Timelapse video | Ladakh Landscapes

Ladakh Landscapes | Aug 2011 from Sahil Latheef on Vimeo.
A timelapse video made at various locations in Ladakh,India recently.

[ Kindly excuse the super dramatic music - couldn't think of anything else for this magnificent landscape :-) ]

Sam = :-(

You can’t go to Jaisalmer and not go to see the supposedly ‘spectacular’ sand dunes of Sam!

 But what I realized is that for someone who spend all his childhood in a Desert town (a k a myself) – Sam  (at least the more popular bits of it) – is really really sad!

 Firstly the sand at the dunes is not really good.. then there is the terribly loud and messy tourists that have no respect for the beauty of this desolate landscape...

 .... and last but not the least the horrible attitude of the local hoteliers and camel riders (waiting to pounce on any tourist and rip them off their money). 

All in all it’s a complete waste of time and effort, if you want to see a good desert go somewhere else!

Ming tombs + Great wall

Today we took a day trip to the outskirts of the city of Beijing to see the famed Ming Tombs and the Great Wall of China. 

Here's a few photos from the two world heritage sites, starting with the Ming tombs :

The Ming tombs is a huge site where 13 Ming Dynasty Emperors were buried in their individual complexes with elaborate pavilions and gardens.

The sequence of spaces/gardens reminded me a lot of the Mughal tomb complexes found in the Indian sun-continent.

Moving on further - here's some photos from the Great Wall 
(this is the Badaling section of the Wall)

The way in which this massive stone wall snakes along the contours of this beautiful landscape is really impressive.

As you can imagine the wall being one of the most popular destination for both local and foreign tourists was super crowded and I had to spend a lot of time and effort in trying to capture these photos that make them look almost empty :-)

2000 year old caves are there

'What does that mean? Does it mean that the caves are in that direction or does it mean that they exist' asked Cat and Dem almost in-sync like most other questions/opinions they've shared with me in the last two days! In Indian English 'xyz is there' strangely more often refers to xyz being in existence.

Till yesterday Cat and Dem were acquaintances from my days in London - we had crossed paths because of friends and work quite a few times but we probably didn’t know each other enough to claim to be friends. They are here in Bombay for 3 days as they conclude their 3 month trip of discovering India and a bit of themselves :-)

They started their grand India tour in April when they landed in Bombay and headed south.. Three months later, here they are again waiting to catch a flight back to London having seen more of India (south/north/west) than I have in my entire life. As you can imagine they are quiet tired, but the traveler in me is not able to let them leave the city without showing them something here! Given the fact that they have a flight to catch early tomorrow I was given a difficult task of choosing only one place in Bombay to show them.

Keeping in mind that they've probably had more than their share of the noisy Indian streets/bazaars I decided to take them to the oldest and possibly the quietest part of the city, to a place that is as far away from it as possible but still within it! But these girls had no idea what we were going to see, I had left it as a surprise!

Bombay is one of the few large cities in the world that has an entire forest bang in the center of it. The Borivali national park is no city park... it's a real forest - complete with dense tree cover, lakes, waterfalls and even wild leopards.

This morning we headed straight for Borivali and once we got to the entrance of the national park I told them that we had to take a long walk to deep inside the forest to get away from the madness of the city to see a very special place.… We walked.. and walked and walked some more till we finally got to what seemed like the end of the road.. the place was lined up with lots of cars and hoards of people (so much for my attempt to find them a quiet place in the city!). The crowded road lead straight into some small hills which we could see from far was covered in tiny rows of people scattering up its slopes like lines of ants on a foraging expedition.. it was now time to reveal to them why we had walked soo much and why the heart of the forest was filled with these loud groups!

Not only is the Borivali national park home to a wide variety of flora and fauna, it even has its own lost city - a monastic city of a 100 odd caves carved into its rocky hills by Bhuddist monks. The oldest of which are over 2000 years old.
The famous Kanheri caves of Borivali are one of the most notable sights in the megacity and probably also the most unexpected. Everyone knows that Bombay is one of India youngest cities, a toddler in a country filled with ancient places.. yet here at its heart, deep inside the forest is one of the most impressive relics of a bygone way of life.

Although most of the caves here are quiet austere there are a few exceptions (around 5 of them) which are inspiring to say the least – complete with elaborate sculptures carved onto the cave wall surface and interesting sequence/scale of spaces.

Thankfully in their 3 months in India, Cat and Dem had missed all the other caves in the country (some of which - like the ones in Ajanta and Ellora - are far more elaborate), so the choice of bringing them to see the caves turned out to be a great way to end their first trip to India.

After exploring some of the caves and soaking in a bit of the amazing ambiance it was time for us to head back into the concrete jungle.

I’ve got some friends coming over tonight and the girls are insisting on cooking something special :-)

Some how I get the feeling that I’ll really miss - Cat and Dem…It always amazes me that people you think are worlds apart from you can be soo close! Have a safe journey home and back to India...