Nepal | Nomadically Curious Visual Thoughts

The Science of the Reel

Do video journalists need showreels? While I don’t know the answer to this question, for the past two years I’ve gone with —yes. However, the science of creating a (show)reel is seemingly far more complicated than one might believe.

Showreels have traditionally been made by cameraman, DP’s and those of us in the photography industry that find themselves on the film side of things. However, as I explained recently, video journalists, cinematic news photographers and documentary makers are certainly in a gray area between film and traditional video journalism.

When DP’s, directors and producers need cameramen its normal for them to request to see a reel. Since going freelance, I’ve had weekly requests for these from various people around China. However, it would not be so normal for a newspaper or magazine to ask to see a reel. So if you work in news photography, why would you make one and what are the challenges?

WHY: With converging media, its certainly becoming easier for photographers to jump from one industry to another. If you can film a news clip, chances are you might be useful as a cameraman in motion picture or documentary. So having this tool together is useful when someone is in your office asking for it.

WHAT: Now comes the tricky part — what do you put in your reel? I’ve found this tricky because it really depends on who you are showing it to. In many ways, this creates the possible need for more than one reel. You might have one to show documentary makers and another for a commercial client. Further more, you might need another one to show your ability with motion graphics or post production work. If your video has too much post production, it might reflect negatively if the inquiry is for documentary where the look is supposed to be more natural.

While last year I was doing much more still photography, the product became more of a photography show with small video clips embedded. This year I’ve been much more focused in video production and created the entire film with just video. If you notice, the footage kind of shows a cultural and developing world theme. I tried to add some clips of people from different countries to show a larger demographic of who I work with (westerners, developing world peoples and indigenous peoples). However, does this peg me or ‘type cast’ me? And if it does, am I ok with that since this is the type of work I want to be doing? I’ll ponder those questions and get back to you …

SEQUENCE: If you’ve figured out which content you want to include in your reel, you next need to decide how to order it. Since its mixed footage and in many ways simply eye candy — putting the images in an order that logically makes sense might be different for everyone. I’ve been trying to make mini sequences that flow together from one to the next. However, the logic behind these sequences and the order in which they appear is quite subjective. Trying to find logic in this can be difficult.

SOUND: Music is another tricky part. The song I used this year from Hanggai I personally love. However, its pretty distinct and different than what most chose.

Most of my friends’ reels and reels I see online use relatively ambient electronic music. By doing this you certainly push the focus to your images. For me however, I’m involved in production and photography. So I wanted the music and images to compliment each other in making a self contained visual demo of what type of imagery and films I’m interested in producing.

If one does chose this route, you become a bit a risk of offending someone (musically). While I like Hanggai, I can certainly imagine someone not liking it. So by choosing something more subtle, you might be a little more safe of not offending anyone.

I however, aren’t really trying to be subtile with my images. I prefer high impact images. But, this is certainly a style thing as well as a time-and-place thing.

NEVER ENDING FOOTAGE: Perhaps the most difficult thing is trying to figure out when it is done. I’m always creating new images and therefor, feel like I can always replace images with better images. In many ways, this means — you are never done. The images keep coming. So I think its always a work in progress. The version above is a third draft and I have a fourth draft in the works already.

If you’re interested — comparing last years reel to this years I think it shows a larger change in my visual direction and a bigger push towards video production. But for a quick look at 2010 – check out this video in still photography form.

Tibet to Nepal: ‘The Journey Not the Arrival Matters’

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For those that have been following this blog, this is the conclusion to a photo series from the Great Himalayan Mountain Range. The photos document a journey by car, foot, boat, plane and elephant from Tibet to Nepal. While I was on this voyage I had a lot of time in the car. Throughout the time, I was shooting with a Canon 5D Mark II and a Canon 14mm f/2.8 L USM from the driver’s side, back seat of whatever vehicle I was in. In Tibet, this was on the left hand side, in Nepal — on the right. On motorcycles, planes and elaphants — well, I’m just shooting on the side of the vehicle in the frame. When placed altogether the frames make a quasi-stop-motion animation that shows the three week voyage in 1 minute and 45 seconds.

At the start of the video, there are some slower frames of people and places that represent some of my favorite images from the trip. For the final edited down portfolios from each country, visit my Web site to see my favorite 32 images from each.

The frames go by fairly quickly but for readers of this blog, you’ll notice each blog post from this series is represented within the short video. Tibetan Cloudscapes, the vibrant blue of the Himalayan sky, trash problems in Kathmandu, or the Terei of southern Nepal — the video above compresses 20 blog posts, 60 GB of photos and weeks of riding in a car into a format you can take part in from your home, work or phone. If it goes by too fast, I’ve put some of my favorite frames in a slideshow below.

If you want to explore any parts of this trip further, the links below the slideshow can help you navigate this mammoth of a road trip.

What’s next, you ask? The blog will travel back to China briefly before heading off to the Philippines in a few weeks.

Cheers,

Jonah

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Final Destination 5 (in 3D): The luckiest travelers in the world

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Note from Jonah: This is the continuation of a photo series from the Great Himalayan Mountain Range. The photos document a journey by car, foot, boat, plane and elephant from Tibet to Nepal.

“There are only two emotions in a plane: boredom and terror.” — Orson Welles

You’d think I would be comfortable traveling by air by now. This year alone I’ve taken over 50 flights. However, for some reason I’ve developed a quasi illegitimate fear of flying this year. While I’ve been getting anxious and nervous on small planes, during a flight in Nepal I noticed my fear was nothing compared to the man sitting next to me.

After being trapped by a landslide attempting to get from Pokhara to Katmandu, in order to get a flight back to Beijing I hopped in a small plane that hugged the Himalayan wall. The plane was small enough the cockpit and passenger area was not split into two areas. This is the type of plane where they need to rearrange where people sit if too many big people are on one side of the single seat rows.

To make things more scary, since there is no door or division between you and the pilots, you can actually see what they are seeing as you fly; which, during the monsoon season in the Himalayan is quite scary. You are seeing thick fog and clouds and then every couple minutes, a break in the clouds opens up to let you see a 25,000 foot tall mountain.

While trying to remain calm, I noticed the man’s hand next to me gripping his seat tightly. Trying to make him and myself feel more comfortable as the plane shook next to the mammoth mountains he explained to me his trepidation.

Frenchman Xavier Argemi and his traveling companion had tickets on an Agni Air flight to Lukla airport in the Everest region days before. The two young French doctors had been trying to get to Lukla for days and flights had been continually cancled due to turbulent weather. On the morning of their flight, they found out the plane was approved for takeoff.

But, at the last minute they decided to skip the trip.

Hours later, the Agni Air flight crashed killing all on board. The New York Times reported:

KATMANDU, Nepal — Fourteen people, including four Americans, died Tuesday in Nepal when their plane crashed in inclement weather, after a failed attempt to reach a popular destination for touring hikers near Mount Everest, according to Nepali officials. The three-member flight crew also died in the crash, as did five Nepali passengers, a British passenger and a passenger from Japan.

So why did the French duo decide to skip the trip that morning? Perhaps an awkward moment traveling companions sometimes share when you want to make sure you both have the same plan, but can’t tell what the other person is thinking. Perhaps it was simply a moment of divine intervention — but both the French men tried to read into the other, and had thought that the other one didn’t feel up for the trip.

Secretly however, they both really wanted to go. Trying to be sensitive to each others emotions, both agreed not to get on the plane, thinking they were doing the other a favor. It wasn’t until after the crash did they discuss their decision and find this out.

Days later I’m sitting next to one of these two lucky travelers on a 23 minute plane ride, in a 16 seat plane that’s shaking violently next to the tallest mountains in the world. This is when I regretted having watched Final Destination years before.

If you are unfamiliar with the cinematic masterpiece Final Destination — some kids get off of a plane minutes before takeoff after a student has a premonition of a deadly crash. The crash happens killing all who didn’t get off the plane. However, the grim reaper then proceeds to hunt down all the students who narrowly evaded death’s icy hand by killing them all in the most gory ways as possible, usually with as little clothing as possible and as many cheesy one liners as possible.

The directors of this movie thought it was so good, they should make more. Final Destination 2 (2003), Final Destination 3 (2006) and The Final Destination in 3D (2009) all follow the same plot line to a T.

Fortunately, the plane landed and les amis and myself all went our separate ways, thankful to have landed in one piece.

I’d like to quickly point out here to all American airlines — even in a country as poor as Nepal, on a plane ride that is only 23 minutes, where the plane is not big enough to stand up straight in — you still get cabin service multiple times with free snacks and beverages!

Also note worthy was the remarkably impressive security measures taken at the Pokhara airport. I bought my plane ticket about 30 minutes before the plane was supposed to take off. After purchasing it over the phone, a boy on a bike shows up 5 minutes later with a paper ticket. Ten minutes later I’m in the airport where there is no ID or passport check and also no metal detector before boarding the plane. Instead, they separate males and females and and bring you into small telephone sized booths and physically search everyone individually. Then everyone waits in the same room until your plane shows up at which point everyone just meanders out to the runway and boards the plane.

This experience certainly didn’t help my new found fear of flying.

Flying thoughts from China

Without a doubt, my newly acquired fear of flying is more of a China thing. And even though the flight attendants lead passengers on the planes to do in-flight exercises together, I find flights in China to consistently be more turbulent than in other places in the world. And knowing that a good portion of these pilots learned how to fly planes, using taxi cabs — I may have good reason. In 2009, AFP reported:

BEIJING (AFP) – China said Monday it was investigating its commercial pilots’ qualifications amid revelations more than 200 of them lied on their resumes.

The probe comes after 42 people died on August 24 when a Brazilian-made jet flown by Henan Airlines crashed at a small airport in northeastern China’s Heilongjiang province. Fifty-four passengers and crew survived the crash, in which the plane missed the runway, sparking speculation that pilot error was to blame. The investigation into qualifications was launched by the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC), the country’s aviation regulator, the central government’s news website said.

Between 2008 and 2009, the resumes of more than 200 Chinese commercial pilots were found to have been falsified, the report said, with some of them embellishing their flying histories.

So you are in a bumpy plane that looks like it was built in the 1920’s. At times of turbulence the plane is seemingly dropping hundreds of feet at a time. Overhead compartments, empty seats and tray tables seem to be generally more shaky than those that you are used to. The faint smell of cigarette smoke seems to be coming from the cockpit. Then, you find out that lots of pilots are lying on their resumes. But wait – it gets worse. Not only are pilots lying about their flying experience, the airlines have let them continue to fly planes, reports the Irish Times:

Chinese pilots who had lied about their flying experience have been allowed to return to work after they took remedial action to make up their hours, according to the country’s aviation watchdog. Chinese media reported this month that an inquiry in 2008 had found about 200 pilots had falsified elements of their resumés. The Civil Aviation Administration of China said they had found 192 pilots whose “flying experience to different degrees did not accord with reality”.

Some had their licenses revoked, but others were given the chance to retrain and had been allowed to fly once more, the regulator said in a statement on its website earlier this week.

“Those pilots given compulsory retraining were, after a thorough inspection of their qualifications, allowed to resume their posts,” it said, without naming the airlines involved or how many pilots had been allowed back to work.

Following the incident, the regulator said it had tightened procedures to ensure the problem would not happen again, and that it would not tolerate such falsification. The official Xinhua news agency said that with the rapid expansion of the aviation sector in China, “airlines turn a blind eye to fake records since they are happy to see more pilots certified by the administrative agency”.

So essentially, pilots lied about their flying experience, were then caught in their lie — but since they had been flying for so long and had completed their flight hours post initial lie, they were allowed to continue operating planes.

Happy flying.

Road Trip on the Himalayan Shelf: If you’re just joining now, here’s what you’ve missed:

Read more.. Wednesday, November 17th, 2010

At the front porch to the Himalaya: Pokhara

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Note from Jonah: This is the continuation of a photo series from the Great Himalayan Mountain Range. The photos document a journey by car, foot, boat, plane and elephant from Tibet to Nepal.

“If the Himalaya are the rooftop of the world, then Pokhara has prime position on its front porch.”
— Lonely Planet Nepal

Imagine carrying 40 pounds of gear walking up and down mountains for 20 days in the Himalaya, passing the world’s highest peaks while navigating some of the world’s most difficult terrain. At the end, hikers are rewarded with a beautiful destination: Pokhara and Phewa Tal. The peaceful mountain town sits on a still lake, surrounded by cafes, bars and steak houses for those that just walked 300 km.

After my failed attempt to track a Bengal Tiger in Chitwan National Park, I zipped back across Nepal’s southern Terei headed to Pokhara, the doorstep of the Himalaya. This lakeside community has front row seats to some amazing views of the Annapurna range.

The Annapurna (Sanskrit, Nepali, Nepal Bhasa: अन्नपूर्णा) is a series of peaks in the Himalayas, a 55 km (34 mi)-long massif of which the highest point, Annapurna I, stands at 8091m, making it the 10th-highest summit in the world and one of the 14 “eight-thousanders”. It is located east of a great gorge cut through the Himalaya Mountains by the Kali Gandaki River, which separates it from the Dhaulagiri massif. (Dhaulagiri I lies 34 km west of Annapurna I.)

The world famous Annapurna Circuit is now very high on my list of things to do in life. And although I didn’t have time to squeeze a ten day hike in during my trip to Pokhara, this was the last location I would go before heading back to China. After a long haul from Tibet to Nepal’s Southern border somehow I felt like I had hiked for ten days through the mountains — and this was my reward.

Pokhara has a lot to offer and if you need a break from the general chaos you’ll find in Kathmandu, this place is great. There are tons of short hiking options as well as longer multiday options. The lake offers a lot of options for boaters and the mountains give a home to parahawkers who glide high above the town.

The streets by Lakeside are lined with stores hawking fake North Face, Patagonia and outdoor hiking gear. I find when you do buy stuff at these stores, its likely to break within a couple weeks — and therefor, I try to avoid it. On an ethical level, I think its good to not support these businesses, but its fairly hard in Asia as stores are filled with bootleg things everywhere you look. My shoes were falling apart here so I picked up some North Face hiking sneakers for about $4.00 USD, which are actually still in good shape today. I’m fairly certain none of this stuff is real, however the quality of fake goods in Nepal seemed to be infinitely better than in China.

Culturally, Pokhara is very interesting. I spent a couple days walking around with doing some small hikes up to the surrounding mountains. The people I met along the way were friendly and much less aggresive than those in Kathmandu or Chitwan.

While the town is touristy, the large majority of these people seemed to be from India. A lot of traditional looking Nepalese seemed to be just as happy to hang out with the toursts as well, although many of them were looking for handouts.

While taking a water taxi across the lake I noticed school children and teachers who had to commute by canoe to and from class. Their houses are all built on steep rice terraces which surround the lake. These steep rice terraces combined with mountain and lake views makes Pokhara very storybook-esque.

While I’ve seen children in China have to take take long hikes to get to school, I hadn’t really seen a community where children commute via canoe. While I grew up taking a school bus, this seemed a bit unusual; however, to these kids its just a normal way of life.

At some point while lost trying to find a path around the lake an eight-your-old boy’s head popped out of a rice terrace. He told me he knew how to get to the path and proceeded to become my official tour guide for the next few minutes.

I asked him what he wanted to do when he grew up, to which he responded he wanted to be a tour guide. I told him he was already doing that, at which point he then demanded money. On a practical level and entrepreneurial level I was impressed. The kid earned it, so I paid out.

Hiking through rice terraces is always fun. You get surrounded by a really vibrant saturation of colors. While the rice is in a small amount of water, there are tiny paths you can walk on which connect them all.

The outside of the lake also has a lot of easily accessible wildlife viewing. This monkey was hanging out with his friends near the World Peace Pagoda. The monkeys here were very peaceful compared to ones outside Kathmandu or those I’ve encountered in Southeast Asia. However, anytime you see a monkey yawn, its a good indication that you probably don’t want to be bit by one.

On this trip, traveling on the Himalayan Shelf, Pokhara would be my last stop. On my last day there I had to drive back to Kathmandu to catch a flight back to Beijing. However, another land slide trapped me West of the capital making me take an unexpected flight. As a traveler, your last day is always a complicated one — if there are international flights involved. However, this hick-up was no big deal to the people in Pokhara.

The general feeling almost everywhere I went in Nepal was … well, a relaxed one. As this man’s shirt says “God made grass, man made booze — who do you trust?” The marijuana culture is certainly vibrant in Nepal. Almost everywhere I went people were trying to sell me “ganja.” Perhaps this is why no one seems to mind landslides, travel hassles and long delays. While almost missing an international flight certainly was a bit aggravating, no one else thought it was a big deal. “Relax, you’ll get there,” someone said. They were right — I did. But not without one more fun tale from the Nepal skyway.

The blog picks up with this extra leg of the trip on Wednesday.

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Watch where you step: Chitwan National Park

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Note from Jonah: This is the continuation of a photo series from the Great Himalayan Mountain Range. The photos document a journey by car, foot, boat, plane and elephant from Tibet to Nepal.

“When you travel, remember that a foreign country is not designed to make you comfortable. It is designed to make its own people comfortable.” – Clifton Fadiman

I first heard of Chitwan National Park many years ago when I was living in New Zealand. It has a reputation for being one of the best places to see wildlife in Asia. Although I wouldn’t describe the wildlife as easy to see as someplace like Australia, the variety of animals found in the park makes Chitwan extremely unique and extremely scary.

Chitwan was the first national park of Nepal and became a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1984. The park itself is fairly massive covering an area of 932 square kilometers (580 square miles) — which is about half the size of Yosemite National Park. The park is part of Nepal’s Terai lowlands and is considered subtropical. If you’ve just traveled from the dry Himalayan environment, Chitwan is a bit of a shock at 100 meters in elevation.

Living in this environment, is over 700 species of wildlife, including 43 species of mammals. Both the King Cobra and the Indian Rock Python call Chitwan home; however, the real kind of this jungle is the Bengal Tiger. And although you probobly don’t want to be stairing at a wild tiger in the eye, he isn’t really the most dangerous thing living in this park. What you are really worried about is being trampled by a rhinoceroses.

Apart from enormous snakes, man eating tigers and rampaging rhinos there is a lot of other big game in the park including wild elephants and an enormous variety of large cats. Co-existing with the tigers are:

“Leopards, fishing cats, jungle cats, clouded leopards, leopard cats, marbled cats, golden jackals, Indian wild dogs, sloth bears, Bengal foxes, Spotted linsangs, palm civets, Large and Small Indian civets, several species of mongoose, binturongs, honey badgers and yellow-throated martens roam the jungle for prey. Striped hyenas are rare and prevail on the southern slopes of the Churia Hills. Smooth-coated otters inhabit the numerous creeks and rivulets.”

Of these animals, the rhinos are seemingly the scariest, although its hard to say if I’d rather be in a fight with a crocodile or rhinoceros. When scared or threatened they are known to charge throwing their horn into whatever is in front of them. While I didn’t see a tiger or king cobra, I did see a wild rhino. Thankfully, I was on top of an elephant when I did.

Being on top of this enormous elephant allowed me to get fairly close to the rhino — maybe within 3 meters. The photo above is taken with a 200mm lens to give you an idea of distance. Beyond an elephant, this was the largest wild animal I had ever seen — and its a very weird one. There skin is literally covered with armor extremely similar to what I picture soldiers in the medieval ages wearing. The rhino didn’t seem to mind the elaphant and it hung out for a minute or two, and then buggered off.

For reference, riding on an elephant is just not comfortable.

While rhinos are scary, one of my big long time fears which I picked up in Australia, is my fear of crocodiles. The problem with crocodiles is, you’ll probobly not see it coming till its far too late. Seemingly one of nature’s only successful creations, the crocodile has had no need to evolve for thousands of years. Regardless of what happens, they seem to do ok and keep on, keepin’ on.

One thing I’m always impressed with is the crocodiles ability to remain perfectly still. The crocodile in the top photo was just hanging out with his mouth open waiting patiently for something to float down the river in the wrong place. However, crocodiles are known to study their pray to understand their habitual actions to better their hunting abilities.

Chitwan also made a new record in my book — for having the tallest grass of anyplace I have ever been. Literally, some grass was as tall as 6-8 meters. Now, imagine crossing an enormous field of grass far taller than you, knowing there are gigantic predatory cats cruising around. Than add rampaging rhinos and a large variety of snakes and insects and the grasslands become much less friendly.

I spent three days at the park, one of which I traveled by elephant and one of which I traveled by foot. When traveling by elephant, the tall grass isn’t so bad. However, on foot you become completely trumped by the blades that become as thick as branches. The day I spent on foot, I hired a guide to hike through the park in attempt to track down a tiger. While we didn’t see an actual tiger, we did see many marks of their presence. While looking we did see a variety of other wildlife including this fairly strange spotted deer, which is something like a combination of a deer and a leopard.

I don’t think you can talk about Chitwan without a mention of animal poachers and the treatment of elephants. Although Chitwan has been a national park since 1973, during times of political and military conflict in Nepal, the wildlife has not always been safe from poachers. Today, things are supposedly much better for the wildlife. However, Nepal’s history has not been a smooth one. When the military gets involved in political affairs too much, the poachers have hit Chitwan hard and diminished wildlife populations dramatically.

Elephant rentals are available both in the park and on the outskirts. There are two main forms of rentals here — private elephants and state elephants. I was told it takes two humans to take care of every one elephant. Its a difficult task just to feed the animals alone. Apparently the private owners have been known for not treating the animals very humanly while the state has improved dramatical in their efforts to treat the gigantic animals humanly. Watching the trainers and the elephant drivers, they keep their feet behind the elephants ear’s and seem to steer by applying pressure to one ear or the other. They do whip their heads very hard when they don’t listen or need their attention — which to me did not seem so humane.

An interesting thing about the park is there are both wild elephants and elephants living in captivity. This made me wonder what happens when the two see each other. Does one elephant feel bad for the other? Is the elephant with the human on its head pissed off? Sadly, I’m not sure these animals are the smartest – but they didn’t seem overly happy they were being used as cars. While I did ride one, I didn’t feel so good about myself after.

Road Trip on the Himalayan Shelf: If you’re just joining now, here’s what you’ve missed:

After the Himalayan: The Terai

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Note from Jonah: This is the continuation of a photo series from the Great Himalayan Mountain Range. The photos document a journey by car, foot, boat, plane and elephant from Tibet to Nepal.

“There are no foreign lands. It is the traveler only who is foreign.” – Robert Louis Stevenson

As you drop down thousands of meters from the world’s roof top in the Himalayan, the geographic climate and culture changes rapidly. While the Himalayan alpine zone doesn’t support much growth, it does supply what’s beneath it with a great deal of water and snow melt.

From the highest point of the Himalayan at 28,000 feet to Nepals lowest point at sea level, its similar to changing planets (well, at least countries). While the northern ridge of the country reflects the Tibetan culture, the southern flatlands reflect more of an Indian flavor. The wetlands at the foothill of the Himalaya support a completely different ecosystem and wildlife. As you drive lower and lower, the water from the Himalayan follows you, snaking through the landscape.

Nepal’s southern border with India is known as the Terai (Hindi: तराई, Nepali: तराई, Urdu: ترائی, translation: “moist land” or “foothill” [originally from Persian]). Within one day of being at Mount Everest, you potentially could be in Nepal’s wetlands which border India. This strip of marshy grasslands covers parts of India, Nepal and Bhutan. The variation in visual geography is stunning and is matched by the diversity in culture found in the Terai.

Although I’ve yet to voyage to India, these wetlands and grasslands reminded me more of a stereotypical view of Africa more than India. However, this showed me my vision of India was inaccurate and it was I who was foreign, certainly not the land.

As I drove south nearing the border of India, clay houses turned into straw huts, yaks turned to elephants and layers of clothing stripped off as temperatures and humidity skyrocketed. I was on my way to Chitwan Royal National Park, famous in Asia for its biodiversity and wildlife population. After some rough accommodation in the Himalayan and the dirtiness of Katmandu, arriving on the shores of the park was like getting to a tropical island paradise.

I arrived at the shores of the park just in time for the sun setting over the marshlands. This really made me feel like I was someplace far away from where I had been two days earlier.

If you look at the picture directly above you’ll notice black dots or specs everywhere (might be hard to see at 650px wide, click on it to enlarge to 1000px). These are actually bats at dinner time in Chitwan National Park. Almost like a painted through a paint brush at the landscape, this was my first sign of tremendous wildlife in the park.

Next post picks up inside the park with some crocs, elephants, rhinos, deers and certainly the tallest grass I’ve ever seen.

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Read more.. Saturday, November 6th, 2010

Hey hey, they’re some monkeys

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Note from Jonah: This is the continuation of a photo series from the Great Himalayan Mountain Range. The photos document a journey by car, foot, boat, plane and elephant from Tibet to Nepal.

“An American monkey, after getting drunk on brandy, would never touch it again,
and thus is much wiser than most men.” – Charles Darwin

On a hill overlooking Kathmandu is Swayambhunath — a temple where monkeys are integrated into the atmosphere just as much as people, incense, stupas and enormous temples. Swayambhunath, also known as the Monkey Temple — is a hot spot for Buddhist pilgrims as well as a social area for local Kathmandu people. It acts almost as a park or community space to many. However, it is much more than a single temple. Temples, shrines, stupas and religious spots mark the entire sacred complex — but wherever you are, you are surrounded by monkeys.

To get context of where this is, the top picture of this post on Kathmandu shows Swayambhunath towering above the densely populated epicenter of Nepal.

The iconic eyes that are often used as a representation of Nepal are seen repeatedly throughout the complex. The symbolic eyes represent the eye’s of Buddha. They represents non violence, peace, love and spirituality — or as one person told me, they represent an awareness of understanding.

The Tibetan name for Swayambhunath (स्वयम्भूनाथ स्तुप) means “Sublime Trees.” Prayer flags hang for hundreds of meters across an enormous variety of trees at the top of the hill. Monkeys swing from prayer flags, trees and the temples. An enormous staircase, reminiscent of Malaysia’s Batu Caves, goes straight up the hill at a very steep angle. Monkeys use this staircase and the adjourning hand railings as their personal playground.

As you walk up the hundreds of stairs to the brightly colored stupa at the top, monkeys fly from railing to railing showing off their dominance to their human neighbors. Its clear that this is actually their territory. Its also clear, they are not afraid of you.

These monkeys have been here for as long as recorded history. The mythology of Swayambhunath’s origin even mentions them:

According to Swayambhu Purana, the entire valley was once filled with an enormous lake, out of which grew a lotus. The valley came to be known as Swayambhu, meaning “Self-Created.” The name comes from an eternal self-existent flame (svyaṃbhu) over which a sūpa was later built.

Swayambhunath is also known as the Monkey Temple as there are holy monkeys living in parts of the temple in the north-west. They are holy because Manjushree, the bodhisattva of wisdom and learning was raising the hill which the Swayambhunath Temple stands on. He was supposed to leave his hair short but he made it grow long and head lice grew. It is said that the head lice had transformed into these monkeys.

The Bodhisatva Manjushri had a vision of the lotus at Swayambhu and traveled there to worship it. Seeing that the valley can be good settlement and to make the site more accessible to human pilgrims, Manjushri cut a gorge at Chovar. The water drained out of the lake, leaving the valley in which Kathmandu now lies. The lotus was transformed into a hill and the flower become the Swayambhunath stupa.

There are two dominant form of monkeys found in Nepal. The monkeys here are Rhesus Macaques, which have the widest geographic range of any nonhuman primate. They are found in India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Nepal, Burma, Thailand, Afghanistan, Vietnam, southern China and throughout Southeast Asia.

Because monkeys are considered holy in Nepal, they are fairly well protected. However, this does not mean they are nice. In fact, they are pretty aggressive and if you are not watching your bananas, they will certainly steel them. According to Lonely Planet, many of the monkeys at Swayambhunath are carrying rabies — so its best to keep your distance or carry a stick or taser.

The relationship between Hindusim and Buddism is very evedent here. So much so that for someone who doesn’t know so much about the two cultures — its actually hard to tell them apart. While they are closely related the origins are different as are some of their key philosophies. The symbolic eyes of awareness truly are practiced here. There are Buddha’s deities in Hindu temples and Hindu’s deities around Buddhist Stupas. This is a little different than the West bank model of similar religious views.

Nonetheless, their architecture, symbols and prayer space look very similar. In places like Swayambhunath, both religions exist in seeming harmony. While people pray, sing and socialize — the monkeys watch from all sides — using the religious compound as their jungle gym.

… and this last picture — what’s this, you say? Well, its just not everyday your walking through an ancient temple and see a 20-year-old sign for Kodak film and a monkey jumps in front of it. Cheese.

Road Trip on the Himalayan Shelf: If you’re just joining now, here’s what you’ve missed:

Who has the strongest necks in the world?

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Note from Jonah: This is the continuation of a photo series from the Great Himalayan Mountain Range. The photos document a journey by car, foot, boat, plane and elephant from Tibet to Nepal.

“Our battered suitcases were piled on the sidewalk again; we had longer ways to go. But no matter, the road is life.” – Jack Kerouac

The Nepalese.

Yep. You read that right. I am suggesting the Nepalese have the strongest necks in the world. I haven’t been everywhere yet, and I’ve seen a lot of people use their heads as tool to carry things, but what you see in these pictures just looks painful to me.

Its one thing to balance some fruit on your head. Maybe even carry some water. However, its a completely different thing to strap a bookshelf to your forehead and jam the weight of the furniture into your neck and than walk around a crowded city.

I can’t say I’m an expert in bones, joints or anything else related to biology — but this just seems unhealthy. Yet, this is normal in Nepal. It even seemed it was the preferred method of carrying things as people were doing it to cary anything and everything. Often times, the things they were carrying were bigger than them, themselves.

And this is how I’ve come to my conclusion that this method must bread an army of super-necked people, capable of holding five times their own weight, only with the muscles of their neck.

Now picture yourself carrying an enormous bag of, say, rice. Strap it to your forehead and begin to walk through a small street. Now, add a chaotic traffic pattern, a sea of endless horns, various animals walking through the same street — and now, fill half of that space with trash. It can’t be easy to navigate the chaos that is the third world, while doing this.

But as Jack Kerouac says, the road is life — and your baggage comes along.

Road Trip on the Himalayan Shelf: If you’re just joining now, here’s what you’ve missed:

Read more.. Thursday, October 28th, 2010

Kathmandu: Full of mystery, culture, history — and trash

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Note from Jonah: This is the continuation of a photo series from the Great Himalayan Mountain Range. The photos document a journey by car, foot, boat, plane and elephant from Tibet to Nepal.

“Travel is glamorous only in retrospect.” – Paul Theroux

Kathmandu: Full of mystery, culture, history — and trash. While in the last post I detailed some of the highlights of Nepal’s epicenter this post focuses on the not-so-nice side of the city. And there is plenty of it. In fact, it is really pretty gross.

Trash liters the streets in large piles almost everywhere you go. Worse than that, the place the trash is usually piled is on or next to are ancient temples. Visually and aromatically — this is pretty gross and is certainly one of the dirtier places I’ve ever seen. For those that have traveled in India, I’m sure there are similar sites. I’ve seen trashed beaches in Southeast Asia and witnessed how the North African population deals with their trash (they don’t) — but this was a big step in the wrong direction from those experiences.

In a city so congested like Kathmandu — the trash piles really become integrated into peoples lives.

On any given street corner you might see a vendor selling spices or vegetables off the ground. Five feet away a mound of trash grows. Animals are drawn to the garbage adding one more factor into the already gross equation. Beggers and homeless people sleep on the ground while shoeless children run through the garbage playing.

This isn’t a new issue either. Nepal has had continue problems dealing with its waste. In 2009, a Huffington Post headline reads “Nepal Drowning In Garbage After Strikes.” After talking to some NGO people in town, the word was they couldn’t afford to pick up the trash continually and at the point I was there, it was being collected monthly. So by the end of the month piles of trash just liter the visual and physical landscape.

I was also there during the rainy season which seems to create a filthy-slimy-film like cover to the ground in the ancient city. At points it was like walking around in a greasy kitchen. The shine on the ground on the photo directly above, shows this a little bit. When the water comes it seems to just spread the grease of the trash evenly around the roads.

Beyond the obvious lack of infrastructure to collect the trash, people’s respect toward their environment seemed equally disturbing. In the above example, a boy pee’s on a temple that was constructed in the 12th century. Even in the UNESCO World Heritage Area Durbar Square, people seemed to completely ignore the fact they were in a historic place. Locals sit in the temples, with seemingly nothing to do smoking and throwing an enormous amount of cigarettes and trash whenver they happened to be.

I should point out, I am by no means an expert on Nepalese social structure or government infrastructure. These are just consequential observations I had when I was there. its possible, all of these people were just on their day off …

I’ve had a big focus this year in trying to do more NGO related photography. My NGO related photography this year has focused on the environment, poverty and cultural preservation. While trash and the environment are directly related I would like to focus on this more. If any ‘trash’ related NGO reads this send me an email and I would love to get involved helping to create some media to show people the extent of this problem.

I think the temples get the worst of it because they are public space. If you don’t want your trash on your property, and no one will pick it up — I can understand the logic of putting at the temple. This way, your not dumping it on your neighbor’s property and if its no one’s property, no one can really yell at you for doing it. However, after a quick Google search one can see, this is not a new problem and it doesn’t there doesn’t seem to be a solution lined up.

Some general facts about the economic state of Nepal from the CIA World Fact Book:

Nepal is among the poorest and least developed countries in the world, with almost one-quarter of its population living below the poverty line. Agriculture is the mainstay of the economy, providing a livelihood for three-fourths of the population and accounting for about one-third of GDP. Industrial activity mainly involves the processing of agricultural products, including pulses, jute, sugarcane, tobacco, and grain. During the global recession of 2009, remittances from foreign workers abroad increased 47% to $2.8 billion while tourist arrivals only decreased 1% compared to the previous year. Nepal has considerable scope for exploiting its potential in hydropower, with an estimated 42,000 MW of feasible capacity, but political instability hampers foreign investment. Additional challenges to Nepal’s growth include its technological backwardness, landlocked geographic location, civil strife and labor unrest, and its susceptibility to natural disaster.

Road Trip on the Himalayan Shelf: If you’re just joining now, here’s what you’ve missed:

Kathmandu: The greatest place on earth to get lost

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Note from Jonah: This is the continuation of a photo series from the Great Himalayan Mountain Range. The photos document a journey by car, foot, boat, plane and elephant from Tibet to Nepal.

“Tourists don’t know where they’ve been, travelers don’t know where they’re going.” – Paul Theroux

Kathmandu has to be one of the greatest places on earth to get lost. The old city is an architectural and cultural labyrinth. Surrounded by steep hills, the narrow streets of the city are crammed full of people, temples, sounds, smells, sellers, buyers, trash and your occasional cow or monkey. The place is buzzing with life.

For the nomadically curious, this makes Kathmandu a gold mine.

Navigating these streets is a bit challenging. Between the trash, cars, bikes, rickshaws, markets and people — there is very little room to even walk. However, wondering through the streets is a wonderful sensory overload of the ancient and the new. The city was founded in the 12th century, during the Malla dynasty. Most of Kathmandu’s temples were built during this period as well.

One unique thing about Kathmandu, is the seamless integration of religious areas and temples within the city. I think you could be anywhere in the old city and throw a rock, and most likely hit a temple. Some of these temples have people praying at them, others have been taken over by the growing urban environment. In some cases, the city is dense enough that people have built their homes inside of temples.

Sadly, most of these temples have also become the place to put your trash. Almost every temple has an enormous pile of trash next to it which everyone seems to either ignore, or not care about (more on this next week).

Some of these temples look similar to other Buddhist and Hindu temples throughout Tibet and South Asia. However, the UNESCO World Heritage Area Durbar Square is pretty wild looking. The two shots above here, as well as the shot below show Durbar Square at night, day and sunset.

This is where former kings ruled Nepal from. Today, it is filled with locals loitering, sleeping and trying to figure out how to get money from foreigners. Its also where I met this colorful guy. Its a really bizarre kind of architecture that reminds me of a cross between Angkor Wat in Cambodia, the White House and the Mayan pyramids.

Kathmandu also has some of the most pornographic temples I’ve ever seen. Images on the sides of the temples depict some pretty hardcore scenes. This makes walking through the streets very entertaining and is a good way to bring out the immature teenager in you.

To get a better view of some of these scenes, click on the above photo to embiggin’ it.

Although the population of Kathmandu is only 1 million, the fight for space is evident (its also possible my judgement of population vs space has been highly altered from living in China). The above photo shows a larger street, in the next two upcoming posts documenting Kathmandu, you’ll see some of the tighter spaces.

Photographically speaking the city is amazing with an endless possibilities of cityscapes, landscapes and people oriented photographs. Hindi and Buddhist clothing is some of the most colorful in the world. The density of the buildings with the mountains backdropping the city would make the city easy to photograph even without looking.

While I really love the city, its certainly not all cake and cookies. Poverty levels are extremely high and in general, the place is pretty gross. Next post, we’ll explore photographically a little more of the grit of Kathmandu, followed by a post highlighting some of the colorful people of the city.

Road Trip on the Himalayan Shelf: If you’re just joining now, here’s what you’ve missed:

Read more.. Thursday, October 21st, 2010

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Who has the strongest necks in the world?

Kathmandu: Full of mystery, culture, history — and trash

Kathmandu: The greatest place on earth to get lost

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