This is Vinicunca [wikipedia.org]. Commonly called Rainbow Mountain or The Mountain of Seven Colors. This photo was taken some 5,000 meters above sea level after a grueling climb (According to Wikipedia Vinicunca is 5,200 m.a.s.l., but that is the peak and we did not go to the highest point we stopped just above 5,000, so I’ll stick with 5,000 as my personal best). The climb itself would not be too hard, less than 500 meters vertical over a 5 kilometer trail, if it were not for the altitude. The altitude makes every step up, even a gentle grade, work is and the last 40 meters or so is a real lung burning experience. Every 10 steps I needed to rest for 2 minutes to catch my breath. But I made it up, without a horse (you can rent a horse).
For perspective: The highest point in the continental US is Mount Whitney [wikipedia.org] at 4,421 m.a.s.l. The highest point in Europe is Mount Blanc [wikipedia.org] at 4,808 m.a.s.l. (if you count the Caucus mountains on the Russia-Georga border as part of Europe then there are several taller mountains: Mount Elbrus [wikipedia.org] trumps me at 5,642 m.a.s.l. as does Dykh-Tau [wikipedia.org] at 5,205 m.a.s.l. and Shkhara [Wikipedia.org] at 5,193 m.a.s.l. — but that’s lower than the peak of Vinicunca so I’m going to stop there.) And finally, Everest South Base Camp in Nepal is 5,364 m.a.s.l. (North Base Camp is in Tibet at 5,150 m.a.s.l.).
Late as usual but… the family took a trip to Bali for a few days. Relaxing trip, spending time in the pool and walking the beach. We did take a day tour and see a few of the sights. We stayed in Seminyak, and the beach had sand like icing sugar. Would have been awesome except there was too much trash. This was March right when this video of a diver swimming through a swarm of trash [theguardian.com] came out. I’ve been to Jakarta for work many times and to Bintan a few times, same story there. Indonesia has a problem, a massive problem.
We drove up into the mountains to see Mount Batur [wikipedia.org] and Lake Batur. A long drive for mediocre weather to obscure the top of the mountain. We stopped at a museum, setup as part of the Batur Geopark, part of the Global Geoparks Network [wikipedia.org]. But everything was in Indonesian so we didn’t spend too much time there.
On the way back we stopped at Tirta Empul [wikipedia.org] temple. Lots of statues and people taking their ritual bath. The temple is built around some natural springs which were cool to watch, rolling the sand at the bottom of a couple of crystal clear pools. Did I mention the status? I loved the status.
As we were finishing our walk around Tirta Empul it started raining. Hard. Even with an umbrella I got soaked from what Forest Gump would call rain that “come straight up from underneath”.
For our last stop we visited Uluwatu Temple [wikipedia.org]. This is one of the spots on Bali you have definitely seen photos of. The temple is perched on sheer cliffs at the southernmost tip of the island. Of course we stayed for the sunset and “fire dance”, or more properly “Kecak Dance”. Given that it’s sold as a fire dance there was not as much fire as I expected.
There are many more places in Bali that I would like to see, so maybe I will push to go back for a holiday again soon.
I was lucky to be in Japan in April, a few days after the peak of the sakura bloom. I had a Sunday afternoon free and one evening. In all the pictures of sakura I strangely find this photo to be my favourite.
I took a short trip to Chiang Mai in March with the family. Just a few days. We visited an Elephant sanctuary and a place called the Bua Thong waterfall — for which there is no Wikipedia article a pitty!. The waterfall is also known as “Sticky Waterfall” because the calcium rich waters have created cascading mounds of limestone and there is very little algae on the rocks meaning you can get a very good footing in the limestone and despite the relatively steep incline you can walk up and down the face of the waterfall with ease. It was very fun and refreshing walking around in the cool water in the 40° temperature, lots of green (most of the area was more brown than green this time of year) and lots of butterflies.
The photo above is of the Chedi at Wat Chedi Luang [wikipedia.org] —which does have a wikipedia page! The Wat is very beautiful and I was there just in time to catch the wonderful light at sunset. You can see a few more photos in in the photoset on filckr [flickr.com].
As usual it takes me more than half a year to post holiday photos and write a few lines about it. This time it’s June 2016’s holiday to Vietnam [wikipedia.org]. A packaged tour to Hanoi, Sapa and Halong Bay.
We flew into Hanoi [wikipedia.org]. Our first stop was the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum [wikipedia.org] followed by a visit to the Presidential Palace Historical Site [wikipedia.org] built by the French as the seat for the Governor-General of Indochina and where Ho Chi Minh [wikipedia.org] later lived as President, though not in the European style palace rather in a more modest and traditional stilt house.
Later we visited the Temple of Literature [wikipedia.org]. Dedicated to “Confucius, sages and scholars” and home to the first university in Vietnam, founded in 1076 (take that Oxford and Bologna). The most interesting thing is the Stelae of the Doctors which are 82 large stone statues of Turtles with a large — meter and a half or so? — tablet standing on their backs and inscribed with the names of the graduates and staff of the university.
After the Temple we took a rest and had dinner before boarding an overnight train to Sa Pa. An adventure for my daughters who could not sleep. We left late and arrived in Lào Cai [wikipedia.org] before 6AM. From Lao Cai we took a bus up into the hills to Sa Pa [wikipedia.org].
We didn’t do much in Sapa town itself, just eating and sleeping (and a bit of pool time). We spent our two days treking around two local villages – Lao Chải a Black Hmong [wikipedia.org] village and Tả Phìn a Red Dao [wikipedia.org] (the ‘D’, written as ‘Đ’ in Vietnamese, is pronounced like a ‘Z’). The villages are beautiful, bright green rice paddies in the valleys between mountains but you do spend the whole hike being followed by eager locals hawking things. That gets real old after a few kilometers. I know they are just trying to make a living but if you do buy something from one then you become a target for the rest.
We spent most of a day driving back from Sa Pa to Hanoi and spent the evening in the Lotte Hotel. Shopping, swimming and watching the traffic 30-plus storeys below. The next day we spent the morning driving from Hanoi to the coast to visit Ha Long Bay [wikipedia.org]. We spent the early afternoon sailing among the limestone karst formations that make up the bay and visited a floating village to get a more up-close view via a traditional row boat trip around some of the islands.
After a night on the boat — another first for the kids, along with the train — we visited Sung Sot cave and Monkey Island beach. And then a long ride back to Hanoi.
The last evening in Hanoi we went to see a traditional water puppet show which was interesting. Very annoying the number of ass holes recording the whole show on their phones or taking photos and forgetting to turn off the damn flash despite being asked in, like, seven languages to no take videos or photos. So unless you are in the front row you get to enjoy the show with 5 or 10 small screens in your view. Ass holes.
You can see full photoset for each location on Flickr:
