what India has to offer.

I hope you enjoy the pics, let me know which are your favourite and Good luck for 2010!

Over the past 2 months my office has moved, almost on a daily basis, from sweaty, smelly, mosquito ridden internet cafes, to dark damp hotel rooms with plumbing issues. From airport lounges, to bumpy bus seats. From noisy pubs, to the deck of a dive boat. Today I sit on the deck of a beach bar, sipping a strawberry milkshake and listening to the reggae music playing behind me. The sea water laps at the white coral sand 5 metres away, and in the distance a huge volcanic island rises out of the water, fending off a bank of storm clouds massing behind it. These are the guilty pleasures of our “photographic tour” in Asia.

Bali wasn’t on the itinerary when we left South Africa. I don’t know how it ended up happening, but the last 2 weeks have been spent exploring Bali and the bites of paradise off the coast known as the Gili Islands. (I think a walk around each of these islands would take no more than hour or two.)

What a different world to South Africa. What different people. What an amazing splash of colour and flavour and experiences. Below are some of the images captured as we went.

Chris

I am writing this blog in a small roadside cafe in a town called Ubud in Bali. We are on our way out of this beautiful little hippie retreat, filled with artists, musicians, designers and the inevitable tourists after a day and a bit of exploring and resisting the great food and shopping it has to offer.

Once again I have just dipped into an experience below and have a few photos to illustrate it. For a more detailed account of our travels visit the blog on www.emillyallan.co.za

“Now..Im the King of the Jungle, the Jungle VIP…”

8am beeped on my cheap ‘travel watch” as we wandered down Monkey Forest road towards the overgrown, jungle entrance to the Sacred Monkey Forest. I did a little internal high five, when we passed the empty booth at the entrance - the ticket collector had not yet climbed out of bed yet, and that meant we had an extra 30 000 rupees to spend on important things like coffee later on in the day.

The first sight that greeted us was a very wise and beautifully groomed whiskered, grey monkey, who was carefully licking a stone wall. With the intensity of professor involved in a complicated experiment, he licked in long strokes which overlapped slightly, and left streaks of saliva in a perfect line along the wall. It is important not to judge too quickly the different customs when visiting foreign places, but I had to wonder how this monkey had managed to procure Acid or a similar hallucinogen in the tiny town of Ubud.

At first we tip toed closer to each new troupe of primates, whispering and making no sudden movements. 10 minutes later we were trying not to trip over them as they bowled about the ancient forest totally unconcerned by tourists. They climbed up monkey ropes that decended 30 metres from the tangled forest trees above, raced along moss covered temple walls, over sunlit graves and between grotesque statues. We were walking through the real version of the monkey city from “The Jungle Book”.

Being spoiled in Africa, we tend to put our nose up at viewing monkeys, and past experiences with Baboons in Botswana laying siege to our campsite, have left me less than fond of primates in general. Having said that, we found ourselves totally engrossed in that fairytale forest. At one stage I was shooting a particularly nonchalant young female when I was pounced upon by a cheeky individual, who displayed a particular fascination with the workings of the Nikon D700.

Check out the pics below….