Sorry for the absence of this feature these past couple of days but it’s been a busy time that’s left me with little opportunity to blog until today. The weather here in the Pennines has been pretty awful with a lot of heavy rain so I’ve been stuck inside trying to catch up on paperwork, scanning old pictures and planning next month’s round Britain trip. The break has allowed me to add more than 120 plus old railway pictures from 2001-2002 to my Zenfolio website, and you can find which galleries they’ve been added to by following this link. They may only have been taken 18-19 years ago, but in modern railway terms that seems like dog years compared to human ones! I’m amazed how much has changed in that time.
OK, on to what we’re here for – the picture of the day. This one was taken in the Glodok district Jakarta, the capital of Indonesia, on the 15th February 2017.
As someone who’s always been a light sleeper (unless I’ve had a drink) I’ve always been envious of some people’s ability to sleep almost anywhere! This chap had decided to have a siesta in this precarious position. I’ve come across this ability a lot in Asia and it always amazes me. I’ve seen kids curled up on busy pavements or station platforms in India who’re totally oblivious to what’s going on around them. This chap was outside a shop on a busy main road but still managed to get some shut-eye!
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Today’s been a productive – but also hot and sticky, day. 5000 words and a lot of research later my latest magazine article was emailed to the publishers this afternoon. Meanwhile, the next edition of RAIL – which contains an earlier article of mine as well as pictures illustrating others – hits the news-stands. There’s always a sense of achievement mixed with relief when a complex article’s finished. With the weather being what it is at the moment I’m looking forward to being released from the confines of the office, althought there’s still much to do. In less than a months time I’ll be starting my bi-annual tour of the rail network for RAIL and that’s going to present some very special challenges this year as well as a unique opportunity. This time planning will be far more important as options for travel and accomodation will be restricted. Even so, I can’t wait. After being cooped up for so long it’s going to be a delight to be back exploring.
The subject of exploring brings me neatly onto the picture of the day. Back in 1992 I was travelling through Sumatra and met up with a group of like-minded people who persuaded me to sigh up for a 10 day jungle trek on Siberut, the main island of the Mentawai Islands, 150km off the West coast of Sumatra. It was the most amazing experience. Joni, our excellent guide arranged for us to say in Umas – the communal village houses of the indigenous people who lived a hunter-gatherer existence out in the jungle. Our hosts were the local medicine men, the Sikerei, here’s one, who was an incredible character. I took this picture in May 1992…
If you want to see more photographs of my trip to the interior of Siberut, you can find them by following this link.
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Today’s been another less than vintage summer day with a mix of sunshine, showers, high winds and temperatures that are more like October than July. The one consolation is that the Calder Valley always looks beautiful in the constantly changing light and the rain’s left the fields looking radiant with a painter’s palette full of shades of green. Sadly, I’ve not had time to get out with the camera as I’ve various deadlines to meet at the moment so I’ve spent most of the day working from home. Hopefully I’ll be able to tear myself away for a day and hope to make my first rail trip since March.
In the meantime, here’s the picture of the day, which was taken on an island few ventured to in those days. Komodo, island of the dragons…
I took this picture on the 2nd September 1992. I was on my long solo trip and had reached the beautiful Indonesian Island of Flores, where I based myself at the port of Labuanbajo for a few days in order to take a trip to Komodo with a local guide.
In those days small groups would take day trips to the island, sign in with the PHPA wardens, then your group (plus a goat, which was on a one-way trip) would trek out into the bush near the camp where there was a small viewing platform around a shallow depression which had several Komodo dragons of varying sizes hanging around waiting to be fed. The poor goat would have its throat slit and be thrown into the arena, which galvanized the dragons into action – as you can see here. It’s not a sight for the squeamish – and some of these dragons are big buggers!
When I returned with Lynn in 1998 the practice had been stopped at it was realised that it was making the dragons lazy! So, the chance to get photo’s like this anymore is long gone. Not that the goats mind…
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I’ve been busy at home all day bashing keys on my computer to forge a blog on HS2 into an article for RAIL magazine. I did manage to nip out in between my efforts to get my daily exercise and catch up with the world, but otherwise I’ve very much been office based. Still, it’s been a productive day. I’ve also written an earlier blog but it’s a stand-alone piece about HS2, so here’s a pure picture of the day.
Today’s was taken on a 2 month solo trip that I had to Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore and Indonesia. This particular picture was taken in Pejeng, near Ubud in Bali (Indonesia) on the 7th February 2017 when I was spending a few weeks staying with an old friend who now lives on the island. Alison and I first met in India back in 1998 and we’ve remained friends ever since although we don’t get chance to see each other as often as we used to. Anyway, vegetarians – look away now…
This is the famous Babi Guling (Roast suckling pig). Although Indonesia is predominantly Muslim the Balinese are Hindus and suckling pig is a delicacy on the island. This local market stall sold one of the best in the area so it was always busy with locals (and a few knowledgeable tourists) turning up to tuck in. For me, one of the delights of travelling is the ability to try different cuisines and Indonesia has a fantastic array of regional dishes due to the rich variety of produce the islands produce and the historical influences of the cultures that have passed through.
If you want to see the rest of the pictures from my trip you can find them on my Zenfolio website in this gallery.
I’ve a favour to ask… If you enjoy reading this blog, please click on an advert or two. You don’t have to buy anything you don’t want to of course (although if you did find something that tickled your fancy would be fab!), but the revenue from them helps to cover some of the cost of maintaining this site – and right now (because of Covid), us locked-down freelances need all the help that we can get…
I’ve not had time to blog for the past few days as I’ve been busy wading through entries in the ‘It’s your station’ category for the annual Community Rail Awards. I have to say, there’s some excellent entries and the standards are high. It’s also great to see that groups haven’t let the fact they’ve not been allowed near stations to dent their spirit or work with the wider community.
I’ve also been busy with something new. My first listings on ebay have borne fruit so I’ve been learning the ins and outs of online selling and posting out dozens of old slides and railway memorabilia to the winning bidders. Here’s a sample of what’s still available. I’ve hundreds more old slides to list as well as all sorts of ephemera from the post-privatisation era.
With the way the weather’s been it’s been a good time to be stuck at home, as this shot from one of my daily perambulations shows.
I do love the Pennine skies. You never quite know what to expect and they’re constantly changing. Talking of changing, it seems the Government has finally twigged that their ‘stay off public transport’ message has been crippling the railways. Passenger levels are around 16% of normal, whilst car use is almost back to normal and road freight has surpassed norms.
This means that I’ll soon be returning to the rails. Although many events in my diary have been cancelled I have a backlog of jobs to do. 2020 is also the year for my bi-annual trips around the network for RAIL magazine. We’re currently working out when that’s going to be scheduled and where I’m going to go. The trip will certainly be different this year!
In the meantime I’ve a trio of articles to write in the next week as well as finishing the first sift of station judging. It’s going to be a busy time! Hopefully I’ll be able to catch up with some blogging too!
OK, enough of words, lets move on to the picture of the day, which was taken at the Orang-Utan sanctuary at Bukit Lawang, Sumatra in 1998.
I was lucky enough to catch this shot of female and her baby out in the jungle. Nowadays, in the digital era, such a shot would be easy as you’d just ramp up the ISO. This was taken on 100asa slide film which was a hell of a challenge!
This unearthly landscape is Mount Bromo which is in the Bromo Tengger Semeru National Park in East Java. The picture shows Mount Bromo crater, Mount Batok, and Semeru. It was taken from the edge of Segara Wedi (the “Sea of Sands”) atop Mount Penanjakan. You can walk here in a few hours from the nearby village of Cemoro Lawang, which is where most people stay overnight as you get up very early to make your way to the crater edge for sunrise. It’s one of the most surreal landscapes I’ve seen as – at first you’ve no idea what you’re going to see as it’s dark – but it’s certainly worth the trip.
The volcanoes here are still very active and have erupted several times recently in 2004, 2010, 2011 and 2015.
I was here travelling on my own and I have to say I rather fell in love with Indonesia. I’d arrived in Java by ferry from Sumatra, then made my way overland by bus and train from Jakarta via several stops before catching the ferry to Bali, where I stayed for a few weeks before making my way by ferry and bus through the islands of Lombok, Sumbawa, Flores, Komodo and finally to Kupang, Timor before flying out to Darwin, Australia. It was an epic trip which one day I’ll get around to writing about. I doubt very many people still travel that route nowadays due to visa restrictions and cheap flights!
If you want to see more of my pictures from Indonesia, just click on this link.
I’ve a favour to ask… If you enjoy reading this blog, please click on an advert or two. You don’t have to buy anything you don’t want to of course (although if you did find something that tickled your fancy would be fab!), but the revenue from them helps to cover some of the cost of maintaining this site – and right now (because of Covid), us locked-down freelances need all the help that we can get… Thank you!
The run of glorious sunshine we’ve had these past couple of days has come to an abrupt end thanks to the arrival of some very unsettled weather. Today we’ve had blustering clouds that didn’t amount to anything, clear skies and sunshine where the UV was akin to Superman’s X-Ray vision and finally, a thunderstorm that produced lots of noise and torrential rain, but little lightning – which was rather disappointing as I do love a good storm. For most of the day I was trapped inside, slaving away over a hot laptop as I researched some articles and also sorted out a variety of old pictures. As is often the case the day flew by and the Friday night quiz seemed to come around in no time. This week we extended it as Tony Allan had some old copies of the ‘Pub Paper’ so we went back to what was topical in 2015 – which seems like another world now.
This weekend Dawn is on another ‘virtual retreat’, so I’ll be staying in the background and working on various different projects whilst trying not to get in Dee’s way. After all, it’s not like I’ve nothing to fill my time with.
OK, enough of the present, let’s move on to today’s…
Picture of the day.
This is a very special place and one that I would dearly love to go back to, although it’s harder than it used to be, which is rather odd in this day and age.
This is Lake Maninjau in West Sumatra, Indonesia. I took this in (I think) July 1992. It’s an absolutely stunning place. The lake is actually inside the caldera of an extinct volcano. I stopped here for a few weeks during a trip overland through Sumatra and used it as a base to visit the Mentawai Islands (another long story and pictures) during a year long -solo trip in 1991-92. This was taken from the verandah if the little homestay I’d found a room in. You can see the clouds boil in over the edge of the caldera on the opposite side of the lake approximately 4km away as a storm came in from the West. You could relax as you knew it would be at least another 20-30m before it reached our side of the crater.
When I did this trip I caught a ferry from Georgetown in Malaysia to Medan in North Sumatra, then travelled overland by bus via Lake Toba and across the Equator to Maninjau. Nowadays the ferry’s finished and visa restrictions mean few travellers come here anymore.
I’ll explain more tomorrow when I have time to add to this blog. In the meantime, if you want to see more pictures of Sumatra, follow this link.
Despite it being a Sunday I’ve had a busy time in the office scanning old slides as I continue my efforts to wade through the archive and get everything on to my Zenfolio picture website.
Eschewing the recent series of rail pictures I picked out some old travel slides that I’d placed with the old ‘Lonely Planet’ picture library back in the 2000s before they were sold to the BBC and then on to Getty. The world of travel pictures was very different then and it was rather a nice income stream. Those days are long gone. I had the original images returned by Getty a few years ago when they joined the rest of the archive awaiting scanning. This morning I scanned a selection from Indonesia taken on my travels in 1992 and 1998. Here’s a look at a few of them.
This is an image taken at Lake Maninjau in West Sumatra back in June 1992. I spent several weeks on the island which was a fantastic place to travel. In those days you could enter the island by ferry from Georgetown on Penang Island Malaysia. A hydrofoil would carry you across the Straits of Malacca to Belawan in Northern Sumatra which was the port for the main city of Medan. In those days backpackers like myself would travel overland and the next stop for most (including me) was the volcanic Lake Toba. But, I’d been tipped off by other travellers I’d met heading in the opposite direction to me that there was an even more amazing and magnificent volcanic lake – Maninjau – in West Sumatra. They were right. As much as I enjoyed Toba and the Batak culture, Maninjau and the local Minangkabau people were even more interesting. Ever visited a matrilineal Muslim community before? No, neither had I! The lake itself is 16 km long, 7km wide and averages a depth of 105m. It sits at the bottom of a volcanic caldera and it’s an amazing place to arrive at when you reach the lip of the crater then drop down a road with 44 hairpin bends before you reach the main village on the edge of the lake. The picture as taken from the back deck of the little homestay I was residing in. You could bask in the sun, have a swim and then watch the weather change like this, as a rainstorm crept in from the West and boiled in over the crater edge. You knew you still had 20-30 minutes before it reached you. It was a beautiful place to stay, kick back and relax and enjoy activities like walking or cycling around the lake – or just sit and read a book before heading out for some delicious Padang food. I’d love to go back as I was last there in 1998.
This picture was taken on the same trip. I left West Sumatra by ferry from Padang and headed to Java, making my way slowly Eastwards across the island by rail and bus until I arrived here at Mt Bromo.
It’s the most incredible landscape as it really doesn’t look like it belongs on this planet. This is the view from the edge of the original volcanic crater which was taken one sunrise in June 1992. Three smaller volcanos sit in the ‘sea of sands’ inside the original crater. It’ll take you 45 minutes to walk across to them. The volcanoes are still active and have erupted several time in the past 20 years the last time being 2015. Indonesia is famous for its volcanoes, many of which remain active. I visited several but Mt Bromo has to be the most spectacular.
Here’s something a bit different from another trip Lynn and I did across Indonesia back in 1998. This shot was taken at a big cremation ceremony in Ubud, Bali back in October 1998. I’ve long admired the way the Balinese have managed to hang on to their distinctive culture despite mass tourism and being part of an overwhelmingly Muslim country. You might not see much of it if you stay in the tourist traps of Kuta and Sanur on the islands most Southern tip, but get into the hills and it’s very different. The reason I took this shot is because of the juxtaposition of the traditional and modern. Here’s an important and wealthy man in traditional Balinese dress who’s helping run the whole ceremony and he’s on his mobile phone. This is 1998 remember. In those days only 1 in 5 people in the UK had one. Lynn and I were still communicating with most people via ‘snail mail’ and poste restante letter drops as the few places you could find internet access in Indonesia were Post Offices where you used slow, expensive and unreliable dial-up internet. How things have changed in 20 odd years!
If you want to view the rest of the pictures from Indonesia, click on this link.
Today’s been yet another wet and windy day in the Calder valley and one I’ve been glad that I’ve not had to venture afar in. Most of it has been spent working at home, apart from an afternoon ‘constitutional’ stroll along the canal and a trip up to my local pub, the ‘Big 6’ to meet up with friends and take part in the Friday quiz which is read out my Mel, in her broad Lancashire accent. Guessing what she’s saying is almost as challenging as getting the answers right (sorry Mel!). To give you an idea, heard of the film Ben Hur? In a Lancashire accent Hur is ‘hair’!
It was a pleasant interlude and nice to spend time having a laugh with friends as my other half is down in London this weekend with the ‘girls’. Right now I’m having a quiet night in and trying to sort through more old pictures. Looking through them makes me very conscious of how time’s flying by. Recently I’ve been adding hundreds of old rail pictures to my Zenfolio website. What I’ve neglected is the 1000s of travel pictures in my collection. Tonight I came across one of my old portfolios which I used to tout around the national newspapers and travel magazines when I first turned professional and lived in London. The internet was in its infancy then so you used to ring up newspapers and magazines to try and get appointments with their picture editors to show off your pictures. Sometimes it would go well, other times not. The worst were some of the travel magazines where Mummy or Daddy had got someone a job through their connections. I’m naming no names, but I remember turning up at one (well known brand) where the bright young thing didn’t even have access to a loupe or a lightbox, so held up a sheet of slides to one of the overhead fluorescent tubes and said “oh, these are pretty colours”…
Here’s a couple of the pictures from those old portfolios and the story behind them. This is a mother Orangutan and her baby trying to pinch some of the bunch of bananas from her mouth which was taken in the Bukit Lawang sanctuary in Sumatra, Indonesia back in July 1998. We were very privileged to see such amazing creatures in the wild.
Lynn (my ex-wife) and I were travelling around the world for 18 months at the time and spent several months in Sumatra. Then, SE Asia was in the doldrums of their ‘Economic Crisis’ which was terrible for them, but good for us as the value of the pound was amazing. I’d been there a few years before when £1 would get you 3,500 Rupiah. When we were there it would buy you 22,000 Rupiah! I look back on those times and realise just how lucky we were to be travelling then, because so much has changed since. Here’s the next picture, which has a very different tale to tell.
This picture was taken as a wedding in Bhavnagar, which is in the Gujarat state in Western India. It was taken on the 19th February 2000. One of the reasons I like it is the way one young girl was distracted and looked away, but that’s not the full story. Bhavnager isn’t on the tourist trail (far from it).
Lynn and I had been out on holiday in South India but I stayed on to explore the railways as the Gujarat was the last place steam locomotives operated. Sadly, I missed them by a couple of weeks, but that’s another story. Bhavnagar is also where Gandhi went to college, so I was interested in it to get travel pictures too.
Whilst I was there I was invited by this family to attend a wedding. It’s not an uncommon experience and Indian weddings are a delight for photographers like me and also a great way to get to meet local people. But there’s yet another layer to this tale…
On my way home I lost some of my notes, including the family’s address, so I was never able to send them the pictures, or keep in contact. Almost a year later, on the 26th January 2001 an earthquake struck the Gujarat. Measuring 6.9 on the Richter scale and lasting about 110 seconds, it was the most powerful earthquake to strike India in half a century. 20,000 people died and when I see this picture I often wonder what the fate of these young girls was.
I wish I had more time to scan these old slides. There’s so many stories they can tell, and so many memories…
I’m on my penultimate day in Bali before moving on to Java and beginning my trek all the way back up to Bangkok. This is the first time I’ve been back to the island in 5 years. A sobering thought is that I first came here as a solo overland backpacker way back in 1992, 25 years ago! Part of me wished that I’d brought my old diaries with me, but as they’re not digitised, they’re too valuable to risk. This trip has made me resolve to remedy that – as well as concentrate getting the hundreds of slides from the trip scanned. I left the UK in October 1991 and didn’t return until a year later. I spent five months in Indonesia, island-hopping from Sumatra to East Timor via local buses and ferries. In these days of cheap flights (and more onerous visa restrictions) it’s a feat no-one attempts anymore. I came back & repeated the trip as far as Flores with my late partner, Lynn in 1998 but we also came to Bali a couple of times on holidays. Those experiences have given me the perspective to see how much Bali has changed in a quarter of a century.
Admittedly, this isn’t the same island-ranging trip as before as my primary reason for visiting was to come and see Alison, an old Australian friend whom Lynn and I first met in India in 1998 and who now lives here. Alison accompanied the pair of us on chunks of our 18 month trip around the world onwards from that point, sharing many of our adventures. So, most of my time here has been spent in the Ubud area where Alison has a home and business, Mingle Cafe. To say the place has changed since 1992 is an understatement. It’s grown hugely as money, tourists and expats have flooded in. Traffic is a bit of a nightmare too. Roads that used to be reasonably quiet have become sclerotic with parked cars & scooters. Suicidal tourists on scooters don’t help. Some of them insist on driving down one-way streets or weave in and out of traffic as if it really matters that they get somewhere a couple of minutes quicker (this is Bali, for God’s sake, they taught the Spanish the meaning of ‘Manyana’!)
Some of the places I had fond memories of have gone, others remain. Sadly one of my favourite restaurants serving authentic Balinese veggie dishes has disappeared since 2012, There’s a few new eyesores in Ubud (especially on Monkey Forest road, where there’s some monstrous but half abandoned buildings), but there’s also some attractive additions as traditional buildings have been expanded in a tasteful and respectful manner. That said, there does seem to have been a bit of a ‘building boom’ that’s outstripped demand. I passed quite a few shops & showrooms that have been built speculatively, without any thought to location or commercial need. Most (but not all) of the building is ribbon development. It’s filled up the spaces along the roads but the rice paddies behind largely remain intact as I saw for myself when I flew in from Thailand.
What hasn’t changed is the Balinese people. They’re still as friendly and welcoming as ever, and their unique culture survives, seemingly unscathed. I’ve always thought the Balinese were object lessons in how to hang on to your culture despite mass tourism – even with the latest human waves to hit the island (first the Russians, now the Chinese). Religious ceremonies and practices that have endured for centuries are still part of daily life here – even if some have been updated to reflect the modern age. I took part in one example shortly after arriving. Tumpak Landep is the day to pay homage to metal heirlooms (such as old daggers handed down through the generations). Nowadays its expanded to include blessing everyday items such as cars and scooters! Nonetheless, it’s taken seriously, families don their traditional clothing as always for such occasions and the blessings are performed. I can’t help but admire the Balinese for this. Their religion still has such a big part to play in their everyday lives that we in the West can’t really imagine it unless we experience it. Here’s a selection of pictures from Tumpak Landep;
Blessing and sprinkling holy water on offerings and family heirlooms.
A young girl places offerings that have been blessed and sprinkled with holy water onto one of the family’s scooters.
I’ll be sad to leave as I’ve always loved Bali. Plus, it’s been a joy to catch up with Alison and it’s been an interesting time being part of an expatriate community intertwined with the local Balinese music scene (something I rarely experience on my travels). I’m determined that won’t be another five years before I return.
Next, I move on to Java, somewhere I’ve not been back to since 1998. I’m starting the trip in a city I’ve never experienced before – Surabaya, so that should be fun…
Paul Bigland 