Monday 23 May 2011

Vietnam, Here I Come...

Exciting news. I recently booked tickets for a trip to Vietnam. I'll be going with my wife and a good friend of ours. The two of them have covered much of South East Asia before on trips together and with others whereas this will be my first ever foray into Asia. The plan is to fly into Hanoi in the north and visit the spectacular Ha Long Bay (seriously, Google it, it's amazing); then to travel by bus and train through to the south via Da Nang and such places to Ho Chi Minh City. From there we will get another flight to Siam Reap in Cambodia with a view to seeing the famous Angkor Wat temple complex, which would be another childhood dream come true for me, almost on a par with seeing Machu Picchu.

This trip looks very much like it will fit in with my preferred way of being on holiday - covering lots of ground, seeing lots of things, not allowing too much time for resting and just generally immersing myself in the culture. I'm particularly keen to try out as many of Vietnam's famous street food vendors as possible - quick, cheap, healthy and tasty.

As well as following my usual plan of trying to get as many good landscape shots as I can, I'm going to force myself to step out of my comfort zone and do some portrait work too; and not just of my fellow travellers. This does, however, raise the interesting question of Model Release Forms. No reputable company would ever by a photo of a recognisable human without an accompanying Model Release Form. These basically just say that the subject of the photo gives up any commercial rights to the photographer; this is all very normal and standard. Where it could get difficult though, is if my subject doesn't speak any English because, I'll be honest, my Vietnamese isn't what it used to be.

Sunday 15 May 2011

Money in the Bank

Oh my goodness, oh my gracious. I have just made money from my photos for the first time ever. Yesterday I became a contributor to another micro-stock site and I got 3 downloads in the first 24 hours - how cool is that? I am now rich beyond my wildest dreams and will be handing in my resignation first thing tomorrow having earnt the princely sum of $0.75.

Still, every little helps.


The Inca Trial

Ever since I had heard of Peru I wanted to go there. For me, it held an almost mythical significance. It seemed like a land steeped in history, intrigue and staggering natural beauty. The Incas, the dominant native people of the time, and their brutal suppression by the Spanish Conquistadors was a story I knew very well and I longed to see their ancient forts and temples of gold first hand. And so it was, in the first year after graduating, instead of looking for a proper job my wife and I saved every penny we had to get there.

Most people have heard of the Incas but not many people know anything about them, often getting them confused with the Aztecs and Mayans of Mexico. The Incas were a very advanced civilisation, a true Empire even, with well established mechanisms of Government and administration, the keystones of all empires. And what an Empire. It stretched from Ecuador in the tropical north to Santiago, Chile, in the desert south; a distance of more than 3,000 miles taking in rainforest, high Andean mountains, the driest desert on Earth and a huge stretch of Pacific coastline. And at the heart of it all - Cusco. Meaning Navel of the World in the native Quecha language, Cusco was the capital of this vast empire. A city of hundreds of thousands of people, it was as large and advanced as any in Europe at the time; what they did not possess, however, was gunpowder, horses or resistance to European diseases. So it was in 1532, once Francisco Pizarro had been given permission to conquer them by King Charles, that the Incas had little chance of successfully defending themselves. The Empire had already been seriously weakened by a civil war between two half brothers for the imperial crown and had little left in reserve to withstand the European invaders. Still, no one could have predicted that the 80,000 strong Inca army could be beaten by 168 conquistadors. But let's not get too teary eyed about a poor, peace loving, native people being overrun by the evil White Man. The Inca Empire, like all Empires, had itself used brutal suppression in it's own emergence and upkeep.

The other key to a strong empire is financial might and here, once again, the Incas were not caught short. They criss crossed their lands with over 40,000 km of paths and trails that facilitated the movement of both caravans of alpacas bearing goods for trade and the swift distribution of Imperial edicts and the all important tax demands. Each of the trails was populated with runners, each responsible for their own portion of a few miles, who would run messages back and forth in one long relay. There were houses placed along the roads and each was populated by a small group of men, two of which were permanently on lookout. If they saw another messenger approach they would run to meet them and carry the message on the next leg of the journey. A message could cover over 150 miles per day this way which, given the terrain, is very impressive.

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Part of the ascent up to the second pass. Pretty steep.

La Camina Inca, or the Inca Trail, is actually a collection of these trails that essentially start at Cusco and end some 43 km away at the town of Aguas Calientes - literally, hot waters, so named because of the towns hot, natural springs. Machu Picchu is located an hours walk from here, almost vertically up the mountainside. The bulk of this distance is covered in a sprightly three days leaving just a couple of kilometres on the final day, to be covered in the early morning darkness so that you can arrive just in time for the sun to rise; a magnificent sight.

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Hiking above the clouds

The terrain on the trail is extreme. There are two passes to be crossed and there's no avoiding them, the highest of which will take you to nearly 14,000 feet, or half the cruising altitude of a passenger jet. So although you may only have a target of 7km distance to cover over a morning you will also have to climb 1,500m and descend halfway back down again. For example, on the morning of day 2 you have to spend 5 hours climbing the 1,200m of the Dead Woman's Pass, up to a total of 4,200m. That's the equivalent of climbing Ben Nevis from sea level and going most of the way down again but at three times the altitude; and that's all before lunch and the afternoon session.

But the true difficulty in this endeavour lies in the altitude itself. At 4,000m tying your shoe laces is difficult, I promise you. At that height, even whilst peacefully sitting still, you will occasionally gasp for air uncontrollably because your resting breathing rate is too slow. Throw in a back pack, the steepest paths you've ever seen and a system full of adrenaline and you begin to see where the challenge lies. It is strongly recommended that you spend a few days acclimatising in Cusco before setting off if you've arrived straight from Europe.

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The trail itself is a mixture of different types. For a while it might be pleasantly sloping gravel paths following the gently meandering Urubamba River, at other points it'll be a staircase cut into the naked stone of a cliff face one person wide. Needless to say Health and Safety has yet to make it to Peru, and that pleases me. I fear that if the Inca Trail went from Milton Keynes to Luton we would have closed it by now for being too dangerous. Sections of the trail are only a yard wide with bare cliff to your left and a bare drop of a thousand feet to your right. There are no fences. There are no ropes. If you fall, you die. There are also no short cuts, if you get injured or just plain decide you've had enough then you're out of luck. At best you may find an alpaca or mule you could be strapped to but you still have to travel the distance. There is a helicopter in the area but it will only pick you up if you have $5,000 in cash on you, so it's only really for the film crews that frequent the area. I'm not even going to tell you about the bit they affectionately call The Gringo Killer because you wouldn't believe me anyway.

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Paths are narrow and not to be played on

That said, thousands of people successfully complete the trail every year with very few casualties, and the rewards are more than worth it. Upon passing through the Sun Gate and seeing the sunrise behind Machu Picchu I've never witnessed so many adults in one place crying with tears of joy. The idea on the final day is to get up long before dawn so that you can beat the crowds of fat, lazy Americans that will arrive at Aguas Calientes by train throughout the day.

One of the most amazing aspects of the whole trip was understanding just how superhuman the porters were. At the end of each morning and evening session the group would slowly plod into camp in dribs and drabs, throw whatever they were carrying onto the ground and collapse in a heap, exhausted. After a moment they would be brought a nice refreshing drink, and a little after that we'd all be shown into a large tent where there would be at least a two course meal already prepared. The porters would have all this ready for us. Having packed up all the tents, all the food and water everyone needed for the trip, all the equipment and anything else that the tourists had paid them to, they would carry all this along the track not slowly and methodically, not even particularly briskly but, literally, at a run. That way, having left after us, they would beat even the fastest of the tourists to the next camp with enough time to set up every tent and have a hot meal ready and waiting for us.
This is not one of my photos but nicely shows the massive burdens these guys can run along the mountains with.

The Inca Trail is closed through February, and once a year when there are no slow tourists clogging up the narrow paths all the porters get together and have a race with a prize for the winner normally in the region of $300. The winner generally covers the whole 27 miles, mountains and all, in under three and a half hours. Incredible. Anyone thinking of doing the trail needs to make sure they're going with a reputable company that ensures the welfare of their porters. Find out how much they get paid, just a couple of pounds per day can mean the difference to them between struggling to feed themselves and getting a decent salary; and remember to tip well.

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The classic Machu Picchu shot

No, the title of this post is not a spelling mistake, it truly was a trial, my wife will happily testify to that. It remains the most difficult physical challenge of my life and is likely to stay that way. But it was also one of the greatest achievements of my life. Sleep deprived because of the altitude and camping, constantly soaked by the tropical rains, physically exhausted from the exertion and deliriously happy despite of it all the Inca Trail was a lifelong ambition fulfilled and I'm only sorry I haven't had the chance to do it again since.



You can see more photos from my travels in south America at my website.

Tuesday 3 May 2011

Coity Castle, Aberdulais Falls and Southerndown

When visiting friends recently (thanks for a great time Rhys and Laura) my hosts were kind enough to specifically take us places where I could get the camera out, and very kind of them it was too. Whilst many of the urban landscapes of south Wales are bland, unimaginative, post-industrial horror stories (I'm looking at you, Port Talbot) the history and geography of the region is amongst the richest in Britain. In the 500 years after the Norman conquest there were few places in Europe that had more castles built in it than Wales; and whilst the reasons for having the castles there were rarely positive, today we are left with a wide array of the best medieval architecture available anywhere.

Many of these castles are now in various stages of ruin, of course, but I find that that often lends them a more mysterious and ethereal quality; it certainly doesn't make them any less photogenic.

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Coity Castle
We did actually go to a post-industrial site on our first morning there, but in this instance the reason it was useful industrially was also why it was such an attractive place to visit - a series of waterfalls. A century ago Aberdulais Falls was the centre of a thriving tin processing industry, today it is a clean and pleasant niche in the rocks run by the National Trust. There are several natural falls there and at least a couple of man-made affairs that are more weir-like. When tin was being processed there, the difference in water levels was used to drive a water wheel which in turn was used to generate electricity, the largest such operation in Europe.

The falls provided me with another chance to practice with long exposures, although competing with the crowds meant I didn't have as long there as I'd have liked to. The photo below shows the main fall quite nicely; all the specks in the water also nicely show that I badly needed to clean my lens too.

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Aberdulais Falls

Southerndown is a beach known to many in the area. It combines plenty of sand to lay on, lots of rocks to clamber over and investigate and impressive sedimentary cliffs from which to plummet. It used to be a regular day trip destination as a child but this must have been the first time I'd been there in well over a decade and it hadn't changed a bit - unlike my photo. Normally I don't like to mess with photos after I've taken them perhaps other than cropping out a lamp post or straightening a horizon; it's time consuming, boring and feels a little dishonest. It was a very dull and overcast day when we were there which left my picture of the cliffs rather underwhelming so I thought I would experiment with perking up the sky. While I still like the stepped nature of the cliffs themselves, this resulted in the sky becoming an odd aquamarine colour and the clouds just looking plain weird. I think in future I'll leave the special effects to those who know what they're doing.....

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The second beach at Southerndown