Overland 2010

More than just a trip, more than just a holiday

2010-12-22T20:39:00.000-08:00

Taking seven months off to travel was more than just a holiday. The experience itself was great and yes it was artistically refreshing. When we take holidays of a week to a month, we are having a break from our normal life, but afterward, we return to that normal life. But taking a longer break, means an opportunity to re-evaluate life, and to make some fundamental changes.

I think that I have already mentioned that I am not going back to commercial work, I am going to focus on my personal work. But this trip enabled me to see why this is important, to let me know what my priorities are. Work, in exchange for money, enables a person to live in society. But somehow, life nowadays is about earning more and more money to buy things we do not really need. But what is important is our relationships, the people around us. And if I can have enough money to live, then my priority is not to accumulate more material things, but to nurture relationships, to build bridges. This understanding is what gives me the clarity to reject commercial job offers and focus on work and activities that will help me understand living better and share experiences with friends. Since I came back, the only shoot I have done was publicity photographs for my friend Juliet, not because it was a commercial job, but because it is an opportunity to share an experience with her.

On my journey, I naturally walked a lot and became fitter. I also started doing crunches regularly during the trip and added push ups when I was in London. I did all this because my diabetes was becoming harder to control. My medication was increasing but my blood sugar levels were not good for my age. With the exercise I started on my journey, it has helped my blood sugar levels a lot.

In the last six weeks of my journey, I was in London helping my father who just had a stroke then. I was not able to exercise as much as I did during my journey, but I was told of doctors who are recommending low carbohydrate diets to help keep diabetes in check. I tried exercising as much as I could in London, and I also tried the low carbohydrate diet. Together, I continued to be able to keep my diabetes in check.

Back in Singapore, I bought a good bicycle and I cycle several times a week alternating with strength training days of crunches and push ups. And with some advice from my doctor, I have increased my carbohydrate intake a little so as not to loose muscle. But I am now actively taking care of my health.

I think a lot of us living the city work life know that we should make changes to our lives for our own good. But with the work and the stress, it is hard to make a life style change. We do not have the energy to make that exercise or diet change. And with so many things on our minds, we do not 'see' the need for that change. And this is why the long journey was more than a holiday for me. With the time and energy given to me on the journey, I was able to make major life style changes which I hope will keep me healthier for the remainder of my life. And the time to think about life has also given me the understanding to commit to the changes I have made.

In the coming year, I wish all my friends the opportunity, time and space to re look at what is important in their lives and find the energy to make long lasting adjustments in their lives that will make their lives better.

Overland Once a day

2010-10-17T18:05:00.000-07:00

My friend Wansheng asked me to take a self portrait once a day on my trip. I did this except for my week back in Singapore and for one day in Stockholm. I used the music Dare you to Move by Switchfoot because it is just a great song. I filled out the music with some video from the trip.

CHANGED: I had to change the music to 'Sunlight' by Kyte as they blocked the playing of 'Dare you to move' in Singapore. But this music is good too as I played it a lot when I was traveling.

For you Wansheng.

Making Harvest while the sun shines

2010-10-06T15:33:00.000-07:00

The most important lesson I learned on this journey is that to seize as many opportunities as possible as they arise. So often, when an opportunity has passed us by, it has passed us by forever. And so even in this time of challenge for my family, I have continued to make the best of the time available to me. The good thing is that my father has been recovering at a remarkable rate and my brother is able to spend some time with my parents to. I generally have to be around during meal times to buy food or help my father get to a nearby restaurant now that he is able to walk. So the best time for me to do something has been the afternoons, when my parents are resting. I have been able to visit a Sally Mann exhibition at the Photographer's Gallery, Wolfgang Tillmans at the Serpentine, and Exposed at the Tate Modern. On some evenings my brother comes over to eat with my parents which has allowed me to see some performances like A Disappearing Number by Theatre Complicite and Vertical Road by Akram Khan tonight.

I did plan to visit my sister's vineyard for a grape harvest. So last weekend I headed to Bothy Vineyard with my cameras hoping to take some photographs. It was quite an operation. Saturday was a glorious day for harvesting as the sun was up. And there were about twenty volunteers, three kids including my two nieces and two dogs. My brother-in-law had planned to harvest over two days but was worried about rain on Sunday. With such willing volunteers and one brother-in-law, me, we harvested three and a half tons of grapes! I am not a wine drinker, but the fresh grape juice was delicious! After most of the volunteers left, I helped Richard with the last 3rd pressing. Back breaking work. I must admit, I was not displeased when I woke up to rain on Sunday and the picking was postponed. I spent Sunday resting and reading. Fortunately for Sian my sister and Richard, they managed to get some volunteers to pick red grapes on Monday which would not have survived until the following weekend.

I am fortunate for this year, its experiences, the opportunity to reassess what is important in my life and what is possible with what I have.

A little statistical overview and some acknowledgements

2010-09-20T17:52:00.000-07:00

Here is a little summary of the trip. Nothing is exactly accurate, especially since the distances are between cities and the routes were probably longer.

I traveled for 160 days. This does not include a nine day break to get my tummy checked up in Singapore.

I covered approximately 25,900km by rail, bus or ferry. I used air travel for an additional 4360km.

I visited seventeen countries and stayed in thirty-four cities.

Although I had to eat instant noodles and sandwiches sometimes, my best meals were at
Da Dong Peking Duck Restaurant, Beijing
Cafe Pushkin, Moscow
Austria Restaurant, Berlin
Pod Aniolami Restaurant, Krakow
Le Crabe Restaurant, Riga

There were other good restaurants, but one way or another those five were the most memorable. And for non Singaporeans reading this blog, food is the most important past time to Singaporeans.

As a lot of people may know, I am a coffee addict. The best espresso is still in Italy. It is hard to really pick the best but at a pinch I would say that it was in a stand up espresso bar near the Duomo in Milan.

There was more physical activity then I was expecting on this trip. I climbed a 2500m mountain next to Lake Hogsvol in Mongolia and I cycled 45km in a day in Kolka in Latvia.

I must thank the hospitality of the people who were my hosts on this trip,

The Rin family in Shanghai,
Mario in Milan
Marian in Bern and Grindlewald
and Piritta in Helsinki

A special thanks to Olga and Michele on whose boat I rented a room for two weeks in Arles.

I also had nice friends showing me the secrets of their cities,
Ai Ling in Penang
Qin Pei in Beijing
Irina in Moscow
Gianluca in Rome
and Dimitra in Berlin

And a special thanks to my guide and driver in Mongolia, Odnoo and Nagi.

Journey's end - a little early, a little short

2010-09-16T15:51:00.000-07:00

Visiting Estonia was the last major objective of my overland trip. All that was left for me was to return to London without taking an airplane. I could have taken a ferry to Stockholm, and then a train to Copenhagen and then to the Danish port of Ejsberg and a ferry to Harwich. However, as I had made Finnish friends in Tuscany, I decided to go to Helsinki and then go onto to Stockholm. This part of the journey was more a technical necessity for me.

However, in life things happen. I was attending an outdoor party when my father called me and asked me to return earlier than my planned date of the 22 September. When I asked him why? He answered that he had suffered a minor stroke. As my brother is in London and my sister was visiting from Oxford, I amended my plans to get to London as quickly as possible overland on the 17 September. However, after talking to my brother, it was clear that I was needed even earlier because my brother still has work commitments and my sister has a family and vineyard to look after in Oxford. I took a flight from Stockholm and arrived in London on the 15 September. After five and a half months, my journey ended.

Well, technically I took flights when I had my tummy upset, I had a short connecting flight in Mongolia to get me to my trans Siberian train on time and I flew from Stockholm to London. To be pedantic, I did not do an overland trip from Singapore to London. But I did have the trip of my lifetime. I visited Luang Prabang, Mongolia, Poland and the Baltic States for the first time. I saw the fireworks of the National days of Vietnam and Switzerland. I experienced the wet and wild celebrations of the Thai and Laotian New year. I attended the World Expo in Shanghai and the photographic festival in Arles. I attended a one day workshop with my hero Paolo Roversi and did a one week workshop with another hero Arno Minkkinen. My project was voted project of the week by the instructors. There were times in Laos and Singapore, with my sensitive stomach that I wanted to throw in the towel, but then I would missed so many things. I think the nourishment from this trip will last me a lifetime.

In an early post on this blog I gave the reasons why I am able to undertake this epic journey. Epic for me anyway. One of the reasons is that my parents were still healthy. The choice of the 1 April was arbitrary. But if I had started a month later I would have had to give up a the Baltic states. If I had decided to play it safe after the food poisoning and postpone the trip to 2011, it would not have happened. The opportunity would be past. This is something I would regret in my life.

A friend gave me a hand made card with the words Carpe Diem as a good luck charm for the trip. Those words are as apt as they can be. I had a window of opportunity and I took it. And the overview of life that I have got from this journey, as well as the illness of my father is that life is for the living. One can be completely reckless and squander away money, dying in poverty. But one can also be a Scrooge, hording wealth for the sake of wealth, and not appreciating the range of experiences life can offer. I realise that I simply have to use the resources available to me to lead the fullest life I can. And to some people, they will not comprehend what I am doing or how I am doing it. Well, every person is an individual and I do not know how other people manage to live their lives, in the frozen Mongolia winter, or racing up the slopes of Swiss mountains, or be continuously creative like some of my photographic idols. All I know is that 'other' people can offer their point of view of how I should live my life. But I have to make my own path, and I have to be brave enough to be myself. The only thing to fear is fear itself.

The journey has ended, another journey has begun. This time it is with my father, it is a journey of recovery. A journey so that he can continue to live life to the full.

For my life, and the support to be me, I thank my parents. I know they worried for my safety but trusted that I would come back safe. I thank my parents for the blessings they have bestowed on me. Now is my turn to step up to the plate.

Estonia Experience

2010-09-13T22:49:00.000-07:00

My first stop in Estonia was the resort town of Parnu. It was very telling that the hotel I was staying in looked empty, like I was the only guest. On the first evening I visited the beach and there was a brilliant sunset but the second day was cold and rainy. I mentioned this to the receptionist and she said that it was now Autumn. I tried to see as much as I could on this journey, and by doing so I had run out of summer. I still enjoyed my visit to Estonia is general, but I had literally lost the light.

Sareema is the largest island belonging to Estonia and it had one town called Kuressaare. This was another visit to the wilderness, but the sights of Kuressaare are separated by relatively large distances. Even though I had just recently managed to cycle 45km, I would have had to jump to 100km a day at least if I wanted to use the bicycle. So, I rented a car. I went down to the southern most point of the island to see a lighthouse. I also tried to visit some Soviet installations, but they looked a lot like holes in the ground. They were soviet batteries. I also visited cliffs, a fishing village and desolate coastlines on the north of the island. I could have been more adventurous on this island, but I did not have the time and I had a little cold. The remnants of which are making my throat itchy as I write this.

Tallinn's old town is rather larger than that of Vilnius or Riga. In fact, it has two parts. The higher part, where the present parliament is held, was traditionally occupied by the nobles. The lower where most of the tourist trade happens, belonged to the merchants. And the merchants, who were not only protecting themselves from invaders, also built a wall against the nobility in the old town whom they were very suspicious of.

Perhaps I was tired after five months of travel, perhaps the grey and wetness of autumn had got to me, or perhaps my feeling that my room in Tallinn was 'dirty' put me on edge, but my overall impression of Estonia was ok. I wish I could say more, but really I cannot.

So, one of my major aims of exploring the Baltic states came through with the end of my visit to Tallinn. All the capital cities and their old town are worth visiting. But I must say that Riga, with its audacious art nouveau buildings, makes it the most outstanding of the three Baltic capitals. For a more adventurous holiday, the national park around Cape Kolka in Latvia is also my favorite. It is worth visiting all three Baltic states, but if you only have time for one, Latvia would be my recommendation.

Lost and found in Latvia

2010-08-31T12:19:00.000-07:00

I must admit, when I thought of the Baltic states I remembered Estonia and Lithuania. Estonia because of the composer Arvo Part and Lithuania, I am not sure why I remember it. I thought it was that Lithuania got into the world cup but I stand corrected by a reader. But Latvia? I thought it was the country ruled by Doctor Doom, the arch enemy of the Fantastic Four. Well Doctor Doom comes from the fictitious country of Latveria... see?!?!? And the closest thing that came to my mind about Riga, was the final Boss Ryga, in an interplanetary version of Street Fighter. Ok, you can see how lame my knowledge is and where I spent my time becoming so lame.

So I really did not know what to expect from Latvia. It rhymes with Bavaria, so should I expect something Germanic. Well, as it turns out, Riga, the captial, started as a German colony for the conversion of the local populace to Christianity. So there is a German link. And Riga was an important European port, with lots of rich merchants and a cosmopolitan population. The tradition carries on now with a surprsing number of Japanese restaurants in Riga.

What I can say now is that the old town of Riga is definitely more grand than Vilnius. They have refurbished some of the merchants' guilds in Riga, and boy are they showy. The churches are pretty nice too, large but not too overly ornate and complex inside the churches. I like that. I also found an unexpectedly good restaurant at a reasonable price called Le Crabe! Yes, I am looking after myself.

But Riga is not just the medieval old town. It has several outrageous Art Nouveau houses to the north of the old town. I have seen a lot ornate buildings in my time, but these buildings really left me gob smacked! And I kind of like that style, very sexy!

So after a good time with good food in Riga, I take a bus along the coast of Riga to Cape Kolka. Cape Kolka, or Kolkas Rags, is in between the Baltic sea to the west and the Gulf of Riga to the east. It does not have a high cliff at the point but it does really look like the end of the earth. And the clouds all around are always spectacular. It is still warm enough to take a swim in the sea when the sun is up. And it has relatively fewer tourists here than on the Curonian Spit in Lithuania. I think that it is just harder to get to Kolka than Nida in Lithuania. And Kolka is in the Slitere National Park, with wonderful forests and old Livonian towns. I cycled 45km today to see some of the sights. This really tired me out, but it was worth it. I think if someone wants to do a sword and sorcery epic, Slitere Natioanl park would be the perfect place to film it.

I am so glad that I am having this opportunity to explore the Baltic states. And as much as I love the romance of old towns, the beauty of nature is having an effect on me. It kinds of puts into perspective what is important in life and it is not the rat race.

Laughter in Lithuania

2010-08-26T04:28:00.000-07:00

When I was in Warsaw, I met a very unpleasant French man who simply said that he disliked the Baltic states. He did not specify why when I asked him, but he just did. He made some rude remarks about me as well and his wife was embarrassed. But I think he was wrong on both counts.

My first stop in Lithuania was its capital, Vilnius. It has a nice personable old town, with several churches. It amused me that the Soviets used one of the churches to be a church of atheism. The Lithuanians were definitely not convinced.

I must admit, after traveling for several months, old castles, museums and churches were not high on my lists of to dos. The nicest church was one that was changing hands and was almost empty. There was still a few pictures of the Virgin and Christ. This seems the most honest to me. But I did visit some of the churches like the Gates of Dawn, where they have the Black Madonna. And the Choral Synangogue too.

What did leave a mark on me was the Museum for the victims of Genocide. Here was the history of how the Soviets signed a secret pact with Hitler to divide up the region. How the Soviets annexed Lithuania together with the other two Baltic states. The Germans broke the pact and took over Lithuania for about four years and then were driven out by the Russians again. The Lithuanians and countries like the United States always considered this an unlawful occupation. But Stalin wanted the Baltic states. Many Lithuanians were sent to hard labour in distant places in Russia. A lot of people were kept, tortured and killed in the Soviet run prisons in Lithuania. The west did nothing. I am not sure why, maybe after fighting Germany, the west had no stomach to take on the Soviet Union. Life just ain't fair.

But you have to like the Lithuanians, because they are the most humorous bunch of people I have met. In Vilnius, a group of artists have declared their own independence in a district called Uzupio. They have a hilarious constitution which says things like 'You can die, but you are not obliged to'.

Vilnius is not as grand as the old cities of Poland, but it is very charming in it's own right. There is a road on Literatu street where there is an open air gallery celebrating the literature of Lithuania. Beautiful work.

I went to the port town of Klaipeda, which is the connection to the Curonian Spit. The spit is a 140km sand dune with the Baltic sea on one side and a large lagoon on the other side. Half of the spit is owned by Lithuania and the other half is owned by the Soviets. The old town of Klaipeda is small, charming in its own right. Its old buildings have interesting wooden beams as support. The buildings used to be warehouses for the shipping trade. Can you believe it, out of the 11 tourist sights in the old town, one is a sculpture of a mouse and another is a sculpture of a cat.

The Curonian Spit though is simply breathtaking. It does not seem like much to look at the sea. But when you see the Baltic sea coming ashore, you really get to see the majesty of the sea, of nature. And along the long long beach, Lithuanians and tourists have fun sunning themselves. Quite a few people go nude! Talk about a sense of freedom.

I ended my travels in Lithuania with a short visit to Siauliai. I did not really sight see in Siauliai as it seems more like an industrial town. But what is amazing is the Hill of Crosses which is about 15km out of town. Just thousands and thousands of crosses. The Soviets tried to destroy this religious site, but the Lithuanians kept putting up new crosses. Most of my friends know that I am not a believer, but the sight of so much spontaneous religious expression is impressive.

An observation from the journey

2010-08-19T15:39:00.000-07:00

This trip is truly liberating. to climb mountains, to walk in the falling snow, to swim in the Mediterranean sea, to dance in the moonlight, to travel vast distances and watch the scenery change from dessert to mountain to plains to lakes to towns to cities to the sea.

There are limits to what we can do, but within these limits, there is a great range of possibilities. To live fully takes courage, determination, a positive attitude and flexibility.

I met nomads in Mongolia who lost a lot of their livestock in the last winter, one of the harshest winters Mongolia has ever had. One nomad simply agreed that he had lost many livestock and noted that he would have to rear more. In Poland, they were affected by huge floods, but as a visitor you could hardly tell. They carried on with life. What I see on this trip is resilience and people able to continue not just to survive, but find joy in life.

We have to say 'no' to energy sapping negative people. Live within the law, but live outside constraining social norms. Above all, be true to yourself. Never be afraid to express joy, delight and love. Express anger when absolutely necessary, but discard it as soon as possible, or it poisons one's heart.

Give time, love and support to the young, for the are the future. Give time, love, support and thanks to the old, for without them we would not be. Spread good ideas and happiness to those around us, for we have the world in our car for now. We have to do a good job for those who come after us. Don't be afraid to admit mistakes and change for the better. Consequences are larger than our egos. Don't regret things done in ignorance, we can only know so much. But try not to repeat the same mistake over and over again.

We have to walk in the mountains sometimes, it shows us how small we are. Then we realize that we live on a planet that is insignificant in the vastness of space. This is why we need to come together as a planet. We need to stop the hate, we need to stop the rape of the earth. We are like ants, alone one can do little. In a colony, mountains can be moved.

Walking Berlin

2010-08-18T11:15:00.000-07:00

Berlin was on my trip because I wanted to visit my friend Dimitra, whom I met at London Contemporary Dance School. It was ten years since I was last in Berlin and seen her. How time flies! I realise that I have been a busy boy in the last ten years. I liked Berlin when I visited it ten years ago, I like it even more now.

Having been to Berlin once and since it was a trip to visit a friend, I did not do any planning at all about what to do there. One thing was for sure, I did not want to see any more castles, old masters or crosses. On the way to my hotel, I saw there was a Magnum photography retrospective at a place called CO Berlin. I asked the lady at my hotel where this museum was and she showed me on a free map giving out by Sandeman, a walking tour company. What caught my eye was an alternative tour of Berlin, showing squats, street art, protest points, things you would not see in a regular city tour. And where does the tour start? CO Berlin, where the photographic exhibition was held!

I spent the morning going through the Magnum exhibition and bought a documentary on Magnum. The exhibition showed classics from the founders and newer work by photographers like Paolo Pelegrin and Alex Soth. It was trying to show how Magnum started as a photo journalists collective and how it is developing today in a market where the photo journalistic market has collapsed. Many of the young photographers are journalists/artists. They think as much as doing exhibitions and selling prints as they do of getting their work published in newspapers or magazines. Enlightening.

I had a quick lunch and joined the alternative Berlin walking tour. The guide was an Irishman, Finn, whom was very interested in graffiti artists. The first stop was an artists' squat in east Berlin called Tacheles. Apparently, it will be evacuated and turned into a luxury hotel at any moment, so I was very lucky to see this piece of free Berlin history. As we went along this tour, we were introduced to various forms of street art and their creators. It is interesting that billboards is not a very effective form of advertising in Berlin and major companies have now started to use street artists to paint ads street style. How commerce works eh?

The really surprising thing to me is that Berlin as a city, is 67 million euros in debt. This, the capital of capitalist superstar Germany! But Berlin is a city for artists, with very little industry going on. There are many development plans, but no money to get them going. One quarter of Berlin's property is empty! Hmmm... sounds like my city to do a photographic residency!!! :)

After the great tour I met my friend Dimitra for dinner. Ten years ago she took me for a Viennese Schnitzel that was simply amazing. I tried getting a good schnitzel in Vienna but failed. We went back to the same restaurant and had the schnitzel again. To me, this is the best schnitzel in the world.

I enjoyed the alternative Berlin tour so much that I convinced Dimitra to follow me for the free Berlin tour. And she has lived in Berlin for twelve years. But the guide, Sam, a Cambridge graduate, was great. He was knowledgeable and he could put things across well. Dimitra was impressed by how he compressed German history into 16 minutes. The highlights of the tour for me was the monument to the Jews killed in the second world war and a monument to a massive book burning exercise at Humbolt University. The Jewish monument is thousands and thousands of cement blocks. I did not take a picture of the monument to the burned books, but it is an underground room made of four walls of white bookshelves. These works kind of blew my mind.

The evening was finished with Taffelspitz at another Austrian restaurant. It is boiled beef and does not sound that fantastic. But it is served with horseradish that really makes this a special treat.

So two great days in Berlin and meeting an old friend.

I am now going into the last part of my overland journey, the Baltic states. I am writing this post in Warsaw, on my way to Vilnius in Lithuania. I am still being surprised and educated, but I am a bit tired. I am looking forward to returning to London and sleeping in a familiar bed.

Passing Kolo - From my diary

2010-08-16T01:16:00.000-07:00

Living in Singapore, a city state, we always get the feeling we are in Singapore. And although Singapore is just a little red dot on the world map, we have a much larger presence in world consciousness than other cities in larger countries. I think people all over the world would have heard much less of Port Klang than they have of Singapore. What would the profile and wealth of Singapore have been like if we had stayed in the Malaysian federation? I wonder.

But as I pass the town of Kolo in Poland on the train, a town I have never heard of, have no idea at all what it is about, filled with people speaking a language I do not comprehend. I realise how distance divides human kind, how politics divides human kind, how language divides human kind, how religion defines human kind. It is strange that things that help bind a certain group of humans together, also causes boundaries to other groups of humans.

We benefit and are victims of our circumstances. Where and when we are born. Who are our parents and what is their legacy for us. There are only a handful of people like Shakespeare, Lao Tzu, the president of the United States, that can truly become part of the world consciousness. And there are still large groups of people who have no interest in Shakespeare, Lao Tzu or the president of the United States.

For better or worse, English is the most widely used language today. And to be brought up in an English speaking society is the key to a huge library of information and ideas. We can always debate the pros and cons of colonialism, but the proliferation of the English language makes important knowledge available for understanding the world and getting things done. For example, if I lived in Ulaanbaatar, had fast internet access, but could only read and speak in Mongolia, the range of information available to me would be much smaller than if I lived in the outback of Australia but understood English.

We like to think that we can do anything we set out minds to. But the truth is, it is several times harder to be a fashion photographer in Chicago than New York. You can actually be a great photographer but if you cannot make it to a fashion capital, you have nothing to work on or work for and you are up shit creek. Closer to home in Singapore, our safe, comfortable country is not the place to get a world press award or a Pulitzer. Your chances increase the closer you get to a major conflict zone. Access is a key to certain industries and oppotunities. Having access is a privilege some people are born with, and some people can get if they work hard, and others are completely denied. I remember watching a documentary on children beggars in Indonesia. When asked what their dreams were, one said that he wanted to be a doctor...

Our parent's legacy to us, forming our world view, our beliefs and our character in engaging with others. Some of us are brought up with more self-contained world view, which makes it hard to engage with others, to take in new information. Others are brought up more liberal, with a willingness to take in new ideas. This is a key in enabling us to either take advantage of the opportunities offered to us, or bar ourselves from these opportunities.

The world, with the aeroplane and the internet has become a smaller place. But still, circumstances and surrounding are key to one's life.

Polish Summer - Wroclaw and Warsaw

2010-08-14T15:36:00.000-07:00

It was the films of Krzysztof Kieslowski that made me expect a drab, grey, decaying Poland. What can you say to a city that has a fountain topped by a nude fencer and has gnomes spread throughout the city. Wroclaw, like other Polish cities has had its share of hardship and pain. But the gnomes are inspired by the gnomes drawn by the Orange alternative over places where the communist government had censored anti-goverment slogans. The gnomes are cute nowadays for tourist, but are a reminder of how the Polish used humour and ridicule to combat the oppressive communist regime. On this score alone, one should not look down on the Polish.

The town square, or Rynek, is the second largest in Europe, after Krakow. But it is much prettier to me. The facades of the buildings are more colourful and ornate. The old town is surrounded by a river and there several islands with churches on them. The islands are very pretty but also has the magical Botanical gardens. It really does look like a place that I would expect to see fairies and gnomes come out. At the very least, the gardens is well kept and labelled, you can tell that it is a labour of love.

Also between the islands is a bridge, where lovers hang a lock as a token of their love. This is almost too sweet, but when you see a punk couple putting up their lock and chain, you realise that these people have remained romantic and oh so human in spite of the communist regime.

And I stayed at probably the best hotel on this trip, the Art Hotel. Even though it looks really posh, it was in the middle range of hotels. It was worth the money. The room, bed and toilet were all great. And you cannot beat the location within the old town.

I guess that I am gushing, but even though there are prettier towns in Tuscany and in France, there is something magic about Wroclaw.

So I save the city that was voted Europe's ugliest city for the last. But to counter that I am staying in the Old Town too. Which is quite pretty. I can see in the rest of Warsaw, there are some ugly Soviet style buildings, but there are also some new moderm buildings popping up here and there.

I also spent time at Lazienkowski park which has a summer palace and Wilanowski Park with a baroque palace. Newr Lazienkowski park is the Centre for Contemporary Art housed in Ujazdowski Palace. And next to Wilanowski palace, is the Poster Museum. The two palaces are nicer and prettier than the Royal Palace in the old town. Actually the entire Old Town was destroyed by the Nazi's in retalliation for the Warsaw uprising. So the palace in the old town is actually quite new. But the two palaces in the parks are more original, and the settings are gorgeous.

After traveling so long, I get a bit spaced out looking at palaces and churches. There is a kind of sameness to it all. But I go through them just in case there is something that may strike me like at the hermitage. But thank goodness for the contemporary art museum and the poster museum. They add a different dimension and bring new creative ideas to my attention.

The highlights of Wroclaw and Warsaw and sad stores of moments of courage and sacrifice by the Polish people who were time and again invaded by the Germans and the Russians. In Wroclaw, they have the panorama of Raclawicka. This is a unique panoramic painting housed in its own circular building depicting a defeat of the Russian army by Polish peasants. This was short lived as the Russian army defeated the Polish. But this incident forever inspires the Polish people. In Warsaw, there is the fabulous Warsaw Uprising museum, dedicated to telling the true story of the Warsaw uprising. Towards the end of the second world war, when Hitler was beginning to loose the war, the Polish people started an uprising in Warsaw to overthrow the Germans. They were hoping for help from the allies. Unfortunately, the British and Americans did not send much aid. The Russians acted as they were going to help, but let the Germans bomb the hell out of Warsaw and then took the opportunity to disarm the polish Hoem Army and turn Poland into a communist state. The stories are sad, the saddest I have heard in Europe. So if Polish people do seem cynical sometimes, you can see why.

Anyway, I did not know what to expect of Poland before I started this trip, but I certainly have some fond memories of this country.

Krakow, Poland - Getting there and being there

2010-08-09T16:23:00.000-07:00

Poland is simply one of those countries that does not get to the top of the list when visiting Europe. I called my sister from Warsaw and told her I was in Poland because my brother-in-law is half polish. My sister was unimpressed. I told her I was on the way to Krakow and she said that was better than Warsaw...

Well, I must admit that the state of the buildings in the countryside of Poland is depressing. Things are run down. I was coming from Switzerland with its picture postcard houses and passing through Germany with its solid state of the art buildings. Getting into Warsaw, I was too late to catch my connecting train to Krakow. Fortunately, it was simple to change my ticket to a later train and this gave me a couple of hours to kill in Warsaw. I was able to book all my train tickets for Poland as well as a train to Berlin and another connection from Berlin to Vilnius in Lithunia. The missed connection was a blessing in disguise. But the look of the train station, with underground tunnels linking looked like dungeons.

Arriving in Krakow, I was greeted by drab looking communist housing. Or if the housing was older, it was also run down. My hotel, was at the edge of the old town. It was in the walk into the Rynek Glowny, the largest town square in Europe, that things started to look different. The buildings started looking spruced up and had more interesting detailing like other charming European cities. The town square was bustling with activity. Lots of cafes, restaurants and shops. The centre of the town hall was something called the Cloth Hall, now a large tourist souvenir mall. It is a bit like Convent Garden, but not so hip. Ok, this was not an Italian piazza, but it had a charm of its own. It was a bit spoiled by the obvious tourist nature of the whole thing.

I spent the next two days going to Wawel Hill, where there is an old castle. I visit the church there. I walk around the cobbled streets of old town Krakow. I check off the tourist to-do list and feel a little bit like I am in a less cheesy version of Disneyland. The most engaging event was a retrospective of American photographer Andreas Feininger at the International Cultural Centre. I must say though that the St. Mary's Church interior was impressive. The artwork was not refined like Italian churches, but the colours and styling was bold! Krakow was not bad, but not great.

Then on the third day, I decide to visit the Jewish quarter, also known as Kazimierz, and this seemed a little more 'real'. It was still touristy, but the people there were locals too. I visited on a Saturday, which is not good for visiting the synagogues, but I did visit one that had been converted into a museum. There was an interesting exhibition of old pictures of Jewish people, in their traditional clothing. I enjoyed that.

Then I went to the Krakus mound which is south of Kazimierz. This is the oldest structure in Krakow, a mound that is man made but who's history is lost in time. It was a nice walk to the mound and a little climb up the hill. The view of Krakow was pretty nice. And then I spotted the Libany quarry. This is an abandoned quarry which started off as being owned by a couple of Jewish men. But during the second world war the Nazi's forced Jewish people to work in the quarry. So it was a place where there was painful memories as well. And apparently, when Steven Speilberg filmed Shindler's list, he built sets in Libany quarry instead of using the actual sites of concentration camps. So there is some traces of film sets mixed with the actually quarry remains. I really could not tell which is which. But I found a way into the quarry which is now overrun with wild life. Fish and ducks in the ponds. Butterflies amongst the grass growing around the old quarry equipment. I had a fun afternoon exploring this space. I felt only slightly uncomfortable but did not get any of those hair standing on the back on my neck moments. But I did get caught in the rain.

The food in Krakow up to now had been somewhat decent if a bit overpriced. And then I tried Pod Aniolami. The prices were not cheap, but I thought why not? And it turned out to be one of the top three meals on my overland journey, the other two being Peking duck in Beijing and Duck at the Pushkin restaurant in Moscow. I had meat dumplings to start with and trout as a main course. The flavours were just amazing in my mouth. They were confident flavours, but not overpowering. I am not so much a fish man, but this trout, with horseradish sauce, rocks. I paid like fifty Singaporean dollars for the meal and it was worth every cent.

The meal took longer than I took and I was slightly upset to have missed my last chance of attending a performance of the Krakow Jazz festival. But as I walked about in the town square, an open air concert and dance was going on. It was like a Spanish folk group playing simple dance music and the crowd was loving it. Large groups of people were joining in. I took lots of pictures. And even though it felt kind of silly dancing by myself, I danced a couple of dances too. This was really a great end to a great day in Krakow. And I know that because of the third day, I will not forget Krakow.

Short stop in Switzerland

2010-08-06T01:44:00.000-07:00

I went to Bern to visit my friend, Marian, whom I met in dance school. I had once visited her before in Bern and it turns out that it was ten years ago! How time flies.

Now Marian is married to Roland and has two children, Sedonia and Mauruss. The kids are quite a handful and Roland is a forty-seven year old mountain boy! Marian and her husband are just extremely fit. I went with the family to Marian's childhood village, Grindelwald, which is up in the mountains. And they took me hiking in the foothills. While I had to take a lift half way up the mountain and then walk up further by myself, Roland would walk up from the bottom for the mountain with his son strapped to his back! And then in the descent, Marian would bring Mauruss down. Did I say this family was fit? But it was very enjoyable to spend time with Marian and her family. Even though I could not speak any Swiss German, I made friends with the kids.

Bern is a lovely little city as it always is. I did not know that it was the capital of Switzerland. I always thought it was Zurich for some reason. I walked around for a day exploring the shops in the old town. Beautiful things at expensive prices. In my personal experience, Switzerland is an expensive country.

In Bern I did go to Zentrum Paul Klee, a museum dedicated to the famous Swiss painter. It is a wonderful space in the shape of a wave. And Paul Klee's paintings are beautiful too.

Grindelwald is the picture perfect Swiss mountain village. We stayed in Marian's brother's house. We were lucky to get two good days of sunshine and was able to hike on those days. It was the Swiss national day on the 1st of August. There was meant to be loads of celebrations and parades but the rain kind of dampened that. There was a small procession which we joined in. Sedonia was dressed in a traditional Swiss outfit. And there were fireworks at night. The bangs reverberated through the mountains.

And it was surprising how many Japanese there were up in the Swiss mountains. The mayor of Grindelwald spoke in Japanese during the National Day speech!! Unbelievable.

Well. It was a nice short stop in Switzerland and good to catch up with an old friend.

Milan - Always a photography city for me

2010-08-02T08:47:00.000-07:00

Milan was more like a pit stop for me. And I was fortunate that my friend Mario put me up for my stay there.

I was in Milan the year before and saw some great exhibitions and bought some wonderful photographic books. The same happened this year. I saw exhibitions by Phil Stern, Irwin Olaf, Eikoh Hose and Francesca Woodman. And I bought a book by Shirin Neshat. I have been looking for books by this wonderful Iranian artist for a long time but the few books I found on the internet were way too expensive. And I found a great book of hers at 10 Corso Como.

I also finally managed to see the Last Supper by Leonardo Da Vinci. This fragile masterpiece, is very subtle. The guide was informative. But, I had to book my ticket two months beforehand online. There is very little chance of going on the day and getting in.

Italy has so many wonderful cities with so much to do and see. Milan kind of gets lost amongst the other cities, but after a while, I think it can grow on you.

Four months - a reflection

2010-07-28T07:27:00.000-07:00

It is almost August, almost four months traveling. This is without a doubt the trip of my lifetime. I have been fortunate as I have had very few bad experiences on this trip. Yes, the tummy upset at the beginning, but nothing else like that so far.

Visiting Milan, for my third time. And visitng Moscow and Rome for the second time after ten and twenty years, I realise how human I am. How human, we all are. We can only experience such small portions of a city, and our human brains will forget what it has experienced. It is all in the head, what we experience. It is only with a brain that we can be cognizant of what our eyes, ears, nose tells us. And then the brain, limited in capacity, will forget it. We only have the shadows of the shadows of the experiences in our heads. And these shadows are mixed up with the dreams that spontaneously come into our heads. Time passes, and things will remain in a tangled memory for a while, to be forever forgotten when we are gone.

This trip has been great, showing me so many things that I have never seen before. giving me the opportunity to met old friends too. And a reason for me to take some photographs. But I asked my friend Jaizki about how he felt about his trip overland to Spain from Singapore, and he replied that it was like a dream. This life that passes so quickly, is really just a dream, a passing moment in eternity. A spark in the infinite darkness.

But I will tell you what, I am a happy spark. And I hope that they will be able to see me at the edge of the universe.

A week in St Anna in Camperana, doing a photographic workshop

2010-07-27T16:04:00.000-07:00

I spent a week in St Anna doing a photographic workshop with Arno Minkinnen. I worked pretty hard and took more pictures than at any other point of my trip, but I am not ready to show the work. The project, called 'Starlight Sonata', was chosen as project of the week and I won a Spyder 3 screen calibrator. But this is the first project that I think that I will be able to continue after the workshop is over. Particularly since I am still traveling and I think that there are places where I can continue with the project as I travel. So I do not have much to say or show for this week.

On the way to St Anna, I stopped off at the house of my friend, Gianluca, for lunch with his family. The photos of the children are his nieces and nephew. And on the way to Milan from St. Anna, I traveled with Mario, whom I am staying with now in Milan. I met both Gianluca and Mario at the TPW workshops. So, you can see how all this ties in together. At St Anna itself, all I have are a few portraits of the people I met.

I made new friends in the week and plan to visit some of them in Finland later on this journey.

As much as I enjoyed all the courses in Tuscany, this may be my last time there on course. I think it is time to take my work further, and maybe look for photographic residencies, to that I can continue to build my body of work.

Another Rome

2010-07-27T15:12:00.000-07:00

Except for a one day visit to the Vatican a few years back, I must have not been back to Rome for twenty years, my first impression of it not being good. I remember crowded streets and crazy drivers. But my Roman friend Gianluca kept assuring me that there is a Rome that is warm and friendly. So I decided to give it another chance after all these years, why not?

On my first day in Rome I went to places like the Spanish steps and was just assailed by the huge number of tourists there. I guess that me being a tourist means that I should not be complaining, but I still did not enjoy it. I started taking pictures of the tourists and graffiti. This is another Rome for me, a Rome that was not as bad as in my memory, but not the Rome of the guide books.

And the summer heat was just full on when I was there.

I did have a nice dinner with my friend Gianluca, and I did visit a William Klein exhibition on Rome. The typical Rome is not attractive, but there is Another Rome.

A little bit more Arles

2010-07-17T15:10:00.000-07:00

After doing my best to cover most of the exhibitions at Recontres in seven days, I took it easy. I also met quite a few people I know like Herman, a fellow student from TPW, the french photographer, Francois Hugier, who stayed in my house for a month in Singapore, Carlos who runs TPW, and Diego and Claudia who assisted at TPW. So nice.

I did do a one day workshop with Paolo Roversi on a Sunday. He is a tall elegant looking Italian gentleman. His images are so beautiful and timeless. He stressed that one needs to put heart into the photography and there needs to be some risk and surprise. So true. He looked at my images and noted that there is not very much Singapore in it. And I wonder what of Singapore could I put in my images that is true and not a cliche, self-censorship? That is the truest Singaporean input that I have in my work. Ah well, I am what I am, I am inspired to continue trying to capture beauty. With all the horrifying images that impinge on our eyes constantly, we need beautiful ones too.

My landlady and landlord took me to the beach a couple of times. The first time for a quick visit, the second for a swim. They are the Italian couple in the pictures. They are Olga and Michele. I had such a nice stay and when I return to Arles, I will stay with them again! The boat in the pictures is the boat I stayed in.

So just a few more impressions of Arles as I walked around this pretty town.

Les Rencontres Arles Photography

2010-07-12T16:11:00.000-07:00

Le Recontres Arles is a big festival. It is recommended that at least three days is needed to see all the exhibitions. I had a seven day pass, and it was still difficult to assimilate all the images. An image is not like a play or a dance piece, which takes 15 minutes to three hours. We can view hundreds of images in an hour, but we can only hold one image in our minds at a time. Well, at least I can only hold one image in my head at a time. When you are going through 60 exhibitions, a multitude of books and slide presentations, it is like an animal being force fed.

I have been constipated in my own photography. I gorged myself at this visual feast, hoping that something inside will burst out of me. Will it be a golden egg or just shit? I do not know, but I want something to come out of this intake, anything. Regardless, I want to go in a new direction. Anxiously, I stuff more images through the openings in my eyes, I open my eyes wide.

I do not have a ticket today, thank goodness. It is an excuse to rest.

Like anything this big, some work is mind-blowing and some work is simply bad. Some work I can appreciate for its originality, but it is not aesthetically to my taste.
I am talking about anybodies reaction to any such a festival.

My persona favorite exhibition is a retrospective of the Italian master Mario Giacomelli. His imagery is graphic, high contrast, visceral. Another favorite of mine was the collection of film maker Marin Karmitz. He has work by Anders Peterson, Michael Ackerman, Roger Ballen, Doisneau amongst others. His collection is also of very strong visceral work as well.

On a more commercial note, I loved the work of Claude Gassian, a french photographer for music. He has shot so many great musicians like the Rolling Stones, Chet Baker, Oasis, Rod Stewart, the list goes on. He also had a slideshow in one of the evening presentations.

The great find for me was Paris based photographer Klavdij Sluban. His exhibition was based on this travels in Trans Siberia. His book won the European book publishers award. It was a very moody black and white world.

Except for Claude Gassian, I found that most of the work that really grabbed me was black and white and was strong stuff. Gassian's work was very dramatic too!

Besides the work that many of my friends would guess that I love, there was also very interesting work which was not photography in the way we usually think of it. For example, there was an exhibition called Shoot!, which is about how fun fair shooting galleries used to have a camera which would automatically take a portrait of someone when that person hits the bulls eye. This was a fascinating collection of famous people like Simone de Beauvoir and Jean-Paul Sarte amongst images of anonymous people.

From China, Zhang Dali, exhibited a piece of work called Second History. He went to research the images archives and found the original images that proved that a lot of the Chinese propaganda images had been collaged and doctored heavily. And it was amazing what could be accomplished way before the age of photoshop. I would not buy these images to put on my wall, but the work was truly intriguing.

While more of a visual artist than a photographer, Leon Ferrari, made use of images to criticize the Roman Catholic church in Argentina as well as the Americans continual use of force. They hung his most famous piece, Western Christian Civilization, which is a Christ figure, crucified on a jet fighter, in the altar place of an old church. Controversial indeed.

There were activities in the evening, like slideshow screenings and prize givings. So there was little time to rest.

Recontres D'arles is similar to the Edinburgh Festival in that it has an alternative festival called Voies Off which I think is the image equivalent of the Fringe in Edinburgh. A lot of Voies Off happened in the African quarter of Arles and evening screenings there were often accompanied by music and food.

This was truly a great slice of photography. It was inspiring in the best work, intriguing in the challenging work and of course sleep inducing in the boring work. I do want to come back again.

And I was very fortunate that my friend Anna, recommended this boat on the canal to stay on. It is owned by a lovely Italian couple, Olga and Michele and is a short walk from the city centre. But in the summer heat, being on a canal really helps. However, one has to take shelter inside about 7pm because the mosquitoes come out in force at that time. Still, I would definitely stay here again.

Arles- Inspiration from books

2010-07-07T11:46:00.000-07:00

Not only are there exhibitions in Arles, but there are many books as well. There is a book competition and in a hall there are four hundred books on the short list. Here are some that caught my eye.

EAST TO EAST (TRANSSIBÉRIADES) by Kladiv Sluban

On Borrowed Time by Henrik Malmsstrom

Black Passport by Stanley Greene

Flow and Fusion by Ken Kitano

Daughters by Margaret M. de Lange

Francesa Woodman by Francesca Woodman

So much to see, so little brain to store it all away.

A sea of images in Arles

2010-07-06T04:36:00.000-07:00

There are so many exhibitions and great images in Arles. But here are a few of the most inspiring for me.

Candy Darling on her deathbed by Peter Hujar

An image from a work called 'MAD' by Gabriel Valansi

Roast in Mendiolaza by Marcos Lopez

Musicians Portraits by Claude Gassian

From the work 'Half Life' by Michael Ackerman

An installation by Christian Boltanski

More to come...

St Petersburg to Arles via Moscow, Berlin and Paris

2010-07-03T13:52:00.000-07:00

After spending five days on the Trans Siberian Rail, other trips do not seem so daunting. But honestly, the Trans Siberian is about chilling with different people for five days on the train. Making my way to Arles took 4 days, three different trains, a night in Moscow, 12 hours in Berlin and another night in Paris. When I got to Moscow, I found that my hotel was way north of the centre of town. I got to the right metro station, Vladykino, and then got lost. In three months, this is the most lost I ever got, but fortunately I found a taxi who took me to the hotel for rubles. The next morning I decided not to take the chance, I booked a taxi to take me to the train station.

The train from Moscow to Paris was very close to empty. I do not think that many people know of this train. So I had a three bunk cabin all to myself, but even then it was pretty small. The unexpected surprise is that there was a twelve hour stop over in Berlin. I took the opportunity to book some train tickets for Arles to Rome, change my traveler's cheques to euros and buy medication for hay fever. That is what I love about Germany, they are efficient! I made friends with a Russian girl, Ann, from Smolensk, on her way to Paris for a summer attachment. She had never been out of Russia before and was nervous about finding her way around. It turned out that I became a tour guide for the first few hours in Berlin. I took to Brandenburgh Tor and then the radio tower and then to Alexander Platz. After a hamburger lunch, I had to return to the train station to do my stuff although Ann seemed a bit nervous. I was happy to see her at the train station later that night before it was time for us to continue our journey to Paris.

And Paris. It is one of those cities that I have visited several times for a few days at a time, and so I have only seen parts of it. It is such a large city. I booked a relatively cheap hotel near the Bastille. The web site said that the showers were shared so it is more like a hostel. That did not bother me, but the summer heat was a killer. And my room faced the main street, with traffic and loud Parisians walking by. I sleep well most of the time, but this was as hard as it gets for me to sleep.

The next day, it was a relatively short train ride to Arles where my landlord, Michel, picked me up. A friend, Anna, had recommended this bed and breakfast place on a boat in Arles. I did not really know what to expect, but I found a lovely little boat on a canal. Olga and Michel are an old Italian couple living here because the air is much better than in Italy, or that is what they say. Right now there is a group of Italian photographers renting other rooms as well on the boat. I have already spent a day walking around in Arles and visiting the exhibitions. It looks like it is going to be a lot of fun, but I will save that for the next post.

I will still have some overnight trains before I finish this journey, but I think there will any more long continuous days of journey. Coming to Europe, there are more options, but it is not necessarily easier, and it is definitely more expensive than the first half of my journey in Asia. C'est la vie!

St Petersbug in Black and White

2010-06-30T08:44:00.001-07:00

St Petersburg - Unending days

2010-06-30T08:41:00.000-07:00

After the run down cities of Siberia, and business like Moscow, I was not expecting very much from St. Petersburg. All I had in mind is that the Hermitage has one of world's greatest art collections.

My hotel, which I booked through a company called Real Russia, was too far from any metro for me to walk from. At least that is what I thought from the maps. As I left today, I walked to a metro station north of the hotel. But on arrival, not knowing better, I took a taxi to the hotel. I was a bit disgruntled as I thought I was stuck out in nowhere. But when I got to the hotel, Happy Pushkin, I was very happy. The hotel was a boutique hotel based in an old apartment. It was done up to look baroque. Very cool. It is the prettiest hotel I have stayed in so far. And when I looked at a map which I purchased at the train station, I found out that I was within walking distance of most of the major attractions including the Hermitage.

So for three days, I walked through St Petersburg, and it turned out to be such a nice city to walk through. A lot of the buildings had classical facades with beautiful ornamentation like in other old European cities. There is a huge river running through the city, the Neva, and there are several canals as well running through the city. Reminding me of Venice and Amsterdam.

The first thing that struck me was that there seemes to be a lot of 24 hours shops. And this struck me as weird in a communist country. But then as I moved around the city, and got stuck in the rain and saw the unending nights, I realised why there are so many 24 hours shops. It was only in reading up about St. Petersburg that I realised that it was very far up north and in summer they have white nights. But my sleep time went a bit screwy as I was out in the streets trying to figure out what it would be like around midnight. I was tired and asleep in the hotel in the first night in St. Petersburg. The next two nights it was like eternal twilight, because it was raining. It was more like grey nights than white nights. But on the last night before I left, it was a white night. You cannot see the sun, but the sky was lit up for sure. Really surreal.

The river Neva, St Petersburg, 23.30

One of the highlights of St Petersburg is the Church of the Saviour on the Blood. A church that was built on the spot where the Tsar Alexander II was assassinated. It is more a memorial church than a normal working one. But there are scenes from the life of Jesus on the inside of the church and scenes of life of the Tsar on the outside. It is more of a museum now because of the beautiful mosaic bible scenes in the church.

I also went to the Hermitage which is one of the world's largest fine art museums housed in an old palace. The splendor of the palace and the collection was amazing. I really enjoyed what I saw. There was a Picasso exhibition from Paris at the same time. I rented the audio guide and had a great time. Unfortunately, time was not on my side and I only visited about half the rooms. I guess that I will have to visit St Petersburg again!

Moscow

2010-06-24T00:30:00.000-07:00

My last visit to Moscow was short. I remember poverty, shops with almost nothing on their shelves. The soldiers clothes were worn. I think that things look better now. I do not think that people are trendy in Moscow, a lot of the clothing seems dated. But the clothes are clean and neat. There are up market shops and at least some rich Moscovites are dressing it up.

The thing is that Moscow is not going to win any awards for charm. A lot of it was built to be imposing both pre communist in the Imperialistic era, during the communist era, things were built big. There is a sense of solidity here, but little sense of style. The most characteristic Russian motif is the domes of the Russian orthodox Church. But in Moscow, a good part of the time you will be walking pas solid, large buildings that have an air of decay around them. Most of the buildings were built in a age past, and except for a building like the Gum, which has been renovated by the super rich for the super rich, and they show it.

Unfortunately, a lot of the Moscovites, although outwardly having the appearance of being more market driven, actually still have a communist mentality of doing as little as possible. In a kebab shop, they refused to sell me half a roast spring chicken with salad because the salad was for the wrapped kebab. I had to let go of the spring chicken and get the wrap. In my hotel, there is no kettle for hot water, you get it from a common dispenser in the corridor. And for laundry, you take your dirty clothes to the office on the 26 floor, pay first and collect the laundry from the laundry office the next day. I get the feeling that people are not thinking of service for the guest, but how to make their lives easier.

What helped a lot on this visit to Moscow was having a friend in the city. Irina, who was on the Anders Peterson course with me a few years back works here. On the first day, she took me for a Russian brunch at this place called the Ginza Project. It was a quaint looking house, decorated to look like an old Russian house. The food was good too. Then she told me that the Moscow Photo Biennale was on. I was in luck as she took be to a joint exhibition of Paolo Roversi and Peter Lindbergh, two of my fav photographers! Roversi's work was from his book Studio and Lindbergh's work was based on his fashion work themed 'Invasion'. I had seen this work in a Stern portfolio before. But see the prints was a real treat. Tonight, Irina treated me to a sumptuous meal at the Pushkin restaurant. It was the best meal I had in Moscow. For starters I had Russian salad, a salad with different types of pate made from duck, mushrooms and lamb. For the main course I had roast lamb with cherry sauce. Yummy! I should be cultured and say that in spite of its uninviting air, Moscow is worth coming back for its wonderful Museum. However, I would say that it is worth coming back for a meal at the Pushkin Restaurant!! I promised to buy Irina a chili crab dinner if she visits Singapore.

I visited the Red Square which is imposing. I think my first visit there, I only went to the Gum which was empty at the time. This time I visited St Basil's church, with its iconic domes. It was an interesting experience, going to a Christian church, but with a completely different lineage from the Roman Catholic/protestant one. I know that there are some doctrinal differences but I cannot remember what. Still, iconography was very graphic. A lot of the work was very illustrative of the bible stories and decorative at the same time. I had a great time taking pictures of paintings and wall motifs. I also went back to the Gum, which although full of international brand shops, had lost much of any character. This worldwide presence of Aussino, Apple, Armani etc brings a certain instant level of recognizable affluence to international cities, but also robs cities of their individuality.

What was a lot of fun was spending time, on just one metro ticket, looking at the artwork in the Moscow metro. A lot of the work have the same theme of Russians fighting their wars, growing crops, being strong and healthy. A lot of the Moscow metro was apparently built on volunteer labour, how about that? Although in the modern era we are aware of the political propaganda of the communist era, there is a certain charm to the images of strength, nation and family that the images portray. I know it is propaganda, but they are not bad ideals to strive for. Who does not want security, a happy family and health? I have put the pictures from the Metro in a slideshow of its own.

Today, I went to the Pushkin museum of fine art. There are like four wings and I went to the main museum which houses the classical art collection. There is some fine work there which unfortunately gets repetitive after a while. How many variations of the annunciation and nativity scenes can one take? Or sensual bacchanalian scenes hinting at the sexuality of the painters who cannot paint explicit porn. I got a bit of museum fatigue from this museum.

However, I also went to the Gallery of European & American Art of the 19th-20th Centuries. What happened is that the communist took over the collections of a couple of rich art loving merchants. This must have pained those guys dearly. But I must admit they had great taste. There are wonderful pieces of work by Monet, Cezanne, Degas, Matisse, Picasso and others. I rented the audio guide which really kept me going. I hear that there are more works at the Hermitage in St Petersburgh. I am looking forward to that.

So Moscow as a city does not rate that highly, but there are definitely things worth seeing here. But it is an expensive city. This does not sit well with me because it is expensive because certain services exist. It is not because these services are excellent.

A Quote from Paolo Roversi

2010-06-22T03:15:00.001-07:00

My studio is a rectangular room with a high ceiling, old wooden parquet flooring, and a large window facing north. It is like a tiny theatre with an empty stage, a space to be filled, a time yet to be invented, a proscenium where everything is possible, no trick disallowed, where neither seasons, nor days, not hours exist. Here all temporal boundaries dividing live and imitation, reality and fiction, dissolve. Like any art worthy of the name, the most brazen lie can evolve into surprising and seductive truth. The furnishings are modest: two stools, a carport, some chairs, two or three lights, and an old blanket, which is my favorite backdrop. It can be a wall, a road, a field, sky, night, fear, wind… a screen for dreams. The studio is not only in this room; it is anywhere I put my camera on my tripod and my tripod on the ground, liberating my heart and mind. The studio is far more than a workplace or a tool of my trade. It is above all a state of being and feeling. The studio is everywhere. It is the corner of my mind. I have a very mystic and spiritual approach to photography, which I can't explain, and I don't need to. I like to keep things unrevealed, I like sometimes to lose myself into the indefinite. That often happens to me along the path of beauty, without every truly understanding where to proceed, and the further I manage to see, the deeper the mystery becomes. Photography goes beyond the limits of reality and illusion. It brushes up against another life, another dimension, revealing not only what is there but was is no there. Every photograph is an encounter, an intimate, reciprocal confession. I like long exposures to allow the should all the time it needs to rise to the surface, and to let chance have its way. Always, photographs surprise me; they never turn out quite the way I imagine they might. Every photograph enters the world as a sign of hope. It is late, very late. Everyone has left, and a strange silence has descended. I wander aimlessly around the deserted studio trying to bring some order to ideas and objects, but the natural and permanent chaos exerts its power. I put on my jacket, turn out the light, and close the door. But where does the light go? Silence… Darkness is the light's silence.

Paolo Roversi

Trans Siberian in black and white

2010-06-22T02:17:00.001-07:00

The Trans Siberian after twenty years

2010-06-22T01:41:00.000-07:00

It is hard to believe that it has been twenty years since the first time I took the Trans Siberian railway. The last time was in the other direction, from Moscow to Beijing. And it has also been twenty years since I last visited Moscow. If it were not for the war and strife along the countries in the silk route, I may not have taken this train ride again. But given the situation, this has become an opportunity to see how a train line, a country has changed in two decades. And in many ways, to see how I have changed in this time as well.

I was not all that impressed by the sights from the carriage of the Trans Siberian Railway when I took it twenty years ago. Expect for several hours around Lake Baikal, most of the trip is of forests, interspersed with drab, functional looking towns. The forests are nice and I am happy that Russia has so many trees left standing. But five days of trees, more or less close up, can become monotonous. Perhaps it is more romantic in the snow of winter, but the less than luxurious toilets and cabins would also be less than romantic in the sub zero temperatures of winter.

Like the first trip, the most interesting thing is the people that you meet on the train. For the first day and night on the train, I shared my cabin with a Mongolian business woman. She claims to be going to visit her family in Irkutsk. I think she has a lucrative business smuggling clothes bought cheap in China into Russia. When I entered my cabin in Ulaanbaatar, it was like a store room cramped with goods. I thought that I was going to see Mongolian business happen first hand. But instead, the Mongolian lady separated the merchandise into small packets which she paid other travelers a small fee to keep. Coming to the Mongol-Russia border, the customs officer could smell something fishing from her office in the train station, but she could not see the smuggled merchandise. After crossing the border, the merchandise started to appear in the cabin again. Fortunately it was only a day to Irkutsk from Ulaanbaatar. The Mongolian lady and a good sized street store alighted at Irkutsk. There was one good thing staying in the same cabin with her. The Russian restaurant on the train refused to take Mongolian money. The shrewd business woman was able to change Mongolian money to Russian money for me and other foreign travelers, for a fee of course.

Also getting off at Irkutsk was a frenchman Mattais and an English retired water engineer, Geoffery. We had a nice and short talk just before their alighted about how countries were carved up in an arbitrary fashion after the second world war.

In the cabin next to me was a relatively rich Russian teacher, Ludmilla and her horny black bull dog, Aslouf. She was very popular with the train attendants. I think it is the food she shared with them, fresh vegetables and cheese. In return, the train attendants would give her some of what they prepared for themselves. I had a taste of the food, which was much better than the cut throat train restaurant. Unfortunately, I was not as charming as Ludmilla, and only got to taste the food once. It was strange though, one train attendant hogged my iphone and she sat through the night shift and played with the games that I have on it. The other demanded that I give her some Singaporean notes but when I finally caved in and gave her a five dollar note, she gave me a Russian metal cup holder and cup. A nice souvenir from the train.

An young Israeli, Omri, had just started on photography and moved into my cabin where I showed him slides from my photography lectures. I taught him about editing images and my favourite topic of crafting images to convey meaning and emotion. Omri shared with me his Jewish music. He was a true lover of women, but he was completely hung up on a Mongolian girl in Ulaanbaatar who got angry with him and dumped him. He was shell shocked.

What was not so pleasant was a group of Mongolian army soldiers on their way to Leningrad for training. It was unbelievable that they were drunk the entire train journey, day and night. They had huge bellies, from all that alcohol. I had the usual invitations to drink vodka and smoke cigarettes. I managed to avoid most of it except I had a mouthful of Vodka. However, one Mongolian got beligerent. He somehow got it into his head that I would buy him beer. When the train stopped he would wrap his big arm around my neck and try to steer me towards the shops selling beer. This happened a couple of times. Then on the morning we arrived in Moscow, I was having breakfast and he and another Mongolian sat opposite me. He indicated that I should buy them alcohol. I just looked at them and said no, he got angry stood up and grabbed me by my collar. I screamed him back and told him to 'Fuck off!'. I am sure he does not understand what I was saying, but the sound of 'Fuck off!' conveys the correct message. His comrade ushered him to another table. The aggressive Mongolian got enough sense to know he did something wrong and kept apologizing to me and hugging me. I wish that he had stayed sober and been civil.

Photographically, I was intrigued by the hugeness of the towns and how they were run down. I took a lot of images of machinery and buildings. I get this sense of things from another era, working, but aging. Strong and fragile at the same time. Like a circus strong man, who is past his prime., still muscular, but has a weak heart.

In the twenty years I have changed too. Although the trip was not a visual spectacle in the usual sense, the characters that I met and the aging communist machinery, set amidst forest and open sky, had a lot for me to contemplate. I have begun to accept all of life, not just the peak experiences.

2010-06-14T07:16:00.000-07:00

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The White Lake (Terkhiin Tsagan Nuur) 6 June 2010

Inside a ger a stove makes it feel too warm. A light makes a defiant space in a dark night. Outside I hear strong winds blowing. The water by the lake seems to be heaving itself against the shore. There is a tempest around me which I know would swallow me up if it could. But in a ger, about three meteres wide, is a haven of warmth and light. As pretty as the falling snow and mountain lake scenery can be, this beauty is wild, untamed and dangerous.

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I set of on this journey to take a break from the life that I lead in Singapore. And in my travels, I do see the suffering of the poor. It has been a harsh winter in Mongolia and my guide, Odnoo, said that she has never seen so many dead carcasses littering the countryside before. And yet the people that I meet in Mongolia are not tearing their hair out. One herder said simply that many of his herd had died during winter and he would have to raise more animals. I see the dead animals rotting on the ground, surrounded by flies. I see the harsh conditions that the people have to live in. But I also see the beauty of nature. Wonderful landscapes, symphonic sunsets, beautiful spring flowers. Am I shallow for being elated more by beauty and less by the angst of someone given over to a substance addiction. There are alcoholic Mongolians if I wanted to pursue it, beggars on the streets of all the cities I have been to since I left Singapore. Am I heartless for celebrating the form and shape of reflections and colours instead of engaging in other people's despair?

The truth is life is short, once we are born we will die. Is pain and despair any more real than pleasure and beauty? I am not a hedonist, I do not deny hard work, discipline and sacrifice in life. But honestly, I do not wish to celebrate pain and suffering for the sake of itself. I want that people all have a chance to enjoy the good things in life. And I firmly believe that as mundane as it may seem to some 'art' lovers, beauty is as valid, as much part of the human experience as pain and suffering. And to all of us, there will be death and departures, accept it. And while we live, celebrate life, relationships, care for one another and the earth.

Mogolian Panoramas

2010-06-13T20:32:00.000-07:00

Although I am not usually a fan of stitched parnoramas, in Mongolia, I had to give it a try. There is just no way that even a wide angle lens can capture the feeling of space in Mongolia. You get a better sense here. If you want a better experience, see the slide show on flickr.

Archaeological Treasures of Mongolia - the second half

2010-06-13T08:07:00.000-07:00

The first few deer stone and burial mounds were weathered and hard to read. The deer in the deer stones are stylized. The deer are supposed to take the dead spirits to the sky and therefor the legs of the dear are more wisps than fully formed appendages. Just outside Muron, at a site named Uushigtiin Uvur, there is a group of well preserved deer stones. And there is one with a face carved on the side of the stone. The deer stone have belts around them like the Mongolians wearing their dells. And like Mongolians there are tools hanging from the belts. I could clearly see an axe on the deer stone with the face. It is kind of impressive that people could have carved something that would say something to people thousands of years later.

We also visited the Hyadagiin Deer Stones after a bit of searching. These deer stones are in the middle of the countryside in a country that has virtually no road signs. It is amazing that the driver, Nagi, could find his way all over this vast landscape and find anything.

As the trip in time was slowly coming to an end, the scenery was getting more and more beautiful. The highlight at the end of this trip around Mongolia was three days at lake Hogsvol. Sometimes it is easy to be dismissive of pretty scenery. But in Mongolia, I think mother nature has created a work of art that is truly breath taking. Mongolia is an immense space, and the combination of lake, mountain, trees and animals, is inspiring. This is no doubt a harsh country, but there is a harmony and beauty that I think transcends the mortality. Like I felt before in Angkor Wat, the immortality of nature is not in having some live or be preserved for all time. The immortality of nature comes in the cycle of life and death of the plants and animals. The important thing is to enjoy life in the present, to have no regrets when our time is up.

On the first day at Hogsvol lake, my guide took me horse back riding. We had a Mongolian horse guide and we visited his house. We played a game with the ankle bones of sheep and goat. I drank milk tea from cow's milk. I have not eaten camel meat, or drunk Airag (fermented horse milk). I did have a sip of Mongolian vodka from a herder. But fortunately I had nothing turned out to be as repulsive as the yak butter tea I had in Tibet. I had a sore bum from three hours of horse riding.

On the second day, we climbed a 2500m mountain, Khyasaa Uul, to get a view of the 130km long Hogsvol lake. I knew something like this would happen to me in Mongolia. That is why I have been doing my best to walk and climb the hills in Guilin and Vietnam. I have spent up to eight hours a day walking in cities, but this four hour hike up and down this mountain was exhausting. I lost count of the number of times we had to stop so that I could catch my breath. I could have given up at any time but we had plenty of time and it is not that often that I have had to breath really hard. After two hours, we got to the top of the mountain, took a few photographs and it began to rain. And it was a pretty heavy rain so we started to make our way down the mountain. It was fascinating and a bit eerie seeing so many ovoo(piles of stone for prayer) up on the mountain. The view was worth the strenuous climb.

Today, my bum still hurts from the horse riding and my leg muscles are sore from mountain climbing. And then I went kayaking on a small lake next to the ger camp we are staying at. It was as difficult or strenuous as I thought it would be. But the worst thing was the swarm of flies on the surface of the lake. Fortunately, the flies did not bite. Unlike the mosquitos at the White Lake, which left long lasting bumps, these flies just swarmed. Very unsettling.

So after all the sights and adventuring, my journey in Mongolia is coming to an end. I will be flying back to Ulaanbaatar from a small town called Muron. This was always planned because there is only so much time and I have a train to catch to Moscow. But this trip was about 1800km. I am sure that I have more to see and experience ahead of me, but the raw beauty and truth of Mongolia, is unforgettable for me. And there is much more to see, at the very least I will need to visit the Gobi dessert to the south one day. Time to wash clothes and prepare for 5 days on the trans siberian express.

Archaeological Treasures of Mongolia - the first half

2010-06-12T19:20:00.000-07:00

I always knew that Mongolia would be extraordinary in an already ambitious overland trip. However, I did not know exactly what to expect. And a few days in Ulaanbaatar was interesting but not all that inspiring. But the first excursion out of Ulaanbaatar to the Tonyukuk Monument, gave a hint of what was to come. This monument was erected in 744AD and was from the Turkic nation, the second of the three empires that came out of Mongolia. The monument talks of the states man Tonyukuk and has a brief history of the Turkic state. As monuments go, this is quite a simple one. But it is set in the middle of a plain and in the distance mountains go as far as the eye can see, and a blue sky with expansive clouds cover it all.

By choosing the Nomadic Expeditions' tour, Archaeological Treasures of Mongolia, I had chosen a journey through the history of Mongolia. The journey would take me to look at deer stones that date from the bronze age, to the old capital Kharakhorum to new sites like the huge statue of Chinggis Khan, erected just outside Ulaanbaatar. I would also get to see dessert, steppes and mountains, the three main types of landscape in Mongolia.

I am writing this at Terkhiin Tsagaan Lake, a lake created when the Khorgo volcano erupted two thousand years ago. This is part of a two week loop around central Mongolia and I am at the half way point.

On the first day out of Ulaanbaatar, we went to the Hogno Han mountains and stayed at a ger at the bottom of a mountain. We went to visit a monastery around the corner of the mountain. The sun was hot and I was rapidly getting a sun tan. I thought that two weeks of this and I would be burnt to a crisp. The monastery was actually a few temples built on the remains of a larger temple that was destroyed during the communist purge of religion. The caretaker suggested that we visit the ruins of an even earlier monastery in the mountain called Uugun Khiid (Old Man Monastery). My guide Odnoo, suggested we take a leisurely stroll up to the site. I thought it would be a short jaunt and then back to the van to go visit a herder family. But it took about forty-five minutes up a rocky path. I was very thirsty, having left my water in the van. But when we got to the ruins, it was pretty impressive. It was a relatively large monastery. And then my guide suggested we go over the mountain pass to return to the ger instead of going back to the van. I protested saying that I was thirsty. And she showed me a stream that looked like it flowed into mud and horse dung. By myself I would never have drunk the water, but she showed me how to scoop the top of the running water from head of the stream. The water really tasted delicious, almost sweet. I was waiting for another attack of the runs that would send me home to Singapore again, but it never happened. Refreshed, we tackled the mountain pass and Odon was right, the ger camp was on the other side. However, the descent was a bit of a climb. This Mongolian trip was turning out to be a real adventure.

There are more stories but the highlights include taking a bath in the hot springs, horse riding with an opera singing horse guide and an out of this world sunset at a ger camp next to Taikhar Chuluu. The monuments like the black ruins (Har Balgas), deer stones and the Erdene Zuu monastery are all quite spectacular in their own right. And getting caught in a sandstorm that looked like a scene out of the mummy.

It was a long, hard winter for Mongolia and there were many dead carcasses. And amongst all the beauty that I saw, I also saw the vulnerability of life. And also because of the long hard winter, I had another surprising experience, snow in June. I visited the extinct volcano, Khorgo, this morning in what can only be called a snow storm. Oddly enough, with the proper clothing, it was not that cold.

At the half way point, I have already been through very different landscapes, gone back in time and been summer crisped to winter frozen. I have made full use of all the clothes I packed including the swimming trunks and thermal underwear. What will the next half of the journey bring?

Ulaanbaatar

2010-06-01T08:04:00.000-07:00

Due to train schedules, I had a fair amount of time in what turned out to be a small city. At least most of the main tourist sites were in walking distance of the main square, Sukhbaatar Square.

This history of Mongolia is like the spirit of its nomadic people, ever changing. They ruled China in the time of Ghinggis Khan. Were ruled by the Chinese for two hundred years. With the help of the Russians freed themselves from the Chinese and was ruled by the eight Bodh Khan, who was both the religious and state ruler. Then was a socialist state and then had a peaceful revolution to a democracy twenty years ago.

I think the cliche is a heavily meat eating country with a beautiful blue sky. But the contrast between the broken pavements and roads and the shiny glass skyscrapers shows a much more complex story. The country is very poor, but the parliment has a new facade of the three great Khans of the great Mongol empire. There is a book of 'The teaching of Buddha' in my hotel room, but after the socialists did their best to wipe out Buddhism in the country, so the people are not anywhere as religious as the Tibetians. In their last election, the 4th since becoming a democratic country, the president is from the democratic party and is very involved in being green. But the people are waiting to benefit from profits from mining which were promised to them.

I think Ulaanbaatar reflects a poor country that has hope although its living conditions are harsh. And with democracy, it is up to its own people to seize this opportunity. But the world financial crisis is a big set back as well. There is a huge impressive curved glass building that was meant to become a hotel. Work on it has ceased. It stands there as a symbol of hope unfulfilled. And then going out into the countryside, and seeing how the people are able to live in spite of all that is against them, you know that the Mongolians are not a people to take things lying down.

The train to Ulaanbaatar

2010-05-29T07:05:00.000-07:00

I woke up at 5.30am to make sure that I would be in time to catch the 7.45am train, K23, to Ulaanbaatar.

This was to be an interesting trip for several reasons. The first was that I shared the cabin with two lovely ladies from Oregon. One was a retired nurse, Mary. And the other, Karen, was thinking of retiring. They had spent a week in Beijing and were on their way to Mongolia as volunteers for a charity called earthwatch. They did not know what exactly they would do for two weeks, but they said they could end up counting wild life. This was their fourth volunteering trip. I guess we all agreed that we had restless spirits. It was very interesting talking to them on all sorts of things like healthcare in America and stone carvings of the Native American Indians. I had the privilege of advising them on how to prepare their first bowl of instant noodles.

I also met a Singaporean couple on an overland journey from Hanoi to London. I had a blog post about them. It was surprising and delightful to meet other Singaporeans on the same path, more or less.

And although it was tiring, the border crossing from China into Mongolia turned out to be a technical treat. The train gauges in China and Mongolia are different. So the Chinese engineers had to unhitch all the carriages, lift them up using hydraulic lifts and change the wheels and put the whole train back together again.

They also changed the Chinese food carriage for a Mongolian food carriage. For the first time I was happy to not have a Chinese food carriage. I do not know why, but the food in the Chinese carriage was very very salty. On the Mongolian carriage, I had my first taste of Mongolian food for breakfast, rice and beef wrapped up in a thin pancake.

And all this was just inside the train. On the outside the landscape was turning into rolling planes and the vegetation was becoming sparse. We went through at least a couple of sandstorms and one in the evening, while we were sleeping, and brought in quite a lot of sand into the cabin. The carriage attendant, I suspect was allergic to dust. He wore a mask and kept on closing any open windows. The passengers the other hand, were feeling hot and kept trying to open the windows. The skies in Mongolia were blue as advertised, and the clouds looked like water colour paintings.

I was met at Ulaanbaatar station by the tour guide for my tour which starts tomorrow, Sunday. It was nice to be picked up and sent to the hotel for a change. Although I have a few pictures of Ulaanbaatar on the day I arrived, I will write a separate post on it.

Beijing Black and White

2010-05-28T09:33:00.001-07:00

Binging in Beijing

2010-05-28T09:30:00.000-07:00

This is my fourth visit to Beijing. And through my visits I have changed and so has Beijing. And this being the fourth visit, has also allowed me to be less of a 'tourist'. I started off by staying at the Houtong Inn, which is in the heart of historical Beijing. Finding my way to the hotel, I saw locals exercising, cluttered doorways with bicycles and charms pasted on the doors leading into narrow corridors. The hotel itself is basic, but I had a bed, a bathroom and internet access. I was happy.

I was also fortunate to have friends in Beijing. I met Stefen Chow before he left for some jobs in Singapore. Qin Pei, who once assisted me, is now a film maker in Beijing. She had some spare time to take me to the 798 art space and for really yummy Beijing duck. So it was nice to have some company for a change.

There are parts of Beijing, that like Shanghai, have become modern and consumerists. Big shiny buildings and spiritually hollow. It is like once we all have made some money, we instantly want to buy Louis Vuitton or Giorgio Armani. Or eat MacDonalds. All right, there are times that I do need a quick meal and eat at Macs. And if I really had to get a swish suit I may consider Armani, but as a traveler, I do not visit Asian countries for International brands. Near my hotel is Nanluoguxiang. An interesting street for tourist shopping, with a Chinese flavor that is authentic. It is more like how some European countries sell souvenirs, with more than a superficial gloss. In Thailand, some of the tourist souvenirs are simply rip offs of western humor. In Beijing, they make jibes with their old communist propaganda posters. And their humor is sharp.

I guess in this sense, on this particular journey, I enjoyed Beijing much more than I enjoyed Shanghai. This is because I felt that Beijing was comfortable being complex, in encompassing the ordinary citizens, the intellectuals, the internationally rich, all together. I felt Shanghai trying to deny its soul by putting up a shiny new front. It could have been because of the expo Shanghai is like this now. But all in all, the overall experience of Beijing is more gratifying.

The highlight of this visit to Beijing was going to 798 arts space. Just the space is interesting. Galleries and exhibition spaces in an old factory. And around the exhibition spaces are functional factories. Then there are so many exhibitions like that of Chinese photographer Xu Yong called 'See Again'. And in the see+ gallery, they had an exhibition of two neglected American photographers, Wynn bullock and Harold Feinstein. Sculptures everywhere you turn. Lots of different artwork, some 'commercial', some really avant-garde. It is nice to see so much concentrated creativity at the same time. There were nice cafes to rest and refresh between over indulging in art… Ok. I am hyperventilating. If you are interested in visual arts, you just need to visit this place.

Qin Pei and I also went to the Beijing Art Museum. The current exhibitions were ok. We wanted to see the Chinese paintings but they were doing a new hanging and we could not get in.

The most touristy thing I did was have a night tour of Beijing because it included the Bird's Nest Olympics stadium. I could not get in because of the timing, but I loved seeing the actual structure lit up. It is huge. The tour also took me to the new theatre, which locals call the egg. I did not think of watching any performances in Beijing, I think that I will have to the next time I visit Beijing. I want to see what the inside of the egg looks like. Qianmen was nice when lit up. But the shopping street with Starbucks and other international brands in new mock Chinese buildings made me want to puke. What can I say?

There is so much old and new stuff that I saw in Beijing I do not think that it has fully sunk in. But a part of me knows that I now want to return to Beijing after this trip than I ever did after my previous trips.

Mr and Mrs Koh Around the World

2010-05-26T08:38:00.000-07:00

What a surprise, while having dinner in the crowded dining car to Mongolia a couple sits down next to me because of lack of space. And it turns out they are Singaporeans who are traveling from Hanoi to London! They had also wanted to travel from Singapore to London, but because they only have a month to travel, they started from Hanoi. Overland to London, compressed!

Here is their blog, http://www.mrandmrskoharoundtheworld.blogspot.com/

Shanghai in Black and White

2010-05-24T09:40:00.001-07:00

Shanghaied

2010-05-24T09:27:00.000-07:00

The reason I was interested in going to the world expo in Shanghai was because Picasso made a breakthrough in his painting after visiting the Paris Expo. The idea that an encounter with different cultures may somehow give me new directions in my work was just very enticing.

I had originally planned to go from Hong Kong to an area in China that I had never been before but I went back to Shanghai which I had been before with my parents because of the expo. The Shanghai that I visited, about seven years ago was in transition. and there was still a lot of visibly old buildings and dirt on the streets, right next to some of the world's tallest buildings. I remember seeing fish hanging out to dry on electrical poles. But the Shanghai I visited this time was a gleaming new city. It was very clean and it was only wandering around on the last day of my four days in Shanghai that I found some of the old streets that I remember. These old streets and buildings had been hidden behind hoarding that they use for hiding building sites. I did go to a place with 'old style' houses called Xingtiandi, but is was more or less an international shopping street with a little Shanghai accent. To me, Shanghai is what I would call 'Chinese Communist Capitalist'. Except for the language and a Chinese slant in aesthetics, Shanghai is not very different from any rich capitalist city.

I was fortunate to be offered lodging by a friend, Nan Yoong, in a new block of high end service apartments. Although Nan Yoong was not there, his parents were there as they had just moved into the service apartment themselves. So it was nice to have a few meals with them and I was well looked after there. My stay in Shanghai is definitely the most luxurious of my entire trip! So I thank the Rin family for their hospitality.

My first encounter at the expo was not only disappointing, it was embarrassing. The first pavilion I visited was the Singapore pavilion. The design of the pavilion is arguably interesting, but it did not grab me. The theme for the whole expo is Better City, Better Living and each pavilion had a chance to either show how they factually are creating better living or how they imagine a better city with better living. I think the theme for the Singapore pavilion was musical harmony, on the ground floor they had trampolines that made a sound when you jumped up and down. And there were 4 trampolines together, I guess so that a group like the Tang quartet could jump a tune. I certainly heard no music coming from the display. Then there was a video of 'Singaporean Life' starring JJ Lin as a lost traveler, Tanya Chua as an ethnic dancer and Stefanie Sun as a biologists. And they kind of look happy some times and kind of look stressed sometimes. I have no idea what part of the Singaporean reality this represents? And I do not see how this inspires any idea of better living. It came across as meaningless fluff. Walking from one level to another, there are facts about population and other statistics on the wall, accompanied by what appeared to be contour maps. But what the contour maps mean is a mystery, and I am science trained. And they did have a garden on the rooftop with an Orchid specially created for the expo. It is a nice gesture, but riiigggghhhhtttt…… As I left the theatre I heard a Chinese visitor telling his girlfriend that in an expo full of video presentations, the Singaporean one was the worst. And as I was leaving the pavilion, an elderly Chinese lady said that the pavilion's planning was stupid, anyone could have done it. Aaarrggghhh. As a country we are very livable. Great public transport. We are a world leader in water recycling techniques. We are known as the Garden city. We have arguably the world's greatest airport and port. How did we come across as such a lame country?!!?!?!?! Our presentations were simply incoherent and uninspiring. Sigh.

Several of the pavilions like Australia and New Zealand were predictable but quite well done. They had pictures of happy citizens and they put facts about their country across well. Some of the smaller countries like San Marino and Lichtenstein had to share pavilions in a Europe Pavilion. The presentations were usually straight forward with some history and tourist attractions. Most people used some sort of video/computer presentation. They may not have been great, but the presentations were honest. I found out some interesting information for my visit to Lithuania.

It got interesting at the Danish Pavilion. They let artists imagine what it would be like to have a perfect city, where people have more time to spend with one another and are closer to nature. There were beautiful video and photographic presentations that inspires the viewer to be drawn into a better, more holistic lifestyle. They had the guts to bring the little mermaid statue to expo and I think it is amazing for anyone to see the Danish icon in Shanghai. The Finnish pavilion, like some white alien spaceship, was highlighting design. The entire interior of the Finnish pavilion was an interesting space and design, like walking into a different dimension.

The best pavilion by a country was definitely by the United Kingdom. It looks like a giant pin cushion from the outside, but it is actually thousands of plastic rods which direct light into a room which they call the seed cathedral. And at the end of each rod are seeds from different plants. This seed cathedral highlights the work of Britain in creating a massive seed bank of plants from all over the world. The entire presentation is at once elegant, awe inspiring and brings across the core idea of the importance of nature immediately. During the day, the seeds are illuminated by light from outside, at night light is transmitted out of the rods to glow in the night. The pin cushion structure was presented in a park that resembled a present being unwrapped and this structure was a present from the UK to China. Now, this was inspiring.

There were other pavilions besides the country pavilions. Some were themed pavilions like the pavilion of the future where urban planning was discussed. It really got me thankful that there are people out there who are thinking about how to plan a city for water, electricity, mobility and more. There are also several pavilions for big Chinese companies to present themselves. The only one I went to was Chinese telecoms and they were hard selling communications technology. Right now we can transmit sound and images, but they challenge the viewer to think of transmitting all the 5 senses. Imagine visiting a friend virtually in a different country, but with all 5 senses. Seems a power akin to being a demigod, the ability to have omnipresence.

The whole expo kind of left me drained. Except for the pavilions that inspired the audience to thin out of the box, it seems impossible to truly understand much about a country from a few video presentations and iconic props (Our Singaporean one was a Durian Star with a badly drawn merlion on its chest!) I realized that my Overland trip was akin to going to the world expo, but I get a better chance of understanding things better by meeting locals as I travel.

I went and visited the Bund on my last day in Shanghai and visited their shopping street. I just could not shake off a sense of irony between how red China fought for its independence and now, through economic development, there has been an economic invasion by the capitalists.

Hurried Hong Kong and the cattle car to Shanghai

2010-05-22T08:19:00.000-07:00

Hong Kong is definitely part of my overland trip, but it was essential because I had to pick up medicine that I had left with my friend and break my trip in mainland China so that I did not have to apply for a Chinese visa.

There is not that much to say about it except that I think I did a lot. Besides getting my medicine, I bought a few needed supplies like a thermos flask for the long train rides and a toothbrush. I have been finding it hard to change traveller's cheques in most places and I have not seen an American Express outlet so far on this trip. I did find out that I could change traveler's cheques at the Bank of China. So I took the opportunity to do that. (I do not think I will ever buy traveler's cheques again) I met up with a couple of people and generally prepared for the next leg.

What was surprising was how difficult it was to get a ticket from Hong Kong to Shanghai. The Hong Kong underground has a train that goes directly to Shanghai, but the train was completely full. In the end, I had to get a train to Guangzhou in China and then get a train to Shanghai from there. I was giasu enough to get my ticket before I left Guilin, but even then all that was left were seats. What I did not expect was the coaches to be packed like sardine cans. They Chinese railway sold standing tickets for a 16 hour trip. And some of the people who bought tickets were old enough to be my grandparents! I shared my seat with a businessman but stood up once in a while to let other people have a chance to sit down as well. Suffice to say, I did not get much sleep on the way to Shanghai. But still, I have been having relatively nice trains rides up to now, even the hard sleeper is actually quite comfortable. So this human chaos was really an eye-opener. I wanted to take more photographs, but somehow it did not feel right.

Shanghai up next.

Going down Li Jiang, a video clip

2010-05-18T10:20:00.000-07:00

Shanghai Expo - UK Pavilion, The Seed Cathedral

2010-05-18T08:10:00.000-07:00

Bloody brilliant.

Guilin Panoramic

2010-05-18T07:56:00.000-07:00

View taken from Diecai Shan.

Guangxi Region in Black and white

2010-05-16T11:50:00.001-07:00

Karst Hills and Hustlers

2010-05-15T10:47:00.000-07:00

For those of you who want to browse the gallery, it is here.

My first impression of Guilin was not good I must admit. I chose a hotel near the train station for the convenience and they were both of the main street of Guilin, Zhongshan Lu which is split into three parts. I was in the south. Zhongshan Lu is big, like 3 lanes each way and also smaller bicycle lanes each way. And lots of relatively modern buildings and neon signs. The trouble is that Guilin is supposed to have been the inspiration of countless beautiful serene ink brush paintings of landscapes. And here was I on an international street like any other in the world, being hustled by the locals for hotels, tour guides and prostitutes. I was kind of stunned. But I went hey, whatever.

On my second day in Guilin, it was covered in a mist. After the first day of city chaos, the mist was actually an improvement. But I was determined not to let this stop me. I thought about it and realised that this misty weather was also present in many Chinese paintings and is as much part of the psyche as anything else. I visited several parks like the Elephant's nose hill and Diechai Shan. There was quite a bit of hill climbing to see the sights. I guess this trip is not recommended for the frail. But getting up to the hills and seeing the sights, I finally understood why it was so inspiring. It was really like a dream world, ethereal. Too bad for the buildings of Guilin crowding all around the base of the hills. It was worth making the trip there, but somehow disappointing too. I guess that modern city life had not struck Guilin when it was inspiring poets and painters.

But I did take the two rivers and four lakes boat tour of Guilin a night. And this is totally worth it. The lighting is a bit like Disneyland, but the hills and the greenery of Guilin, and the artwork underneath the bridges of Guilin come alive with the lighting, and you can forget the city hustlers for a while.

Anyway, I headed out of Guilin to a better bet, Yangshuo. I was going to be cheap and take the 15 yuan bus ride down to Yangshuo but a taxi driver convinced me that the boat ride down to Yangshuo was not to be missed. The boat ride cost me 300 yuan but it was 4 hours long, included lunch and a tour of some sites in Yangshuo. I must admit that the scenery from the boat was stunning. Unfortunately, there was a lot of tourist fleecing all the way. Before and after the boat ride, we were taking to shops selling jade. And although lunch is included, we were persuaded to 'upgrade' our meals. As I was alone, a bunch of nice tourist from Hunan took me into their group and treated me to the upgrade. As for the tour of sights in Yangshuo, we were rushed through underground caves and literally allowed to get out of the bus to take one picture of the moonlight peak and get back into the bus. If there is any way possible, just take the boat down the river and skip any tours. 'Tours' are a waste of time and money.

I had planned to take a bicycle ride along Yulong Jiang to Yulong bridge on my first day in Yangshuo but it was pouring down with rain. I just kicked back and chilled and read a book. Just as well, the next day it did not rain and I had a wonderful bicycle ride. I was told by the lady renting the bicycle not to take the small road but take the main road. I was a little disappointed but I listened to her advice on the way to Yulong bridge. At the bridge there were touts trying to get me to take a bamboo raft back to Yangshuo. I declined and cycled through the farmland back to Yangshuo. But even without the rain, parts of the road was muddy. And true enough, I slipped and got quite muddy. I think that there will always be a little mud from Yulong Jiang in my camera forever. But the bicycle rides was one of the most magical ones I have had in my whole life. And I finally saw the Karst hills in the clouds and amongst the farmland. And I finally got what the fuss was all about. But I also knew that if one wanted to really get to the scenery, Guilin was only the place to pass through, the countryside around Yangshuo is the real deal.

Yangshuo itself, although a small town, is also a tourist town, like Ubud in Bali. But it still has some charm. And the Chinese are quite savvy, they do not just rehash tourist junk. There is some humor and modern design that makes the stuff worth checking out.

I had some sublime experiences in Yangshuo which made the whole trip worth it. And I am thinking of going back there to a place called the Giggling Tree Hotel in countryside out of Yangshuo. From there it would be possible to explore the scenery of the area directly. But the hustling was just awful. Even the Chinese tourist I met found it distasteful.

Vietnam - Black and white photos

2010-05-12T02:48:00.000-07:00

My personal journey through Vietnam. Just a warning, there are over eighty photos in this set.

Days in Hanoi

2010-05-11T23:43:00.000-07:00

I am sorry for the delay in the updates. There was no way for me to get to blogger through the great chinese firewall. I tried emailing through a post with a flickr slideshow but the code for the slideshow did not come out properly. I will have to look at different options or keep relatively quite for the next two weeks in Shanghai and Beijing. I have not edited my Guilin photos yet.

Anyway, things are never as you would expect them to be. In my mind, Hanoi is a quaint communist capital with aging french Inspired architecture. I thought of roads full of bicycles and perhaps a glimpse of a french woman looking like Catherine Deneuve wandering the streets. The good news is that Hanoi has not like some other asian cities, started on a massive redevelopment program, knocking down large swathes of old buildings to be replaced with characterless high rise blocks. At least not in the old quarter. The bad news is that the narrow streets of the old quarter is filled with motorcycles and cars going in every which direction and the sound of the car horn can be heard 24 hours a day. The shops are not austere with a smattering of goods way past their sell by date, but full to the brim of goods. The local goods aspire to the style and colour of western fashion but the Vietnamese products are not yet as polished as the Thai products. But between mountains of local t-shirts, jeans, food and souvenirs, are boutiques for Jean-Paul Gautier and Calvin Klein. You can fix your Canon, Nikon and Olympus cameras. And finding a bank ATM to dispense cash is as easy as and first world city. Communist country is not the first thing that springs to mind when walking these streets. But unlike Ho Chi Minh city, the old quarter, with its mix of small local shops, french cafes and Vietnamese temples, can still charm. I particularly enjoyed the Vietnam Fine Arts Museum as I said in my last post. The Hanoi cathedral is another place that was nice and calm in the midst of all the chaos. I had a couple of real nice meals of Vietnamese food at New Day restaurant which has both local and foreign customers. I also had lots of good coffee at La Place which is next to the Hanoi Church.

There are certain limitations to an overland trip like the one I am undertaking. I am not really staying in one place and getting under the skin of a place. I really wanted to visit Sapa, a hill village in the north of Vietnam, but with only five days in north Vietnam, traveling to Sapa and back would leave me one day to visit the place. I decided to leave Sapa for another trip, one where I can spend a week or more there, slowly wandering through the surrounding villages. And besides, Hanoi is definitely worth a revisit.

Instead, I did a couple of short day trips out of Hanoi. The first was to the perfume Pagoda complex. This is a complex of buddhist temples set in the hills about 60km south of Hanoi. The highlight of the trip is a cave right at the top of the complex, with religious shrines placed in a natural occurring cave. I was on a tour with eleven other people, and they all decided to take the cable car up to the cave. I decided to walk up to the cave, it took me an hour up and half and hour down. The whole tour group met at the bottom of the hill for lunch, and I was only 5 minutes slower than the rest of the group. After lunch we visited the main temple before heading back to Hanoi. I enjoyed the journey and the hike up the hill, but the sights were average. It reminded me of Medjugore, high up in the remote hills, worth visiting if only you are one of the faithful.

The second trip was to Hoa Lu, the old capital of some Vietnamese dynasties. They had reconstructed a couple of temples in honour of some of the old kings. These temples were built over the remains of the old castles. It was similar to the temples found in Hanoi. However, the surprise delight was an hours bicycle ride through the countryside to lunch. We got to see real farmlands amidst beautiful limestone hills. I think that this was the best experience I had outside Hanoi. After lunch we took a boat ride to see the limestone formations in Tam Coc. This was not bad but the boat people trying to sell souvenirs and hassling for tips soured the experience a bit.

Overall, I enjoyed my Hanoi experience very much. I guess we all have to pan for gold in the soil of the land, and there definitely was some.

The best 20000 Dong I spent in Vietnam

2010-05-03T23:15:00.000-07:00

I planned to kick back a bit in Hanoi and just soak in the atmosphere. However, I did make two day trips out, one to the Perfume Pagoda and one to the scenic hills of Tam Coc. In Hanoi, I have walked around the old town, had plenty of coffee, both Vietnamese and Italian. Seen a few temples and walked through a day market and a night market. I have also eaten things like Hanoi curry and Veal Cordon Bleu. And today, I visited the Temple of literature, whose main sanctuary is under renovation, you think they would mention this small point at the entrance. I must admit though, even though the temple of learning had not revealed its full glory to me, I was impressed by a culture that had dedicated a temple to learning. After this tourist highlight, I walked across the street right into the entrance of the Vietnam Fine Arts Museum.

I have been to many museums all over the world, and outside major cultural centers, my experience with museums has been usually underwhelming. I went to an artist village in Chennai, whose work shown may have been historically significant, but was a little bland to me. I do not know what to say about the art museum in Penang, even the guard downstairs did not know if the gallery was open or not. Maybe I should not say any more. But I had done a fair amount of 'tourist' sites in Hanoi but I did not remember any recommendations for this museum. There may have been a line somewhere but it certainly did not get the full descriptions like the Temple of Literature or Ho Chi Minh's Mausoleum, or Dong Xuan wholesale market. But I was at the front gate, and it was a not too big three story colonial house and annex.

A female guard issued me a ticket and got me to put my cameras in a locker. I walked over to the building not expecting all that much. But the first thing that surprised me was that the building was air-conditioned, the displays were clean and the lighting really showed the work well. Some people cared about this museum. And I think I learnt a lot in the next couple of hours about Vietnam, and come to respect it a lot more.

One starts with the early art linked to the Vietnamese dynasties. The first surprising thing I learned is that the Vietnamese dragon is unique, unlike any other dragon from other cultures. And I took a closer look at the examples in the museum, and realized the head of the dragon is shaped like water. In the Vietnamese culture, the dragons bring rain, and in a rice growing nation, this is so important. I had seen and photographed a dragon in a temple in Hoa Lu, the old Vietnamese capital, but could not comprehend it as I was expecting a western or Chinese dragon. But it now all made sense.

And then I came across the figures that one would find in Vietnamese temples, Kings, Queens, guardian spirits and retainers. It is new to me, but the emphasis in Vietnamese temples is not on Buddha, but ancestors. I think that these lines from a traditional house in Ma May street explains it,

Only trees with root can grow well
Only waters with source can create deep oceans, deep rivers
Where do humans come from?
Ancestors come first, then we do.

So we sometimes think of Vietnam as a mainly Buddhist nation, but the people here worship their kings and ancestors more. There are a lot of figures of famous rulers, and less so of Buddha. But in the Fine Art Museum, there are two of the most amazing Kuan Yin statues I have seen in my life. Beautiful, serene, sensuous. I was not allowed to bring in my camera so I do not have any pictures, but I think that the two statues are alone are worth a visit to the museum. And I like the way, the female statues of the queens seem to be as well crafted as the king. There seemed to be some sexual equality here, but maybe I am reading too much into this.

On the second floor, there are lacquer paintings from the best artists in Vietnam. And I think we have all seen the innocuous lacquer paintings sold as tourist souvenirs, a little exotic colour that is pretty. But not the work in the museum. The themes of the paintings range from still life, to everyday life to images from the war. There is an intricate play of three dimensional outline and two dimensional textures that I did not understand at first. Then I found out that the artists not only use paint on the lacquer, but also materials like egg shells. The effect is somewhat like the work of Gustav Klimt, lifelike outlines filled with textured two dimensional patterns. But the results are very much unique to Vietnam. There was one particular painting of a crowd walking in Hanoi at an earlier era. The women wore traditional dresses, and the men wore mao-looking suits. But it was a happy, beautiful scene. And somehow, it has an innocence that the t-shirt and jeans wearing citizens of Hanoi today lack.

The other thing that struck me was the war theme that kept playing through much of the art work. And what struck me was that a lot of the art work was not about triumphing over the enemy, or the atrocity of the war. Many of the images were of the people working together. And the angle of the images were not heroic in the stoic sense seen in the propaganda art, but was almost documentary. And many of the images were of Ho Chi Minh meeting children. I guess it may be propaganda, but something here tells me that for some people in Vietnam, the war was one for independence. If this ideal of community was present in Vietnam today, I do believe that it can become a great nation. But then again, there is human nature and the sin of greed.

There were some decent oil paintings on the third floor, influenced by western art. But what was more interesting was painting on silk. The paintings look almost fragile and can I say this, bourgeois? But I learned from the silk paintings that they were not afraid of the human form. And the several paintings of young women, showed healthy women, not anorexic, not Rubenesque. But I sensed an inner strength from the portraits of the Vietnamese people. A people that had endured Chinese subjugation for a thousand years, French colonialism for a hundred and a bloody war with the powerful Americans. And somehow, the work of the Vietnamese is sensual. Even a reclining Buddha, titled 'Buddha entering Nirvana', looked sensual.

In the annex building, there is a room full of tribal art from the Vietnamese minorities. And it came across that art and culture had a very vibrant in the tribes. There are also social uses for the art and dressing of the people. I only had a cursory look at this section but I made a note that I had to come back to Vietnam to visit the tribal regions in Sapa and Hue.

On another floor of the annex building was art from various Vietnamese temples, the type of art you can see in so many temples and regular homes in Vietnam. But well presented and well lit.

In the basement of the annex building was another gem, a collection of Vietnamese pottery. From simple yellow pottery from the early history, to elaborate multicolored pottery of later ages. But there is a great sense of style in Vietnamese art, a balance that sometimes is absent in more primitive work. But I remember staring at one vase, whose white, glossy floral arabesques were subtly overlaying an off white background.

I will return to Hanoi on my way to Sapa some day. And I will give the tourist highlights a miss, but I will certainly return to the Vietnam Fine Arts Museum.

45 Anniversary of the liberation

2010-04-30T08:30:00.001-07:00

Without planning I got to Song Krang in Chiang Mai, Pii Mai in Luang Prabang and now I have been in Hanoi when they are celebrating the liberation of Saigon. I had a fireworks display right from my hotel room window. I hope my luck continues.

The train ride from Saigon to Hanoi

2010-04-29T09:32:00.000-07:00

For those of you wishing to view a gallery of the photos, it is here http://www.flickr.com/photos/ngiapheng/sets/72157623832487401/

It felt good getting onto a train again. The Vietnamese train is not the most well-maintained, but it was so far the most comfortable train ride that I have had. I was in a compartment with four beds and all the people that I rode with were Vietnamese. I was very fortunate, for most of the way, I had the company of a magazine editor, Khai. During the war, he worked for Radio Vietnam. And he has also worked for Vietnam tourism and has traveled around much of Asia. It was a valuable insight into the Vietnamese view of history.

Some of the things that I learned from Khai is that the Vietnamese people had be colonised and traumatised first by the French and the Americans. Da Nang was the port of entry for both the French and Americans. From the point of view of the communist, they were not fighting an ideological war with western powers, they were fighting for their country. This was a viewpoint that I have not come across before. And there were problems after the liberation of Saigon, but the future of the country was in the hands of its own people as it should be. And Khai himself admitted that in Vietnam today, there is a problem with infrastructure, education and corruption, but still, seeing what I have seen in Saigon and Hanoi, the people are thriving and there is an energy of hope here. The Vietnamese have learned more from the Chinese than the Russians, and this form of economic free market with communist government, does not seem to be all that bad.

The train ride once again showed me vast lands, sometimes of woods and sometimes of rice fields and sometimes of dragon fruit farms. And scattered amongst the landscape were ornate graves, sometimes the just the grave of a single person, sometimes a sizable cemetery. And the french legacy was visible too, churches at the foot of hills, reminiscent of country side scenes in Europe. And I wonder about our lives in Singapore, as rich as and privileged as it is, there is a much bigger world out there. I am not saying that I would want to live in a farm in the middle of Vietnam, but I do wonder what the life of those toiling figures that I see in the train's window is like. What are their fears, what are their hopes.

On this journey, I am alone and do feel lonely at times. But I am also comforted by the fact that the world is so big, and I am reminded all those huge problems that I faced in Singapore working and living, is not such a big deal after all. If the people in Vietnam can find hope after hundreds of years of strife, why should I be negative. Khai told me that he does not feel hatred towards the Americans, in fact he sympathizes with the families of Americans who lost their lives in what he considers a futile war.

One Night in Saigon

2010-04-28T19:47:00.000-07:00

For those of you wishing to browse a gallery of the images, it is at http://www.flickr.com/photos/ngiapheng/sets/72157623829216835/

The choices that I make on this trip are truly arbitrary. But aggressive wheeling dealing cities have never been high on my list of want to get-to-know cities. Saigon, or Ho Chi Minh City as it is known now, is such a place. And if my noise apprentice, Guo Jie, is to be believed, there is almost nothing to see in Saigon (I will use Saigon here because it is more poetic). And he showed me what was worth seeing in one night. I suspect that there is more to see in one of the two major cities in Vietnam, but it is the bustle and human chaos that throws off the gentle soul of Guo Jie. I do not blame him, the bustle jars on my nerves as well.

But it was very nice to have met Guo Jie in Saigon, eat Pho Bo with him and walk to the Majestic hotel to have a diet coke while over looking the Mekong at night. The Filipino band belting out 80s pop music though, were more going through the motions than actually performing.

Over dinner, Guo Jie told me that he was in a panoramic phase, shooting in 16:9 format. And he has found quietness in the anarchy of Saigon. My 16:9 format images for this posting is a gentle nod to Guo Jie's present style, but instead of only finding stillness, I also took pictures of the more typical adrenaline rush of Saigon.

Of Clouds and Silver linings

2010-04-24T20:05:00.000-07:00

After dreaming for over a decade and planning for a year to travel overland, deciding to come back to Singapore after three weeks because of diarrhea was not an easy decision for me. But I just could not be sure if I had a parasite in me or not. So I came back and visited Dr Tan Chi Ciu, a specialists in this area. And to make sure that things were ok, I had to go for a scope. I had told him about my overland trip and he joked with me and said ' Just take this like a journey, but a different kind.' Dr Tan is an ACS boy, with a sense of ACS humour.

Well, the good news is that there were no more signs of any infection so there is really no medical reason for me not to continue the trip. And it sounds like I might have taken a break for no good reason.

The bad news is that after the violent diarrhea that I had, I now have irritable bowel syndrome, so whether I have an infection or not, I can get diarrhea like symptoms. So traveling on 10 hour bus rides with no toilet breaks would be a horrible idea.

The good news is that I have been given medication to control my stomach and so far I seem to be almost normal, except for feeling a bit bloated.

The bad news is that the scope and the medication cost a bomb. And I am going to carry even more medication in addition to the considerable amount of medication I am already carrying.

The good new is that the travel insurance will be paying for the expensive scope and medication.

The bad news is that aside from checking the diarrhea, Dr Tan found a polyp in my intestine which can eventually become cancerous as well as Helicobacter Pylori which leads to stomach ulcers and cancer.

The good news is that Dr Tan removed the polyp and he will be treating me for the Helicobacter Pylori infection when I return from my trip.

Well, the calculation on whether I should have come back in hind sight is way too complicated for me to compute. I really do not know. I talked to a friend of mine and she cut the Gordian knot for me. She told me that I was already back, there is no use looking back. And she is right, I cannot go back now and there is no use wondering what if. I mean this diarrhea has inadvertently helped identify two possible causes for stomach cancer in the future. I had a full health screen before leaving on this trip but without the scope, none of this was picked up. If anything, I think the diarrhea and the medical examination is a blessing in disguise. So I broke my overland trip but in life, shit happens, literally.

So tomorrow, Monday, I fly to Ho Chi Minh City to take the two day train ride along the coast of Vietnam to Hanoi. And this was the other complicating factor, the red shirt stand off in Bangkok. My original plans was to go back south from Laos to get to Ho Chi Minh City to do this train ride, but that would have meant passing through the volatile Bangkok. And if my tummy had held out in Luang Prabang, I had decided to cut west across Laos straight to Hanoi, skipping the two day train ride. But now since I am taking a few flights anyway, I am going to get to go on this exciting trip. And I am looking forward to it.

A friend of mine suggested that maybe I should remain true to the overland journey and start over again. I am sorry, at this point of time, I really do not want to go through Thailand. Things are on a knife edge there. And any train journey would take me to Bangkok, the centre of the tension. After reading Terzani's book, one other option occurred to me, to take a boat some where. And I checked it out, there is a cruise ship that would go to Hanoi and then to Hong Kong, but it would leave on the 1st of May. It would mean that I would skip the Vietnam train ride and that I would by bypass Guilin too. This is because I have a set timing for my tour in Mongolia and if I leave Singapore later, I would have to forgo certain places. I realise that I am being way too pedantic about going 'overland'. I could be technically correct by not taking the a flight out, but I would be missing the fun exciting parts of the trip, the real adventure of the trip. My greatest lesson from Song Krang in Chiang Mai, don't take life too seriously, have fun.

I am flying out on Monday for Ho Chi Minh City. I am having dinner with my noise intern Guo Jie on Monday night and then I am going on a beautiful train ride. Life is good.

I was in Singapore for a week. I had no idea what was happening or what to do. But I managed to catch Ming Wong's installation 'Life of Imitation', 'Through the Looking Glass' at 2902 gallery which has a few really good John Clang works, the gala premier of Wild Rice's 'Animal Farm', Theatrework's 25 anniversary 'Time Capsule' exhibition, 'Kick-ass' which Kicks Asss and 'Mao's Last dancer' which made me cry.

There is so much happening in Singapore and I am so happy. But I need time for myself, to just find new horizons. I was in Singapore for a mere week with a medical situation and I was approached to participate in a civic project and to do an additional couple of shoots. While I appreciate being wanted, this time for myself is critical. This trip is part of my training, to help me find my focus again, and to re-energise myself. And I will come back to Singapore and work again, this is my home. But I believe that I will come back re-invigorated and being able to do even better work, both for myself and for people who would hire me.

The trip continues. The next post will probably from Vietnam.

Luang Prabang in Black and white (Blanc et Noir)

2010-04-19T08:12:00.001-07:00

Thoughts before a break in the journey

2010-04-18T09:36:00.000-07:00

On the last night in Luang Prabang, I had a Hawaiian pizza for dinner. I have conceded that not all is well with my tummy and that I need to return to Singapore to make it well before I continue with my trip. So eating a Hawaiian pizza was actually pretty good. It tasted nice and it sat well within me.

After dinner I walked through the night market, looking for something to buy with my remaining kip. My body felt out of sorts, but I suspect that it was more to do with the stress of deciding to return rather than the effects of diarrhea or dehydration. I looked at the tourist souvenirs on sale and realized there was nothing that I would be happy to put on my wall or give away. And behind the stores I heard the sound of Laotian Music. It was a new year's celebration happening at Wat Mai. So many Laotians, dressed up and wearing a beautiful sash across their bodies, were making offerings to the buddha. Offerings of candles and bunches of Magnolia flowers, simple and elegant. Although there were tourist mingling with the crowd, this was not a tourist affair, like the huge parades they had down the streets during the day. This somehow was a slice of the life of the Laotians.

At the back of the temple, was a group of Laotian Hanumans, dancing before a local audience. The night before I had gone to the Royal Ballet Theatre hoping to catch a performance but was turned away, perhaps because of a power outage. And now before me, were Laotian dancers performing for free. After the group of monkeys came a group of demons. Each group had differing movements, concise and purposeful. The locals and tourists clapped appreciatively after each group. And then came a group of female dancers, the lead dancer in white and other dancers wearing red and gold behind, one dancer looking no older than eight years old. I have seen 'local dance' for tourists, there were some in the temples in Chiang Mai, thoughtlessly going through meaningless stylized motions for money. This was something different, every dancer was dance. They were deep in concentration and somehow it felt like the movements were not meaningless, it was an articulation of their ideals, their essence. And they were not performing for money, they were performing for their own people, in front of their buddha. I was mesmerized.

I know some people like my travel photographs and I am grateful for that. But I do not travel hoping to publish a book, or to check off some list of things to do. I travel in the hope that by allowing myself to live my life, experiences happen. And there are experiences like the wildness of Song Krang, and the purity of the dancers in Wat Mai last night. I suppose that the stomach problems that I have been having are just as much a reality as the wonderful experiences. There is no sanitization of reality. I think that we go to the theatre to watch live performance instead of just buying a video of a performance is that the performer can fail during the performance. On the other hand, the performer may give the performance of a lifetime. So the experience is priceless, the photographs are just shadows.

So little is going according to the plans I made in Singapore, and yet it already is turning out to be a truly personal journey.

One of the reasons I am on this journey is because I have never been physically robust and I have been over protected. I was not allowed to join the scouts. I went to London Contemporary Dance School for a year training to be a dancer but I fell sick so often I realized that my body has its limitations. It was a bitter blow to give up dance. And once again, this stomach problem is a reminder that I am not made like an explorer. But I refuse to accept this limitation. I refuse to stay at home and wrap myself away from harm, because this would mean that I would cut myself off from living as well.

My parents were so worried when I went to dance school because I have a back problem. They were probably waiting for me to become paralyzed from the waist down. But that one year in dance school, was the happiest year of my life. There has been no other defining experience in my life like that year. And for a moment, my body has woken slightly from its slumber and I could feel life to my finger and toe nails. In the end, it is my personal need for living life to the full that stopped me from pursuing dance as a career. My own personal limitations would have made me unhappy and bitter. And now in photography, I have found a more appropriate mode for living.

This personal journey, is to travel in spite of myself. There is no perfect time, body or circumstance for travel. And now I have to make a detour, I am not going to give up and call it a day. I will get back to the journey and do whatever I can. The cocoon of security in Singapore is something that will be good and useful when I am old and frail. Imperfect as I am, I want to be as open to doing as much as I can. And the challenges that come with moments of experience, are all on par for the course of living. Ultimately death will come, but until then why would I want to live a surrogate life, a shade of death of my own fear's making?

Going with the flow and stopping the flow

2010-04-16T21:53:00.000-07:00

Except for the idea that I want to go overland from Singapore to London, which I have already failed, there was no grander plan to this trip. There is no agenda to the trip other than taking the trip. A grand dreamer and the points along the route are arbitrary. Whispers and recommendations from the past mingling with what is possible now.

I used to go to Penang Hill with my family when I was younger, but I hardly saw George Town. Now I know it a little better. I followed my father when he started learning meditation in the North of Thailand. It was close to Chiang Mai, but we never went to Chiang Mai. There is a difference between the beautiful temples in Chiang Mai and the austere, basic wat in Hit Mat Beng. It always seems to me that religion has two separate paths, one for people who are seeking answers, and those who wish to purchase their salvation.

I have heard so much about Luang Prabang from my cousin Alison and how beautiful it is. And it is a beautiful city, an amalgam of rustic charm and french chic. What I did not plan for in my travels is to be in the Lunar New Year, both in Chiang Mai and in Luang Prabang. This was just good luck? I do not know, but I have seen a lot celebration on this trip. I guess what all this celebration is trying to tell me I should not take life too seriously. Like all the water being thrown around, ultimately, I have to go with the flow.

Unfortunately, my tummy is still flowing after two weeks. I thought that it got better after taking a course of antibiotics in Chiang Mai, and there are days I am perfectly fine, but at other times my stomach still runs. I do not feel very sick but I also realise that I am in no state to take long trips on trains and buses for now. Sometimes shit happens.

Anyway, I am returning to Singapore to sort my tummy out. After two weeks this seems rather pathetic to me, but I guess that this is part of the 'flow'. I will have to decide later where to take up this trip again. For now, I am pretty upset, and I am not talking about the tummy.

Packing for travel

2010-04-13T20:21:00.000-07:00

Traveling out of a bag for several months is challenging. Deciding what to take along took some thought.

I guess to start, I decided to take two Olympus E-P1s on this trip with me. I have the 17mm pancake lens which I use the most. I also have the 14-55mm kit lens. I also got a Panasonic 40mm portrait lens. After shooting day in and day out on a Canon 5D and 5D mk II, I find that the E-P1s do not capture as much detail, especially in the shadow areas. That being said, I once went to Europe carrying just a Canon 350d, and the entry level of the Canon cameras also had a less than superb dynamic range. However, by shooting in raw and working on the files, I get pretty decent results. I think carrying a 5D and lenses would leave me too tired to enjoy the trip. And for me, the experience of traveling is more important than carrying all that weight. I am just happy that the E-P1 came out last year. It is just the correct compromise for the trip. I could have bought something like the Canon powershot G11, which would have worked for the day photos. But the E-P1s come into their own at night, in street scenes. Even with less than perfect autofocus, I find the E-P1s good in low light. A lot of people have complained about the focus performance of the E-P1s in low light, comparing it to DSLRs… compared to the G10, it is pretty darn good.

To process files and make blog posts like this one, I brought along a Mac Book Pro 13". I really needed something with some processing power, the Air would just not have cut it for me. The other option is the entry level Mac Book, but the 13" Mac Book Pro is actually lighter than the plastic Mac Book. Once in a while our eyes fool us. I got a portable firewire housing for an external 500gig drive. I use carbon copy cloner and back up my entire Mac Book Pro drive to this external drive. The best thing is something happens to the main drive, I can still boot from the firewire drive.

I bought 'Surge' by Novothink for my iphone. It is an extra battery pack with a solar panel. So far, the solar panel does not seem that effective. But the battery pack works well. I have enough juice in my iphone for two days. But I am careful, switching off 3G and wifi when I am not using them.

With the suggestion of Wan Sheng, I subscribed to Bridge, a data roaming service for Singtel. I bought the 15mb package and it is not really enough for extensive use. Finding wifi hotspots is much more effective. However, there are times when I am lost, having a data link is useful to get map info.

It is funny, but the clothes actually do not take up much space. It could have been even lighter, but I have a very warm sweater, a pair of gloves and a woolen cap for Mongolia. It is cold there throughout the year. Perhaps I should have left this with my friend in Hong Kong. Ah well.

I am caterpillar boots. The boots have ankle support, which is important, but have quick release. I toyed with the idea of wearing the new Gortex army boots for this trip, but tying and untying shoelaces would be such a pain in ass. And considering the number of Buddhist countries I am passing through, where I have to take off shoes to get into temples, this is unthinkable.

I think that the star find for me though is walking trousers from Marks and Spencers. They have a line of outdoor clothing called Blue Harbour. They have many pockets and some of them with zips. Very useful for passports and money. Honestly, I know about neck safes and wallet pouches, but they both make me feel uncomfortable. These walking trousers rock!!

So I packed everything into a High Sierra backpack. I do not know anything about backpacks but this works for me. For security I bought a pacsafe. It is a wire mesh which covers the bag and allows me to tie my bag to a pole or something solid.

It amuses me, but I lined my back pack with a black trash bag. A throw back from my army days. I guess I learnt something there.

Thailand - Black and White slideshow

2010-04-13T08:35:00.000-07:00

Songkrang - Chiang Mai 2010

2010-04-13T08:26:00.000-07:00

Chiang Mai impressions

2010-04-13T08:06:00.000-07:00

I seem to have started very fast and then simply stopped here in Chiang Mai. I have spent a week in this city. It is not too big, but also not a straight forward city. I did spend a fair amount of time in my room trying to calm an over exuberant tummy, but I also slowly explored this city. I was quite upset on the first night I went out into the night bazaar and found a perverse Disneyland of t-shirts tailored to tourists. It reminded me of that song, 'Love for sale', where you can buy young love, old love, any kind of love but true love. But something in me decided to give it a chance. And the next night, I found the market that the locals go to. I also found a row of more upmarket shops along Charenras Road. I am particularly fond of The Gallery, an old Chinese wooden shophouse, which is now an upmarket gallery and restaurant. The food is good and reasonably priced.

I find the temples in Chiang Mai beautiful. And even though it is a tourist destination, Wat Doi Suthep in the hills outside Chiang Mai is still worth the visit. I find the rich gold on red walls elegant. And it has been hard for me to ever find gold elegant. And the buddhist statues of saints and the buddha, slowly being covered in fluttering gold leaf, seems to reflect that one does not reach enlightenment unscathed, intact, but via a path of imperfect trials and tribulations. And there is humor here too. At the front of what is proclaimed 'The Centre of local Culture of Wat Pupparam', is a life sized statue of Donald Duck. And it little shrines all over the city, are toys amongst the religious figures. But the ultimate sense of humor must be their religious new year, Songkran! This must be the largest water fight in the world, and it lasts about a week! I have never seen so many super soakers and pails in one place before. And everyone gets into it from the kids to uncles and grannies. I think life, via Songkran, is trying to tell me to loosen up. Life should not be taken too seriously. And with so many people on the streets, dancing and having fun, it is a potent message.

Oh yes. And thank goodness for Zip Lock bags! Essential for Songkrang.

In spite of the turmoil in Bangkok, and over twenty red shirt protesters dying, it is still peaceful here in Chiang Mai. I heard that there is unrest here too but I have not seen it. What I do find extraordinary is the grace of the people. There is very little hard sell here in Chiang Mai and I get a sense that the Tuk Tuk drivers are not as mercenary as those in Bangkok.

I have not explored the villages around Chiang Mai. I guess this is for another trip.

It may be the April heat, but Chiang Mai has left a mixed impression on me. I guess like any largish city, one must separate the wheat from the chaff.

Malaysia - Black and White Slideshow

2010-04-10T02:40:00.000-07:00

I was at a local night market in Chiang Mai last night and I decided to convert the images to black and white. And suddenly it hit me, this is not a tourist journey, but a personal one. I went back to my Malaysian images and started converting more images to black and white and I think it portrays my journey better than the colour ones.

A first compromise

2010-04-10T02:17:00.000-07:00

I thought that my tummy was better yesterday, but it woke me up this morning and I realised the situation is a little more serious than I took it to be initially. (This is definitely a Penang bug.) So I took a Tuk Tuk to the Chiang Mai Ram hospital and got checked up by a doctor. He gave me a course of anti-biotics, as well as Kaolin and oral rehydration salts. The anti-biotics course is for four days.

I actually feel fine and the doctor says that in general I am fine too. It is just that I have no control over my marathon tummy.

Well, I really cannot take a long bus ride or boat ride right now. The three day trip to Lao Prabang by bus and boat is simply fool hardy. I am staying a couple more days in Chiang Mai now and taking a flight to Lao Prabang on Wednesday. Fingers crossed all will be fine. Otherwise, I may take a flight home to sort this out. So unglam I cannot believe it! But I guess that this is not life threatening and in other respects I'm fine.

On the other hand, I found a really nice guest house closer to the river yesterday, and I hope to shift there for the extra two days in Chiang Mai. And the other thing is that I will be here for the first day of the Songkran Festival, the wet and wild one.

I had plan to take one flight while on tour in Mongolia. But it was not really a compromise because the trip from Singapore to London would have all been by land. This trip from Chiang Mai to Lao Prabang though would be the first compromise.

What to do? When life gives you lemons, make lemonade.

RED means STOP

2010-04-08T09:00:00.000-07:00

My initial plans for my travel through Asia was ambitious. After Chiang Mai, I intended to take a boat trip to Lao Prabang in Laos and there after a bus ride to Vientiane. Then I would go back to Bangkok, go through a relatively questionable trip through Cambodia so that I could arrive in Saigon in Vietnam. This is because I heard that the two day train journey from Saigon to Hanoi along the coast of Vietnam is beautiful. The snag here is that Singapore's Ministry of Foreign Affairs has just issued a warning against visiting Bangkok and other nearby regions because of protesting red-shirt supporters of Thakshin.

Hmmm… I am not a photojournalist, and this civil unrest does not attract me. I am sure that I have friends who are flying into Bangkok to cover this unrest, and I wish them the best.

So a week into my trip, I have to make a major change. Instead of going back South after Vientiane, I will be cutting across east to Vietnam instead. I can still can part of the train ride to Hanoi from Vinh. But this means that I will have quite a few days to spread around. Just as well, my tummy is still running faster than I am in Chiang Mai. So I will be taking a bit more time here in Chiang Mai, in Lao Prabang and in Sarpa. I guess the two day trip from Saigon to Hanoi can wait for another trip, another blog.

The distance I have traveled so far is 2113 km. I sure it is more because the tool I use has the direct distance between cities, but I guess this is not too far off.

Sleeper trains

2010-04-07T09:04:00.000-07:00

It has taken me two days to get from Penang to Chiang Mai. I took a ferry from Penang to Butterworth and took the IE36 train to Bangkok. On the train were backpackers, Malays and Thais. The backpackers were the loudest bunch, talking about the places they have been to, the food they have eaten and the things they have done like diving and surfing. One British couple had a huge surf board with them. They were told that they could take it onto the train without any extra fee at Butterworth, but once we passed the Thai border, they were asked to place the surf board in an unsecured hole and pay an extra 150 baht fee for the board. They were issued a receipt for the money.

For most of the 22 hour trip from Butterworth to Bangkok, we sat on the train seats. But the seats were transformed into surprisingly comfortable beds by the train attendant. It was a whole load of fun, but bumps and rocking of the train, does make it more difficult to get a full nights rest.

Hualamphong Train Station

I got into Bangkok at 11.30 and went immediately to buy my train ticket for Chiang Mai. The train left at 6.10 pm and I had about 6 hours to kill. I went to an internet cafe next to the station to book my hotel in Chiang Mai and check up on email. The owner of the internet cafe asked me where I was from and when I said Singapore, he said it was a great city. And I smiled. And as he said, 'You want to live in Thailand?', two truck loads of red shirt protesters drove past the shop. 'No, I guess I would not want to be living in a place of civil unrest.'

Hualamphong Train Station

After squatting for a few hours more at the Black Canyon cafe in Hualamphong train station, I got onto the special express train 1 for Chiang Mai. This time I had a Thai artist sitting opposite me. His name is Meng Kai. He was furiously doodling on any surface that had space for him to draw on. He told me that he knows a Singaporean artist living in Bangkok, Joseph Ng. The world seems small. We talked about pop art, Japan and architecture. He does not like Frank Gehry but prefers the simple lines of Endo.

Next to us is traveling a family of a Thai woman with American accented son and daughter. Her traveling companion was a bald headed Sri Lankan gentleman that engaged in conversation with Meng Kai and I by calling us brother.

On these long train rides, the landscape changes, some times rice fields, sometimes palm trees, sometimes, coming close to Chiang Mai, a sparse forest reminding me of the title of a book I read years ago, the Stik of Stik. And whether in small towns or big cities, what is obvious is humanity, unglossed, stoic, living in spite of the circumstance.

For me I am traveling in spite of myself. I had a mild cold just before I left Singapore and a remnant cough continued to follow me to Chiang Mai. More disturbing is that I must have eaten something bad in Penang, and my stomach has been gradually getting more upset. I thought that if I just let it be it would resolve itself. But it has not.

So I got into Chiang early this morning, at 7.45 am and checked into my hotel. I have spent the day in bed eating the medicine my father bought for me in Singapore. Fortunately, I took this opportunity to finish off the book, 'A Fortune-Teller Told Me' by Tiziano Terzani. I had already read 'The Great Train Bazaar' by Paul Theoroux before I left Singapore and although an easy read, I found it a little dry. Terzani's book was much more of a personal journey, insightful into the politics and nature of the places he visited.

I hope that I will be in shape to take the boat ride to Lao Prabang in three days time.

A tourist in Penang

2010-04-04T11:13:00.000-07:00

I played tourist in Penang, and it was nice. I did not try very hard to search out hidden secrets, but went with the tourist flow, sitting on a rickshaw and being taken to famous temples and Peranakan homes. And yes, eating well all the way. You can see that the 'modern' world is encroaching on life, but there is still plenty of charm left in Penang.

It strikes me that the scale of George Town Penang, is small, but its aspirations are the same as people all over the world. So many people want to be healthy, wealthy and somehow avoid death. But if you cannot avoid death, let's home that the living relatives will send pleasures like cars and mansions and soft drinks to the other side by burning paper representations of them.

Are we all just searching for other things that we do not know? We are bound by our circumstances, and we try so hard to manipulate it. When our little human efforts have their limited little effects, we pray for higher intervention. We make offerings to figures, hoping that someone else or something else will perform a miracle for us.

I may not have the faith that many people have, I believe in living. This trip is a pilgrimage to life. Taking photos is part of my meditation. Perhaps this act is like that of circling a sacred monument, perhaps it will bring salvation. Or perhaps the moment is perfect, but I am simply too blind to see it.

The first stop on my long journey was very nice and I want to come back to visit Penang again. I do hope that this bodes well for the rest of my trip.

Kuan Yin Temple

Kuan Yin Temple

Altar in a tree outside Kuan Yin Temple

A Hindu altar outside the Kuan Yin Temple

Altar outside the Kuan Yin Temple

Khoo Kingsi Clan House - Part clan house, part religious temple

Khoo Kingsi Clan House

Khoo Kingsi Clan House - Ancestral tablets and a reminder of the inevitable

Hock Teik Cheng Sin Temple

Offerings for the dead,Lebuh Carnavon

Altar at the Chew Village by the sea

A relatively modern dream, already cast aside

Pigging out in Penang

2010-04-03T09:34:00.000-07:00

I do not know anyone in Penang. I wanted to come to this town where I have heard so much about but have never really visited, but this is the town where Shin, who was my studio manager for a while, was born and raised. Shin is living in Chicago right now but she asked her sister to take me out and feed me. And what a day it has been. Shin's uncle has the most outstanding Hokkien Mee I have ever eaten. It is thick and full of pork lard. And the Penang Char Kway Teow was great too.

During breakfast I learnt that Shin's grandmother had a shop that sold noodles. Shin's parents ran a restaurant in Penang. And now Shin's mum owns stores selling food in Camden, London. And of course, it makes sense that Shin is married to a chef. It's all in the family.

This is the incredibly rich Hokkien Mee.

And this is Shin's uncle who loves his Hokkien Mee.

After this rich meal I visited a Buddhist temple that Shin's grandmother used to go to because Shin's mother was there. I guess that I will visit Shin's mum in Camden when I get to London. Something to look forward too.

I spent the afternoon exploring George Town. But in the evening, Shin's sister came and took be out for another treat! Nonya food. And before you say we have that in Singapore, we do not. I had inche kabin tonight, which I have not had in years! And there was Roti Barbi and Choon Peah which I have never ever eaten before. This wonderful food is really unique!! The otak is pretty good too.

What a day of eating. Penang is defintely worth an eating trip by itself.

Good Bye Singapore

2010-04-01T10:14:00.000-07:00

Good morning Singapore. A taxi drive named Gua Chee Leong took me to the train station. The first thing he said when I got into the taxi was 'To the airport?'. I clarified that I wanted to go to the train station and he was saying that not many people go to the train station nowadays. A bit sad. It is a beautiful station.

Samantha came down to send me off. But it was very early, 6.30am and she had to have a cup of Teh Aliah to wake her up.

And Sam taking some photos of me. I guess this is good because there is no way I could take pictures of myself with my rucksack and back pack together. I will have to return to Singapore to see the pictures though. Thanks Sam, for the send off and pictures.

The journey beckons...

Frosted windows looking up at Singaporean flats.

The first thing I notice while traveling, the very first thing really, is how small Singapore is. Sometimes I think of Malaysia as Johor Bahru or Kuala Lumpur, but Malaysia is a huge country. And there is so much space, it just feels more open and reminds me of how small I am.

Kuala Lumpur Central Station

The comfortable clients of KTM.

Afternoon rain.

I am in Penang now. The trip has started and for those of you who were wondering, this is not an April Fool's joke.

The Day Before

2010-03-30T20:10:00.000-07:00

I had lunch with an old friend yesterday that told me that I have been talking about this overland trip since I knew her. It must be about ten years ago then that I have been wanting to do this trip.

I have prepared as much as I can for this trip. But I guess that I will not know if the preparation was correct till I embark on the trip. I did a full health screen for the first time in my life. Nothing much new there as I already knew about my diabetes and cholesterol. I guess the new thing is that I have a gall stone, but I hear it is quite common.

I was hoping to do no work this March, instead I ended up taking on three of the largest jobs that I have ever taken. I really pushed the limits this March and I have caught a cold now. Lots of work also means lots of archiving and back up. I also have a new tenant for the studio. And it is surprising how many people suddenly want to borrow my videos and meet up. But those people I could not meet, I am sorry, time is tight. I hope you still want to meet me when I return!

I have had my teeth cleaned and my hair cut.

It is crazy trying to stuff five and a half months of living into one rucksack. Every inch counts. Like Apple has come out with a new smaller usb charger, I bought it. But I was defeated yesterday in that I could not confine myself to one large rucksack. I am taking a small backpack too.

I am excited, I am apprehensive, but I know that after ten years of saying I will do this, tomorrow, I will do this.

Email through the Chinese firewall

2010-03-13T22:00:00.000-08:00

I was told by a friend that Facebook and Blogger is blocked in China. I am testing out the emailing of a post to Blogger to see if this is a solution around it.

Woohoo, it works!! This post and image got sent over the email system. But I will just have to be more careful over the email posts because I cannot edit till it later.

Prepatory trip to Hong Kong

2010-03-01T17:27:00.001-08:00

A month to go and I am making a short trip to Hong Kong to leave some medicine with a friend so that I can pick it up on the way. Some more medicine will be brought by my parents to London. Having diabetes, has added to the logistics of this trip considerably. That and money. Credit cards are much more handy nowadays than twenty years ago when I went inter railing in Europe. People ask me why I cannot send my medicine to my friend in Hong Kong instead of flying over. The reason is that I am going to test out my credit cards as well.

Yesterday I went to Tan Tock Seng hospital. This trip has got me thinking about my health more than I would have had I not gone on this trip. I went for my first full medical check-up. I doubt that they will find any more issues beyond my diabetes and cholestrol, but I think that in future, I will have to go for check-ups more regularly. Like sending in an older car for servicing. I also went to the traveller's clinic to check out my vaccinations for this trip. It seems like the only thing I need to do is get malaria tablets. I have had the necessary vaccinations from my previous trips.

So far I have my train to Penang, my hotel booking over there. I had to book my train from Beijing to Mongolia, a tour in Mongolia, and the train from Mongolia to Russia on the trans siberian. I also have hotels in Moscow and St. Petersburgh. I am definitely going to Arles for the photographic festival. From a recommendation of an Italian friend, I have booked accommodation on a boat in Arles. It should be fun. The rest of the trip will be booked on the road.

After dreaming of this trip for over five years, it is finally coming up. It is really hard to conceive what I am in for, but I think it will be fun. And hopefully, like one friend said, I will be changed by this trip.

Ticket for the first train

2010-02-17T21:45:00.000-08:00

I went to the KTM train station in Tajong Pagar to buy my train ticket to Butterworth. From Butterworth I will be taking a ferry to Penang where I will be spending the weekend. The date of departure nears.

Why?

2010-01-17T23:46:00.000-08:00

Who? Me
What? Travel by train and bus
When? April to November 2010
Where? Singapore to London and about 20 countries in between
Why?...

Someone asked me 'Why?' I am taking this trip. It was asked by a Singaporean and the underlying context is 'What practical gains will you get from this trip? Will it make you money? Will it make you more powerful?' It is one question that does not have a practical or purposeful answer. It is definitely a financial loss. So 'Why?', 'Why now?' and 'What makes it possible?'

Why? - I am going on an overland trip because I seek an epic adventure. When I was young I would read 'The Hobbit', 'The Lord of the Rings', 'The wizard of Earthsea' and other books. And it is about life changing journeys. For me it is learning more about myself by learning about the world. And I have always loved the romance of traveling by train. The idea of spending months on the road and out of a bag, is a chance for me to live one of my biggest dreams. And in the way I have chosen to travel, it is also a test of my own spirit. Although I have not chosen to do anything too extreme, there will be challenges on this trip, challenges for me to overcome. I want to see the world like I have never seen it before.

Why now? - In my photographic career as well as my own personal work, things have come to a plateau. I am still shooting and my work is useful to other people, but I have become stale. And I cannot find something in Singapore that grabs me, that makes me want to get out bed everyday for the next ten years. I think my passion for dance and dance photography got me out of bed for the first ten of my career. It also inspired me to learn all I could about the craft of photography. But a lot of what I do now seems hollow. I guess one can be philosophical and say that nothing in life is really important, if we can eat, sleep and pro-create, that is the basis of life. However, I think when humans are inspired, they can create something wonderful, even sublime. I am going now because I need a new inspiration, a new insight.

What makes it possible? - Yes, money does make it possible but I also have responsibilities. My biggest responsibility is to my parents. At this point of time they are getting older but they are still healthy. I want to take this trip sooner than later so that if I have to look after them, I can do it whole-heartedly. I ran a studio and had full time staff for about eight years. I let them go at the end of 2008 to become a freelancer again. This meant that I am no longer responsible for the welfare of my staff. I have been thinking of this trip for a while now and I wanted to do it about five years back, but I was engaged to someone who did not travel well and did not want to be separated from me for too long. So I did not do this trip back then. The relationship did not work out and I am single at the moment. So a relationship is also not something that is holding me back. I think that being relatively free of responsibilities at this point of my life makes this the most opportune time to take this trip.

The Route

2010-01-14T00:01:00.000-08:00

It is quite a romantic idea to just set out without planning anything and react to situations as it occurs. However, going through Mongolia and Russia are the two most difficult things to do. Unless I have months to just sit around waiting for visas at the border, a plan with timing has to be set. And you cannot plan far in advance either. You can only apply for a Russian visa three months in advance of entering the country. You also need to have an invitation from the hotel/institution you are going to visit. And it goes much smoother when you do it in the country you are resident in. I wanted to pay my train ticket agent to get the visa for me, but since they are based in the UK, they cannot apply for a visa for me.

So, the truth is, I am more of less planning out my trip week by week or day by day in the case of Russia. I have another consideration as I will be going to Arles during the photographic festival in early July. So although it would be more logical to visit the Baltic states after Russia, I will be zooming across Europe to Arles and then making my way back to the Baltic states.

Well, my rough plan so far is,

Penang, Malaysia
Bangkok, Thailand
Chiang Mai, Thailand
Lao Prabang, Laos
Vientinne, Laos
Phnom Phen, Cambodia
Ho Chi Min, Vietnam
Ha Noi, Vietnam
Sarpa, Vietnam
Guilin, China
Hong Kong
Shanghai, China
Beijing, China
Ulan Bator, Mongolia
Moscow, Russia
Saint Petersburg, Russia
Arles, France
Milan, Italy
Berne, Switzerland
Berlin, Germany
Warsaw, Poland
Vilinus, Lithuania
Riga, Latvia
Talinn, Estonia
Stockholm, Sweden
Copenhagen, Denmark
London, UK

All the places are interesting to visit. The highlights for me though will be the world's fair in Shanghai, three weeks in Mongolia and the photographic festival in Arles.

The planning continues.

The trip in planning

2010-01-11T23:45:00.000-08:00

It is January 2010 and I plan to leave on the trip of my lifetime on April Fool's Day. I think it is an appropriate day to go, for it is the fool in me that allows me to dream, to believe that things can work out. The pragmatic in me would just balk at the enormity of the idea, shit myself and go back to sleep.

I have given myself eight months for this trip, but the actual journey from Singapore to London would take approximately 5 and a half months. I will have about two months back in the United Kingdom. It is hard to believe that I spent nine year of my life in the United Kingdom. I will take this opportunity when I get to UK to visit friends that I have not been able to see on my short trips back so far.

I am not planning a torturous trip and not a luxurious one. And I am getting excited by what I am planning. And I know that it is not just about the places that I will be going to and seeing, but it is also a chance for me to shake up my entire viewpoint to life. To get rid of the old personal barriers and see new vistas, new possibilities.

So, three months before the journey begins physically, the journey has already begun in me.