Kiran Jonnalagadda’s Blog

This morning I figured I’d try my hand at HDR photography. I have a ton of unused pictures from my 2005 vacation in Southeast Asia. HDR seems like a decent means to rescue them. To make this image of the Bayon, I exported the same image at three exposure levels and combined them using Photomatix Pro.

Update: There was an error in the image URL. This has been fixed.

A month after Bylakuppe, I went to Cambodia and hung out in Buddhist shrines from a different era.

Also tourist infested.

After having his picture taken, this monk, who spoke some English, wrote down the photographer’s email address because he wanted to have a pen pal. Then I got a picture taken too.

(Thanks to Vineeth for help making this picture.)

The Tonlé Sap occupies a great depression formed when the Indian subcontinent collided with Asia. For most of the year it is a shallow river, barely a metre deep, but come monsoon and the lake is now five times in area and the river flowing in reverse, bringing in water from the Mekong downstream. Flooded fields become excellent fisheries, supporting over three million people. When the monsoon abates and water flows out, a rich agricultural sediment is left behind. Entire villages are built on stilts in these fields around the lake’s periphery.

I spent two glorious days exploring the ruins of Angkor in December 2005. When done with the temples the second day, I set out to explore the floating village bordering Siem Reap on the Tonlé Sap. My boatman did not speak any English, but his twelve-year old son Chit did. Chit attended floating school, 3rd standard, 7:30 AM to 3:30 PM and served as tour guide after. He proudly pointed at his school as we went past it.

When I left Cambodia the next morning, I promised my hosts I would visit again. Two days is way too short for such a beautiful country.

Last night I stumbled upon the site of Mr Pumpy, wherein Felix Hude writes about his experiences bicycling around the world. I was immediately reminded of Pete in Cambodia, who cycled from London to Istanbul, and Paul Keller, who was in Bangalore two weeks last November and rode a cycle everywhere.

Heck, it sounds like a good way to get in shape while getting around. If only…

I’ve owned three bicycles in the past decade. I don’t have one now. I’d like to, but am not sure where it’ll fit in my day—each of the previous three exited when my routine changed and they fell into disuse.

Does anyone have a cycle I can borrow for a few weeks?

I’m experimenting with funky panorama software that automagically figures out how to align images. It’s the coolest thing I’ve seen yet. I may even register.

But it’s got limits; anyone know how to cure this one’s distorted perspective? The perspective correction tool in Gimp doesn’t understand that I want to slim this one down the middle.

This structure is one of four towers surrounding the main shrine at Ta Keo. The ground level you see here is two or three floors above actual ground level.

The nice people at the Singapore embassy gave me a multiple entry visa. That’s another first for this trip. Now I want to make full use of it, but there’s nowhere to go around Singapore.

Sorry, folks, but I can’t afford another trip to Cambodia. I’m broke. I will do Cambodia, Vietnam and Laos together another time when I'm better stocked up in the bank and there are fewer tourists around.

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the Angkor Wat at sunrise.


Here’s the same scene from twelve minutes earlier:

Read on...

So I’m in Kuala Lumpur and wondering where to go next. When I started this trip, I had no clear agenda beyond that I was going to visit four neighbouring countries and experience a slice of local life. I was making it up as I went along.

It’s one thing to read about these places and see pictures. It’s another to walk the roads of a strange new city, fending for oneself, experiencing first hand the sights, sounds and grime.

Bangkok was a metropolis, and full of character at that. In Bangkok I found a theme that could carry me through the trip: visit all the metropolises in the region and experience the subtle differences to their characters. On the surface, all big cities are the same: they have wide roads and flyovers and mass transport and rush hours and traffic jams, and are different only for the topography they were built on.

Yet, deeper, each city has unique character. It’s fascinating. In Bangkok, for example, English is a distant second language, used only because it makes for contact with the farangs. It’s otherwise unwanted. Leave the city and even road signs no longer use it. Contrarily, In Kuala Lumpur practically everyone speaks it, in an accent perfectly intelligible to my South Indian upbringing. English is native here.

It makes sense therefore, to round off the trip with another metropolis, using Singapore to counter observations from Bangkok and KL. Cambodia was to be just a side show, visited because its monuments are world famous and it’s so close from Bangkok.

I didn’t expect Cambodia to be a love affair.

I didn’t expect to be so moved by the warmth of the Cambodian people. I didn’t expect to cry learning about their recent history. Now I’m torn between going ahead with visiting Singapore versus returning to Cambodia. There isn’t enough time for both.

Singapore makes rational sense. It’ll round off the study and it’s cheaper. I have friends there for accommodation and a plane ticket out of the place. Changing that ticket at short notice is going to cause a big dent in my budget. To get to Cambodia from Malaysia, I’ll have to fly; another significant expense. It doesn’t help at all that Cambodia runs on USD. (“Hey mister, you wanna buy a cold drink? Only one dollar.” Only, my foot.) And I’ll have to pay for accommodation again. I had no budget for accommodation for the second half of the trip.

I’m staying at Sham’s place here in KL. Sham had to make an unplanned trip to New Zealand and will not be back while I’m here, but was kind enough to put me up with his family. Yes, it’s a bit awkward landing up on unfamiliar people.

For either Singapore or Cambodia, I have to apply for a visa. Each will take at least three days. With one and a half weeks left, it can only be one of the two.

Either I postpone the love affair for another time, or I go for it, and return to Bangalore looking for income rather more desperately.

What should I pick?

udhay suggested I post to Silk List about Cambodia, and AMS wrote in asking for travel advice. I thought I should post it here too.

Avoid the tour operators. You’ll pay way too much. Here is what it cost me for a trip from Bangkok:

Read on...

In Cambodia I met Pete. We were on the same bus.

Pete’s a Brit who, after eight years as a recruitment consultant in London, decided he needed an adventure before settling down. Driven by an interest in Byzantine history, he bicycled from London to Istanbul, camping in open fields and cycling an average four hours a day. The ride took five months.

After a few weeks in Istanbul, he flew to Bangkok to spend sixteen days in the region before heading to Sydney, where he plans to find a job as a bartender in the seediest place possible, likely a strip club. As long as the income covers expenses, he won’t be eating into his savings. When he’s bored of it, he plans to head to the tip of South America, hiking north, finally returning to London.

Pete found me quite curious because I’m the first Indian backpacker he’s met, not counting West-settled Indians. We chatted for a few hours on our respective backgrounds and on what’s changed since he last visited India in 1996 (for six months, then having just graduated). Unfortunately, we couldn’t talk longer. I had to retire by nine since I planned to wake at 4.30 to shoot the sun rising behind Angkor Wat.

That conversation was the first proper one I’ve had since leaving Bangalore. It was energising. I had trouble sleeping. It was also to be exemplary of my overall experience in Cambodia, where everyone I met, whether tourist or local, showed genuine curiosity and regard for well-being.

Cambodia was awesome. I have a good mind to lop Singapore from the itinerary and spend that week in Cambodia again, starting in Phnom Penh and taking a boat up the Tonle Sap to Siem Reap.

Pictures and longer write up coming over the weekend. Have to be up at 5 tomorrow for a trip to the old Siam capital of Ayutthaya.

I’m going to Cambodia in the morning and will be offline for most of the week. This is a short trip: only two days in Siem Reap, visiting the Angkor Wat and Ta Prohm temples, after which I’m back in Bangkok.

Ta Prohm is the setting of the Lara Croft: Tomb Raider games and movie. It’s the scene where a jungle is growing out of a temple. The temples were built nearly a millennia ago, lost to the jungles, and rediscovered again. I’m quite excited to be seeing them in real life.

More later.