Discover challenge: doors

 

WordPress editor Cheri Lucas Rowlands recently shared a post entitled “Doors are stories” and invited artists, photographers, fiction and non-fiction writers to share their take on doors.

I’ve always been fascinated by doors and windows and wondered what lies behind.

 

not so much into the lion’s den but in through the lion’s mouth (entrance to an Indian temple)

entrance to the Durgiana temple, also known as the Silver temple, in Amritsar, India

view through a doorway in the Golden temple, Amritsar

a doorway in the old village of Khajuraho, India

 

a door with a fairy tale to tell (Luxembourg-Grund)

main entrance to the Katasteramt (cadastre/land registry office), Trier, Germany

a door within a door, Trier, Germany

DP weekly photo challenge: landscape

Early in 2013 we spent a month touring India, most of the time in Rajasthan. The section of the journey between Udaipur and the Kumbalgarh fortress and thence to Ranakpur was the most special for me, for here we passed through a land that time seemed to have forgotten. Water was drawn up from wells by oxen and women collected  and carried water in pots that they carried on their heads. We passed arid hills covered with thorn bushes, lowland areas in the river valleys bright green with early crops and here and there splashes of colour from the saris of the women working in the fields.

 

 

 

 

Landscape

travel theme: entertainment

A few “entertainment” photos from my archives

graffiti/wall art in India

a group of sculptures in Luxembourg’s Place du Théâtre

colourful characters in Beaufort dispensing good will and alcohol

a series of photos from Luxembourg’s annual street art/animation festival

Tutti Frutti

Gromit

Every couple of years Bristol organises a festival to raise money for the Children’s hospital. Much like the elephant or gorilla parades seen elsewhere in the world Bristol makes use of well known-characters. Blanks are sold to local businesses to be decorated and they are then placed in different locations around the city. A map is provided so that you can visit them all and the figures are of source of entertainment to the children (and adults). In 2013 the theme was Gromit, who features in the cartoons, created in Bristol, called Wallace and Gromit. In 2015 it was the turn of Shaun the lamb (note the play on the words for ‘shorn’).

travel theme: routine

Ailsa’s theme this week is ‘routine‘.

Noun

routine ‎(plural routines)

1. A course of action to be followed regularly; a standard procedure.
2. A set of normal procedures, often performed mechanically.  
   
3. A set piece of an entertainer‘s act.

 

watching the world go by

carrying building materials up the steep hills of McLeodanj, N. India, is daily routine for these pack animals

preparing to feed the thousands of pilgrims who flock to Amritsar’s golden temple every day

every day the Indians and Pakistanis go through an elaborate ceremony, watched by thousands, of opening and closing the border between the 2 countries

bathing one’s water buffalo in the sea in Thailand

Do you have a favourite or hated routine?

travel theme: fruit

fruit offerings in Bali

strange fruit found in Thailand

“custard pie” fruit found in Thailand

fruit sellers in Hanoi

fresh orange juice sellers in India

mango and sticky rice as prepared at cookery school in Cambodia

sharing with Ailsa

Travel theme: gleaming

Most of the countries we’ve visited in Asia go in for gilded decoration in a big way:
gleaming gold in Myanmar

the Shwezigon pagoda in Bagan, Myanmar

gold and white gleam in the golden temple in Amritsar, India

and white gleams at the white temple at Chiang Mai, Thailand

Thanks to Ailsa for this ‘gleaming’ challenge

Travel Photo Mondays: Nek Chand and the rock garden

I don’t usually read The Economist but yesterday I happened to be leafing through a recent copy and came across an obituary of Nek Chand, who died on June 12th, aged 90. Now unless you are Indian or have been to India you probably don’t know who Nek Chand was.
Nek Chand, originally from Pakistan, was responsible for the creation of a rock garden in Chandigarh, which city is more famous for having been designed by Le Corbusier. Initially, in 1958, he started creating his ‘kingdom of gods and goddesses’ in a forest clearing but this was closed down as illegal. However, city officials decided to encourage him and in 1975 the project was given official blessing and took off from there. Today it draws many visitors, apparently it’s second only in India to the Taj Mahal.
“The earliest constructions in his garden in the forest were modelled on both the village life he remembered and the divine haunts he imagined: winding paths, walls and rivers, terraces and waterfalls, temples and alleyways and fairground formations of dancers, musicians, water-carriers, snake-charmers, revellers, horses, buffaloes and birds”. They were constructed from blocks of stone, concrete, and cement to which he added bits of crockery, broken tiles, electrical fittings, glass beads and bracelets, etc.
We visited his wonderful garden a few years ago (more posts of our Indian trip to follow) and it was indeed a magical place.

sharing with Travel Photo Mondays

DP weekly photo challenge: zigzag

staircase of the hotel we stayed in, in Udaipur, India

in the Nek Chand rock garden, Chandigarh, India

Chand baori (step well) at Abaneri, a step well we visited en route from Agra to Pushkar. The well is about 100m deep.

Visit the Daily Post to see more zigzags

Sunday Stills: entrances and gateways

Entrances and gateways are designed to make an impact on the visitor:

entrances to Kykkos monastery, southern Cyprus

entrance to one of the temples in ancient Efes (Ephesus), Turkey

entrance to the great library, Efes, Turkey

Lycian tombs, half way up the cliff face, at Dalyan, Turkey

facade and main entrance to the cathedral/mosque in Famagusta, southern Cyprus (the cathedral was converted into a mosque with the addition of a minaret, the removal of the stained glass windows which were replaced with transparent geometric patterned windows, and the removal of all the pews to allow for carpets to be put on the floor

entrance to part of the Sala Kaeo Kou statuary garden, Thailand

on the way from Bikaner to Mandawa in India, we drove past this rather garish temple entrance

entrance gate to Jaipur, India

Visit Sunday Stills to see more wonderful entrances and gateways from other bloggers around the world.

Travel theme: world cups

tea in Sri Lanka

coffee in Turkey

as served in the Cafe des reves

Golden temple, Amritsar

Ailsa’s travel theme
How many more cups or cup-shaped things are out there?