tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-67656818536416953492024-03-13T00:23:00.100-07:00Stuart Butler Journalist and Photographerstuart butlerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03344630768242182508noreply@blogger.comBlogger57125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6765681853641695349.post-27024654988403637742015-05-20T11:03:00.002-07:002015-05-20T11:03:57.581-07:00Walking With The Maasai Project<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div style="background: white; line-height: 24.0pt; margin-bottom: 15.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #706c66; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 24.0pt; margin-bottom: 15.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #706c66; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMjmC9LepeM7Ud3jdGAk9cdybJSO7QEdWVJ2r0JioQ8R8w5MLKrsN9preJhhMvA7CSplizrCjqQxhfABIudhbgIqIbfwBAv3nLraPN4s8aTTh-BuLGRfcIw1iIO1A58E8ggyY4xktJFYo/s1600/IMG_8844-4+small.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMjmC9LepeM7Ud3jdGAk9cdybJSO7QEdWVJ2r0JioQ8R8w5MLKrsN9preJhhMvA7CSplizrCjqQxhfABIudhbgIqIbfwBAv3nLraPN4s8aTTh-BuLGRfcIw1iIO1A58E8ggyY4xktJFYo/s320/IMG_8844-4+small.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 24.0pt; margin-bottom: 15.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #706c66; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 24.0pt; margin-bottom: 15.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #706c66; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt;">My big project for 2015 is
Walking with the Maasai; a one month walk across the Maasai lands of Kenya that
will result in a books, photographic projects and a speaking tour.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 24.0pt; margin-bottom: 15.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: #706c66; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt;">Over the
course of May and June 2015 a Maasai companion, Josphat Mako, and I shall walk
around 200km across a part of Kenya’s Maasai lands. The walk begins from the
highest point of the remote, forested and little visited Loita Hills before
heading westwards to the edge of the famous Masai Mara National Reserve.
Skirting around the edge of the reserve we will walk through several of the
private and community conservancies (essentially private game reserves) before
finishing at the foot of the Oloololo Escarpment at the western edge of the
Mara North conservancy.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 24.0pt; margin-bottom: 15.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: #706c66; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt;">The point
of this project is not so much the walk itself but rather to get to know the
Maasai and the landscapes and animals they live with. There’s no set in stone
route and there will be numerous deviations and diversions in order to take in
as many interesting encounters as possible.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 24.0pt; margin-bottom: 15.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: #706c66; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt;">Along the
way I will visit and sleep in Maasai villages and spend as much time as
possible with the Maasai learning what I can about their culture and
contemporary lifestyles. But it’s not all going to be about the Maasai. By
walking at a leisurely pace I am hoping to also understand something of the
landscapes and wildlife of the region. Nights when I’m not a guest of the
Maasai will see us camping in the bush with the animals or, around the Masai
Mara itself, even visiting and staying in safari camps. The end result will be
for me to gain a more in-depth understanding of contemporary Maasai lifestyle
and the impact of 21<sup>st</sup><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>century
life, conservation, political pressures and tourism on them.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 24.0pt; margin-bottom: 15.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: #706c66; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt;">For more
on this project please see and follow the dedicated website and blog: </span><a href="http://www.walkingwiththemaasai.com/"><span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt;">www.walkingwiththemaasai.com</span></a><span style="color: #706c66; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 24.0pt; margin-bottom: 15.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: #706c66; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt;">And like
the dedicated Facebook page: </span><a href="https://www.facebook.com/pages/Walking-with-the-Maasai/421479961339808?ref=hl"><span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt;">https://www.facebook.com/pages/Walking-with-the-Maasai/421479961339808?ref=hl</span></a><span style="color: #706c66; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 24.0pt; margin-bottom: 15.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: #706c66; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt;">Please
also follow the progress of the walk on Twitter: </span><a class="DashboardProfileCard-screennameLink u-linkComplex u-linkClean" href="https://twitter.com/StuartButler2" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #0084b4; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px; outline: 0px; padding-right: 5px; text-align: left; text-decoration: none !important;"><span style="color: #0084b4; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px; padding-right: 5px; text-align: left;">@</span></span><span class="u-linkComplex-target" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #0084b4; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px; outline: 0px; padding-right: 5px; text-align: left; text-decoration: underline !important;">StuartButler2</span></a><span style="color: #706c66; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 24pt;"> and Instagram: stuartbutler1974</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
</div>
stuart butlerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03344630768242182508noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6765681853641695349.post-68063518820504822162014-04-28T14:10:00.003-07:002014-04-28T14:13:37.355-07:00Latest Photographic Work: Ethiopia<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
It was a long while ago now but back in September and October 2012 I had the great pleasure in travelling around West Ethiopia and Addis Ababa as well as a quick side-trip to Harar in eastern Ethiopia in order to update the (now published) new Lonely Planet Ethiopia guide. One of my favourite books to work on to one of my favourite countries to travel through and I was really excited to get way out to the west - a place I'd never before visited.<br />
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Enjoy the photos: </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/25936994@N00/sets/72157643582746873/">https://www.flickr.com/photos/25936994@N00/sets/72157643582746873/</a></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
</div>
stuart butlerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03344630768242182508noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6765681853641695349.post-4171722481788866392014-01-22T00:17:00.001-08:002014-01-22T00:17:42.121-08:00Latest Work: Ijen Crater Sulpher Miners, Java, Indonesia 2013<div style="padding: 0; overflow: hidden; margin: 0; width: 500px;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/25936994@N00/12019333556/in/set-72157640003169236/" title="IMG_9431" style="display: block; padding: 0 10px 10px 0; width: 75px; height: 75px; float: left;"><img src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7296/12019333556_0bc012297f_s.jpg" alt="IMG_9431" style="border:none; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 75px; height: 75px;"/></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/25936994@N00/12053577643/in/set-72157640003169236/" title="IMG_9380" style="display: block; padding: 0 10px 10px 0; width: 75px; height: 75px; float: left;"><img src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7436/12053577643_00a1d26bbe_s.jpg" alt="IMG_9380" style="border:none; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 75px; height: 75px;"/></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/25936994@N00/12019342295/in/set-72157640003169236/" title="IMG_9039" style="display: block; padding: 0 10px 10px 0; width: 75px; height: 75px; float: left;"><img src="http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5494/12019342295_25c0c6d3e9_s.jpg" alt="IMG_9039" style="border:none; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 75px; height: 75px;"/></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/25936994@N00/12019035433/in/set-72157640003169236/" title="IMG_9320" style="display: block; padding: 0 10px 10px 0; width: 75px; height: 75px; float: left;"><img src="http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3827/12019035433_d6e09c336e_s.jpg" alt="IMG_9320" style="border:none; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 75px; height: 75px;"/></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/25936994@N00/12054197036/in/set-72157640003169236/" title="IMG_9090" style="display: block; padding: 0 10px 10px 0; width: 75px; height: 75px; float: left;"><img src="http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3826/12054197036_002799e883_s.jpg" alt="IMG_9090" style="border:none; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 75px; height: 75px;"/></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/25936994@N00/12019193643/in/set-72157640003169236/" title="IMG_9256" style="display: block; padding: 0 0 10px 0; width: 75px; height: 75px; float: left;"><img src="http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5509/12019193643_38dcbb3146_s.jpg" alt="IMG_9256" style="border:none; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 75px; height: 75px;"/></a><br clear="all"/><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/25936994@N00/12018948753/in/set-72157640003169236/" title="IMG_9341" style="display: block; padding: 0 10px 10px 0; width: 75px; height: 75px; float: left;"><img src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7421/12018948753_df32a8d3ee_s.jpg" alt="IMG_9341" style="border:none; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 75px; height: 75px;"/></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/25936994@N00/12019216155/in/set-72157640003169236/" title="IMG_9192" style="display: block; padding: 0 10px 10px 0; width: 75px; height: 75px; float: left;"><img src="http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5496/12019216155_fd606b4c80_s.jpg" alt="IMG_9192" style="border:none; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 75px; height: 75px;"/></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/25936994@N00/12019143105/in/set-72157640003169236/" title="IMG_9198" style="display: block; padding: 0 10px 10px 0; width: 75px; height: 75px; float: left;"><img src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7382/12019143105_a29c045584_s.jpg" alt="IMG_9198" style="border:none; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 75px; height: 75px;"/></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/25936994@N00/12019683706/in/set-72157640003169236/" title="IMG_9257" style="display: block; padding: 0 10px 10px 0; width: 75px; height: 75px; float: left;"><img src="http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2805/12019683706_0beb3c5c4c_s.jpg" alt="IMG_9257" style="border:none; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 75px; height: 75px;"/></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/25936994@N00/12019134864/in/set-72157640003169236/" title="IMG_9307" style="display: block; padding: 0 10px 10px 0; width: 75px; height: 75px; float: left;"><img src="http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2838/12019134864_c4dd6b5e3a_s.jpg" alt="IMG_9307" style="border:none; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 75px; height: 75px;"/></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/25936994@N00/12053644414/in/set-72157640003169236/" title="IMG_9387" style="display: block; padding: 0 0 10px 0; width: 75px; height: 75px; float: left;"><img src="http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3830/12053644414_55d64ab7bb_s.jpg" alt="IMG_9387" style="border:none; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 75px; height: 75px;"/></a><br clear="all"/><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/25936994@N00/12018890114/in/set-72157640003169236/" title="IMG_9376" style="display: block; padding: 0 10px 10px 0; width: 75px; height: 75px; float: left;"><img src="http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3802/12018890114_26524e3f50_s.jpg" alt="IMG_9376" style="border:none; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 75px; height: 75px;"/></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/25936994@N00/12018705165/in/set-72157640003169236/" title="IMG_9326" style="display: block; padding: 0 10px 10px 0; width: 75px; height: 75px; float: left;"><img src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7376/12018705165_1fbebfc6c8_s.jpg" alt="IMG_9326" style="border:none; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 75px; height: 75px;"/></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/25936994@N00/12018979223/in/set-72157640003169236/" title="IMG_9336" style="display: block; padding: 0 10px 10px 0; width: 75px; height: 75px; float: left;"><img src="http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3681/12018979223_4f96d1b422_s.jpg" alt="IMG_9336" style="border:none; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 75px; height: 75px;"/></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/25936994@N00/12020093446/in/set-72157640003169236/" title="IMG_9178" style="display: block; padding: 0 10px 10px 0; width: 75px; height: 75px; float: left;"><img src="http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3674/12020093446_04acb02218_s.jpg" alt="IMG_9178" style="border:none; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 75px; height: 75px;"/></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/25936994@N00/12019598573/in/set-72157640003169236/" title="IMG_9124" style="display: block; padding: 0 10px 10px 0; width: 75px; height: 75px; float: left;"><img src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7355/12019598573_387f6aa73f_s.jpg" alt="IMG_9124" style="border:none; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 75px; height: 75px;"/></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/25936994@N00/12018830584/in/set-72157640003169236/" title="IMG_9447" style="display: block; padding: 0 0 10px 0; width: 75px; height: 75px; float: left;"><img src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7419/12018830584_151a561a9d_s.jpg" alt="IMG_9447" style="border:none; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 75px; height: 75px;"/></a><br clear="all"/><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/25936994@N00/12019240193/in/set-72157640003169236/" title="IMG_9251" style="display: block; padding: 0 10px 10px 0; width: 75px; height: 75px; float: left;"><img src="http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3752/12019240193_35c37901d8_s.jpg" alt="IMG_9251" style="border:none; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 75px; height: 75px;"/></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/25936994@N00/12019293423/in/set-72157640003169236/" title="IMG_9213" style="display: block; padding: 0 10px 10px 0; width: 75px; height: 75px; float: left;"><img src="http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3705/12019293423_421328bbf2_s.jpg" alt="IMG_9213" style="border:none; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 75px; height: 75px;"/></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/25936994@N00/12019909956/in/set-72157640003169236/" title="IMG_9209" style="display: block; padding: 0 10px 10px 0; width: 75px; height: 75px; float: left;"><img src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7413/12019909956_4c89a25fab_s.jpg" alt="IMG_9209" style="border:none; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 75px; height: 75px;"/></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/25936994@N00/12019159004/in/set-72157640003169236/" title="IMG_9293" style="display: block; padding: 0 10px 10px 0; width: 75px; height: 75px; float: left;"><img src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7327/12019159004_ddaac0a6af_s.jpg" alt="IMG_9293" style="border:none; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 75px; height: 75px;"/></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/25936994@N00/12018932614/in/set-72157640003169236/" title="IMG_9359" style="display: block; padding: 0 10px 10px 0; width: 75px; height: 75px; float: left;"><img src="http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5473/12018932614_70b8ddbdd2_s.jpg" alt="IMG_9359" style="border:none; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 75px; height: 75px;"/></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/25936994@N00/12018915863/in/set-72157640003169236/" title="IMG_9352" style="display: block; padding: 0 0 10px 0; width: 75px; height: 75px; float: left;"><img src="http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3727/12018915863_64ed726c6c_s.jpg" alt="IMG_9352" style="border:none; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 75px; height: 75px;"/></a><br clear="all"/></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 5px"><p><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/25936994@N00/sets/72157640003169236/">Latest Work: Ijen Crater Sulpher Miners, Java, Indonesia 2013</a>, a set on Flickr.</p></div><p>I was recently in Java for Lonely Planet and at the end of my stay visited the spectacular Ijen sulphur mines and spent two days and nights following the miners at work. Here is a short photo story on Ijen and the miners work.</p>stuart butlerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03344630768242182508noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6765681853641695349.post-54138666679017610812014-01-21T13:47:00.002-08:002014-01-21T13:47:33.714-08:00Latest Work: Java 2013<div style="padding: 0; overflow: hidden; margin: 0; width: 500px;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/25936994@N00/11760862394/in/set-72157639437038663/" title="IMG_9420" style="display: block; padding: 0 10px 10px 0; width: 75px; height: 75px; float: left;"><img src="http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3726/11760862394_fcb15e4458_s.jpg" alt="IMG_9420" style="border:none; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 75px; height: 75px;"/></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/25936994@N00/11761563446/in/set-72157639437038663/" title="IMG_8946" style="display: block; padding: 0 10px 10px 0; width: 75px; height: 75px; float: left;"><img src="http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2835/11761563446_e2e05ff11a_s.jpg" alt="IMG_8946" style="border:none; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 75px; height: 75px;"/></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/25936994@N00/11760095665/in/set-72157639437038663/" title="IMG_9907" style="display: block; padding: 0 10px 10px 0; width: 75px; height: 75px; float: left;"><img src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7429/11760095665_38365d67cf_s.jpg" alt="IMG_9907" style="border:none; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 75px; height: 75px;"/></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/25936994@N00/11761171994/in/set-72157639437038663/" title="IMG_8993" style="display: block; padding: 0 10px 10px 0; width: 75px; height: 75px; float: left;"><img src="http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5477/11761171994_a304968bb4_s.jpg" alt="IMG_8993" style="border:none; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 75px; height: 75px;"/></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/25936994@N00/11837424753/in/set-72157639437038663/" title="IMG_9378" style="display: block; padding: 0 10px 10px 0; width: 75px; height: 75px; float: left;"><img src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7383/11837424753_904831e9ca_s.jpg" alt="IMG_9378" style="border:none; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 75px; height: 75px;"/></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/25936994@N00/11760254525/in/set-72157639437038663/" title="IMG_9698" style="display: block; padding: 0 0 10px 0; width: 75px; height: 75px; float: left;"><img src="http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2840/11760254525_2a830c3a77_s.jpg" alt="IMG_9698" style="border:none; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 75px; height: 75px;"/></a><br clear="all"/><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/25936994@N00/11760292045/in/set-72157639437038663/" title="IMG_9666" style="display: block; padding: 0 10px 10px 0; width: 75px; height: 75px; float: left;"><img src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7312/11760292045_4111a9e3f7_s.jpg" alt="IMG_9666" style="border:none; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 75px; height: 75px;"/></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/25936994@N00/12001217403/in/set-72157639437038663/" title="IMG_9556" style="display: block; padding: 0 10px 10px 0; width: 75px; height: 75px; float: left;"><img src="http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3755/12001217403_b414e32071_s.jpg" alt="IMG_9556" style="border:none; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 75px; height: 75px;"/></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/25936994@N00/11760471195/in/set-72157639437038663/" title="IMG_9319" style="display: block; padding: 0 10px 10px 0; width: 75px; height: 75px; float: left;"><img src="http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5545/11760471195_f6bd192a23_s.jpg" alt="IMG_9319" style="border:none; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 75px; height: 75px;"/></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/25936994@N00/11760997704/in/set-72157639437038663/" title="IMG_9165" style="display: block; padding: 0 10px 10px 0; width: 75px; height: 75px; float: left;"><img src="http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3800/11760997704_5db5da712e_s.jpg" alt="IMG_9165" style="border:none; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 75px; height: 75px;"/></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/25936994@N00/11760878756/in/set-72157639437038663/" title="IMG_9855" style="display: block; padding: 0 10px 10px 0; width: 75px; height: 75px; float: left;"><img src="http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3712/11760878756_ee9136c3f1_s.jpg" alt="IMG_9855" style="border:none; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 75px; height: 75px;"/></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/25936994@N00/11761365693/in/set-72157639437038663/" title="IMG_8822" style="display: block; padding: 0 0 10px 0; width: 75px; height: 75px; float: left;"><img src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7392/11761365693_dd29c00b41_s.jpg" alt="IMG_8822" style="border:none; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 75px; height: 75px;"/></a><br clear="all"/><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/25936994@N00/11760829174/in/set-72157639437038663/" title="IMG_9484" style="display: block; padding: 0 10px 10px 0; width: 75px; height: 75px; float: left;"><img src="http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5476/11760829174_6ee7d13fbb_s.jpg" alt="IMG_9484" style="border:none; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 75px; height: 75px;"/></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/25936994@N00/11761034834/in/set-72157639437038663/" title="IMG_9021" style="display: block; padding: 0 10px 10px 0; width: 75px; height: 75px; float: left;"><img src="http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3743/11761034834_4b340f2fef_s.jpg" alt="IMG_9021" style="border:none; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 75px; height: 75px;"/></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/25936994@N00/11760943093/in/set-72157639437038663/" title="IMG_8997" style="display: block; padding: 0 10px 10px 0; width: 75px; height: 75px; float: left;"><img src="http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3703/11760943093_f8c51e31ed_s.jpg" alt="IMG_8997" style="border:none; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 75px; height: 75px;"/></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/25936994@N00/11760510235/in/set-72157639437038663/" title="IMG_9233" style="display: block; padding: 0 10px 10px 0; width: 75px; height: 75px; float: left;"><img src="http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5511/11760510235_78dc465d8c_s.jpg" alt="IMG_9233" style="border:none; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 75px; height: 75px;"/></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/25936994@N00/11761098123/in/set-72157639437038663/" title="IMG_8943-2" style="display: block; padding: 0 10px 10px 0; width: 75px; height: 75px; float: left;"><img src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7298/11761098123_a0cb157f06_s.jpg" alt="IMG_8943-2" style="border:none; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 75px; height: 75px;"/></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/25936994@N00/11761309734/in/set-72157639437038663/" title="IMG_8927" style="display: block; padding: 0 0 10px 0; width: 75px; height: 75px; float: left;"><img src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7444/11761309734_2e0f3f20e6_s.jpg" alt="IMG_8927" style="border:none; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 75px; height: 75px;"/></a><br clear="all"/><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/25936994@N00/11762335006/in/set-72157639437038663/" title="IMG_0079" style="display: block; padding: 0 10px 10px 0; width: 75px; height: 75px; float: left;"><img src="http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3700/11762335006_0edab8f056_s.jpg" alt="IMG_0079" style="border:none; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 75px; height: 75px;"/></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/25936994@N00/11760974636/in/set-72157639437038663/" title="IMG_9743" style="display: block; padding: 0 10px 10px 0; width: 75px; height: 75px; float: left;"><img src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7455/11760974636_bfd1894f49_s.jpg" alt="IMG_9743" style="border:none; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 75px; height: 75px;"/></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/25936994@N00/11761257993/in/set-72157639437038663/" title="IMG_8863" style="display: block; padding: 0 10px 10px 0; width: 75px; height: 75px; float: left;"><img src="http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2838/11761257993_daa0136826_s.jpg" alt="IMG_8863" style="border:none; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 75px; height: 75px;"/></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/25936994@N00/11761436123/in/set-72157639437038663/" title="IMG_8803-2" style="display: block; padding: 0 10px 10px 0; width: 75px; height: 75px; float: left;"><img src="http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3708/11761436123_7be8805837_s.jpg" alt="IMG_8803-2" style="border:none; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 75px; height: 75px;"/></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/25936994@N00/11761091265/in/set-72157639437038663/" title="IMG_8827" style="display: block; padding: 0 10px 10px 0; width: 75px; height: 75px; float: left;"><img src="http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3742/11761091265_9b59e75892_s.jpg" alt="IMG_8827" style="border:none; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 75px; height: 75px;"/></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/25936994@N00/11833517705/in/set-72157639437038663/" title="IMG_9654" style="display: block; padding: 0 0 10px 0; width: 75px; height: 75px; float: left;"><img src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7397/11833517705_c88341c079_s.jpg" alt="IMG_9654" style="border:none; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 75px; height: 75px;"/></a><br clear="all"/></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 5px"><p><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/25936994@N00/sets/72157639437038663/">Latest Work: Java 2013</a>, a set on Flickr.</p></div><p>Back in the autumn of 2013 I was lucky enough to be sent to Java, Indonesia to update that section of the Lonely Planet SE Asia on a Shoestring guidebook. Java is my favourite part of Indonesia (although I've never been to Papua and reckon that would be right up my street): I love the vibrant art and culture scene in the towns and the dramatic volcanic landscapes (and the food ain't bad either!). The following are a selection of images from what was, once again, a wonderful trip to Indonesia.</p>stuart butlerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03344630768242182508noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6765681853641695349.post-6398830104852997572013-12-17T13:06:00.001-08:002013-12-17T13:06:13.857-08:00Africa: New Book<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi39UI74JiSTMHswRcPJsyfk2S6JfrSnC-bKrIwIdgfWKRtQv_UWvAtJp1di0uA-UztZAXzeowZg2FFx8vwFmQLde_6_xPJD7pbhuoJGLdSTdhioA8zag9i0z5mtGGJ2ZPbdtXjqM3yKW4/s1600/Africa_travel_guide_-_13th_Edition_Large.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi39UI74JiSTMHswRcPJsyfk2S6JfrSnC-bKrIwIdgfWKRtQv_UWvAtJp1di0uA-UztZAXzeowZg2FFx8vwFmQLde_6_xPJD7pbhuoJGLdSTdhioA8zag9i0z5mtGGJ2ZPbdtXjqM3yKW4/s1600/Africa_travel_guide_-_13th_Edition_Large.png" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
The new Lonely Planet Africa guide is out now. For this edition I had the mammoth, but utterly brilliant, task of updating Sudan, Republic of Congo and DR Congo. I also wrote the Ethiopia chapter, the coffee table-style South Sudan chapter and contributed to the Central African Republic chapter. When a book covers a continent the size of Africa coverage of some places can be rather short but for me this book is Lonely Planet at its ground breaking and adventurous best.<br />
<br />
http://shop.lonelyplanet.com/africa/africa-travel-guide-13/<br />
</div>
stuart butlerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03344630768242182508noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6765681853641695349.post-9165706995658474562013-11-21T01:44:00.002-08:002013-11-21T01:44:30.601-08:00New Website<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
I have finally joined the modern world and got myself a website. Please see <a href="http://www.stuartbutlerjournalist.com/">http://www.stuartbutlerjournalist.com/</a> for more examples of my books, articles, photographs and information on my wedding photography.</div>
stuart butlerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03344630768242182508noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6765681853641695349.post-57565092876287464062013-09-11T09:22:00.001-07:002013-09-11T09:22:46.263-07:00Kenya<div style="padding: 0; overflow: hidden; margin: 0; width: 500px;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/25936994@N00/9664890936/in/set-72157635392427583/" title="IMG_7068 - Maasai man at dawn" style="display: block; padding: 0 10px 10px 0; width: 75px; height: 75px; float: left;"><img src="http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5491/9664890936_6fba663fb1_s.jpg" alt="IMG_7068 - Maasai man at dawn" style="border:none; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 75px; height: 75px;"/></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/25936994@N00/9680225428/in/set-72157635392427583/" title="IMG_8349 -Maasai man at dawn Loita Hills Kenya" style="display: block; padding: 0 10px 10px 0; width: 75px; height: 75px; float: left;"><img src="http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5449/9680225428_db5102bc9c_s.jpg" alt="IMG_8349 -Maasai man at dawn Loita Hills Kenya" style="border:none; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 75px; height: 75px;"/></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/25936994@N00/9636471588/in/set-72157635392427583/" title="IMG_0831 Goats and Samburu Matthew's Mountains Kenya" style="display: block; padding: 0 10px 10px 0; width: 75px; height: 75px; float: left;"><img src="http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2854/9636471588_fec45ea3c3_s.jpg" alt="IMG_0831 Goats and Samburu Matthew's Mountains Kenya" style="border:none; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 75px; height: 75px;"/></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/25936994@N00/9635504006/in/set-72157635392427583/" title="IMG_0591 Samburu lady and gaots Kenya" style="display: block; padding: 0 10px 10px 0; width: 75px; height: 75px; float: left;"><img src="http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3742/9635504006_f2eecdc9c7_s.jpg" alt="IMG_0591 Samburu lady and gaots Kenya" style="border:none; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 75px; height: 75px;"/></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/25936994@N00/9668142819/in/set-72157635392427583/" title="IMG_7605 Zebra in Olarro Conservancy" style="display: block; padding: 0 10px 10px 0; width: 75px; height: 75px; float: left;"><img src="http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5449/9668142819_be466c9103_s.jpg" alt="IMG_7605 Zebra in Olarro Conservancy" style="border:none; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 75px; height: 75px;"/></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/25936994@N00/9635592014/in/set-72157635392427583/" title="IMG_0745 Bleeding goat Samburu Matthew's Mountains Kenya" style="display: block; padding: 0 0 10px 0; width: 75px; height: 75px; float: left;"><img src="http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2839/9635592014_d4f4a7561a_s.jpg" alt="IMG_0745 Bleeding goat Samburu Matthew's Mountains Kenya" style="border:none; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 75px; height: 75px;"/></a><br clear="all"/><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/25936994@N00/9633190875/in/set-72157635392427583/" title="IMG_1042 Samburu man Matthew's Mountains Kenya" style="display: block; padding: 0 10px 10px 0; width: 75px; height: 75px; float: left;"><img src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7360/9633190875_816588f914_s.jpg" alt="IMG_1042 Samburu man Matthew's Mountains Kenya" style="border:none; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 75px; height: 75px;"/></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/25936994@N00/9668158219/in/set-72157635392427583/" title="IMG_7466 Maasai woman with goats" style="display: block; padding: 0 10px 10px 0; width: 75px; height: 75px; float: left;"><img src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7438/9668158219_1f19bfd5f1_s.jpg" alt="IMG_7466 Maasai woman with goats" style="border:none; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 75px; height: 75px;"/></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/25936994@N00/9651889517/in/set-72157635392427583/" title="IMG_1100 Acacia Tree Maasai Mara Kenya" style="display: block; padding: 0 10px 10px 0; width: 75px; height: 75px; float: left;"><img src="http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3695/9651889517_a63450f88e_s.jpg" alt="IMG_1100 Acacia Tree Maasai Mara Kenya" style="border:none; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 75px; height: 75px;"/></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/25936994@N00/9664936656/in/set-72157635392427583/" title="IMG_7008 - Maasai man and cattle" style="display: block; padding: 0 10px 10px 0; width: 75px; height: 75px; float: left;"><img src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7390/9664936656_fee14fdd51_s.jpg" alt="IMG_7008 - Maasai man and cattle" style="border:none; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 75px; height: 75px;"/></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/25936994@N00/9633210005/in/set-72157635392427583/" title="IMG_0898 Church Matthew's Mountains Kenya" style="display: block; padding: 0 10px 10px 0; width: 75px; height: 75px; float: left;"><img src="http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3785/9633210005_8623c152c8_s.jpg" alt="IMG_0898 Church Matthew's Mountains Kenya" style="border:none; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 75px; height: 75px;"/></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/25936994@N00/9632259931/in/set-72157635392427583/" title="IMG_0608 Goat milk Matthews mountains kenya" style="display: block; padding: 0 0 10px 0; width: 75px; height: 75px; float: left;"><img src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7286/9632259931_9ff01845f7_s.jpg" alt="IMG_0608 Goat milk Matthews mountains kenya" style="border:none; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 75px; height: 75px;"/></a><br clear="all"/><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/25936994@N00/9676965395/in/set-72157635392427583/" title="IMG_8933 Maasai man at dawn Loita Hills Kenya" style="display: block; padding: 0 10px 10px 0; width: 75px; height: 75px; float: left;"><img src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7428/9676965395_2e03e7362e_s.jpg" alt="IMG_8933 Maasai man at dawn Loita Hills Kenya" style="border:none; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 75px; height: 75px;"/></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/25936994@N00/9676975725/in/set-72157635392427583/" title="IMG_8364 Maasai man at dawn Loita Hills dawn" style="display: block; padding: 0 10px 10px 0; width: 75px; height: 75px; float: left;"><img src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7443/9676975725_f301f23573_s.jpg" alt="IMG_8364 Maasai man at dawn Loita Hills dawn" style="border:none; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 75px; height: 75px;"/></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/25936994@N00/9684457725/in/set-72157635392427583/" title="IMG_9090 Maasai man Loita Hills Kenya" style="display: block; padding: 0 10px 10px 0; width: 75px; height: 75px; float: left;"><img src="http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3708/9684457725_b0f8deb34f_s.jpg" alt="IMG_9090 Maasai man Loita Hills Kenya" style="border:none; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 75px; height: 75px;"/></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/25936994@N00/9632287139/in/set-72157635392427583/" title="IMG_0565 Goats at dawn in Samburu manyatta Matthew's mountains Kenya" style="display: block; padding: 0 10px 10px 0; width: 75px; height: 75px; float: left;"><img src="http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3829/9632287139_ab253b7858_s.jpg" alt="IMG_0565 Goats at dawn in Samburu manyatta Matthew's mountains Kenya" style="border:none; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 75px; height: 75px;"/></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/25936994@N00/9687638658/in/set-72157635392427583/" title="IMG_9814 Reticulated giraffe Meru National Park Kenya" style="display: block; padding: 0 10px 10px 0; width: 75px; height: 75px; float: left;"><img src="http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3780/9687638658_b1cec6c10c_s.jpg" alt="IMG_9814 Reticulated giraffe Meru National Park Kenya" style="border:none; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 75px; height: 75px;"/></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/25936994@N00/9687611188/in/set-72157635392427583/" title="IMG_9950 Head teacher in his office - Kenya" style="display: block; padding: 0 0 10px 0; width: 75px; height: 75px; float: left;"><img src="http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3717/9687611188_9a40c34c3b_s.jpg" alt="IMG_9950 Head teacher in his office - Kenya" style="border:none; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 75px; height: 75px;"/></a><br clear="all"/><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/25936994@N00/9677018121/in/set-72157635392427583/" title="IMG_8310 Maasai woman at dusk Loita Hills Kenya" style="display: block; padding: 0 10px 10px 0; width: 75px; height: 75px; float: left;"><img src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7399/9677018121_735ed2cbc3_s.jpg" alt="IMG_8310 Maasai woman at dusk Loita Hills Kenya" style="border:none; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 75px; height: 75px;"/></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/25936994@N00/9680264750/in/set-72157635392427583/" title="IMG_8251 Maasai woman in Loita Hills" style="display: block; padding: 0 10px 10px 0; width: 75px; height: 75px; float: left;"><img src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7349/9680264750_b7cb322fe0_s.jpg" alt="IMG_8251 Maasai woman in Loita Hills" style="border:none; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 75px; height: 75px;"/></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/25936994@N00/9680002056/in/set-72157635392427583/" title="IMG_8244 Maasai man in Loita Hills" style="display: block; padding: 0 10px 10px 0; width: 75px; height: 75px; float: left;"><img src="http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3674/9680002056_b4ce5c1944_s.jpg" alt="IMG_8244 Maasai man in Loita Hills" style="border:none; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 75px; height: 75px;"/></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/25936994@N00/9680011844/in/set-72157635392427583/" title="IMG_8219 - Maasai man in Loita Hills" style="display: block; padding: 0 10px 10px 0; width: 75px; height: 75px; float: left;"><img src="http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3696/9680011844_85843771c6_s.jpg" alt="IMG_8219 - Maasai man in Loita Hills" style="border:none; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 75px; height: 75px;"/></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/25936994@N00/9676788337/in/set-72157635392427583/" title="IMG_8032 - Maasai man in Loita hills" style="display: block; padding: 0 10px 10px 0; width: 75px; height: 75px; float: left;"><img src="http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5465/9676788337_41e4757321_s.jpg" alt="IMG_8032 - Maasai man in Loita hills" style="border:none; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 75px; height: 75px;"/></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/25936994@N00/9680029986/in/set-72157635392427583/" title="IMG_7924 Sunrise in Kenya's Loita Hills" style="display: block; padding: 0 0 10px 0; width: 75px; height: 75px; float: left;"><img src="http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2840/9680029986_0c019d7f4f_s.jpg" alt="IMG_7924 Sunrise in Kenya's Loita Hills" style="border:none; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 75px; height: 75px;"/></a><br clear="all"/></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 5px"><p><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/25936994@N00/sets/72157635392427583/">Kenya June 2013</a>, a set on Flickr.</p></div><p>Back in June (yeah I know I've been slack on the blogging front...) I had the great pleasure of once again visiting Kenya. This time i was there for a variety of international publications writing a range of articles on conservation, tourism and tribal rights. I split my time equally between the northern regions of Meru and the remote and wonderful Matthew's Mountains and the Maasai lands further south (the Maasai Mara itself, Olarro conservancy and the stunning and little known Loita Hills. Highlights of the trip included staying in both Samburu and Maasai manyattas (farmsteds), walking and camping in the Loita Hills, spending a day learning about conservation in action at the Olarro conservancy, walking in the Matthews and having Meru national park pretty much to myself.<br /><br />The following are a selection of images that I took during the trip.</p>stuart butlerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03344630768242182508noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6765681853641695349.post-66871896111426258222013-05-14T10:25:00.001-07:002013-05-14T10:25:35.203-07:00Sudan Photos<div style="padding: 0; overflow: hidden; margin: 0; width: 500px;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/25936994@N00/8698572504/in/set-72157633377689127/" title="IMG_8409 - Darfur Camel Herder" style="display: block; padding: 0 10px 10px 0; width: 75px; height: 75px; float: left;"><img src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8394/8698572504_19984fae3b_s.jpg" alt="IMG_8409 - Darfur Camel Herder" style="border:none; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 75px; height: 75px;"/></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/25936994@N00/8715034528/in/set-72157633377689127/" title="IMG_9444 - Sand forms at Begrawiya Pyramids (Meroe)" style="display: block; padding: 0 10px 10px 0; width: 75px; height: 75px; float: left;"><img src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7281/8715034528_4c7ffa85f2_s.jpg" alt="IMG_9444 - Sand forms at Begrawiya Pyramids (Meroe)" style="border:none; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 75px; height: 75px;"/></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/25936994@N00/8698591370/in/set-72157633377689127/" title="IMG_8240 - guardian Soleb temple" style="display: block; padding: 0 10px 10px 0; width: 75px; height: 75px; float: left;"><img src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8406/8698591370_11c9bccc39_s.jpg" alt="IMG_8240 - guardian Soleb temple" style="border:none; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 75px; height: 75px;"/></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/25936994@N00/8704465904/in/set-72157633377689127/" title="IMG_9189 - Begrawiya Pyramids (or Meroe)" style="display: block; padding: 0 10px 10px 0; width: 75px; height: 75px; float: left;"><img src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8547/8704465904_963ef99b8d_s.jpg" alt="IMG_9189 - Begrawiya Pyramids (or Meroe)" style="border:none; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 75px; height: 75px;"/></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/25936994@N00/8703391785/in/set-72157633377689127/" title="IMG_9363 - Camel men Begrawiya Pyramids (Meroe)" style="display: block; padding: 0 10px 10px 0; width: 75px; height: 75px; float: left;"><img src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8555/8703391785_857c9d17ae_s.jpg" alt="IMG_9363 - Camel men Begrawiya Pyramids (Meroe)" style="border:none; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 75px; height: 75px;"/></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/25936994@N00/8698086355/in/set-72157633377689127/" title="IMG_8899 - Pyramids Nuri" style="display: block; padding: 0 0 10px 0; width: 75px; height: 75px; float: left;"><img src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8533/8698086355_29a17a385b_s.jpg" alt="IMG_8899 - Pyramids Nuri" style="border:none; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 75px; height: 75px;"/></a><br clear="all"/><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/25936994@N00/8698576350/in/set-72157633377689127/" title="IMG_8402- Darfur Camel Herder" style="display: block; padding: 0 10px 10px 0; width: 75px; height: 75px; float: left;"><img src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8264/8698576350_85e8434a19_s.jpg" alt="IMG_8402- Darfur Camel Herder" style="border:none; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 75px; height: 75px;"/></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/25936994@N00/8698583858/in/set-72157633377689127/" title="IMG_8356 - church Sai Island" style="display: block; padding: 0 10px 10px 0; width: 75px; height: 75px; float: left;"><img src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8543/8698583858_b62f48bfe4_s.jpg" alt="IMG_8356 - church Sai Island" style="border:none; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 75px; height: 75px;"/></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/25936994@N00/8698038379/in/set-72157633377689127/" title="IMG_8568 - Pyramids Karima" style="display: block; padding: 0 10px 10px 0; width: 75px; height: 75px; float: left;"><img src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8126/8698038379_d27887335a_s.jpg" alt="IMG_8568 - Pyramids Karima" style="border:none; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 75px; height: 75px;"/></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/25936994@N00/8699241546/in/set-72157633377689127/" title="IMG_8701 - portrait of girl Karima" style="display: block; padding: 0 10px 10px 0; width: 75px; height: 75px; float: left;"><img src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8278/8699241546_98986565b6_s.jpg" alt="IMG_8701 - portrait of girl Karima" style="border:none; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 75px; height: 75px;"/></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/25936994@N00/8715010196/in/set-72157633377689127/" title="IMG_9586 - Well at Naga" style="display: block; padding: 0 10px 10px 0; width: 75px; height: 75px; float: left;"><img src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7283/8715010196_419858e09a_s.jpg" alt="IMG_9586 - Well at Naga" style="border:none; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 75px; height: 75px;"/></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/25936994@N00/8704478362/in/set-72157633377689127/" title="IMG_9136 - Begrawiya Pyramids (or Meroe)" style="display: block; padding: 0 0 10px 0; width: 75px; height: 75px; float: left;"><img src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8403/8704478362_498c2a0298_s.jpg" alt="IMG_9136 - Begrawiya Pyramids (or Meroe)" style="border:none; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 75px; height: 75px;"/></a><br clear="all"/><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/25936994@N00/8698499512/in/set-72157633377689127/" title="IMG_8017 - Guardian Kerma" style="display: block; padding: 0 10px 10px 0; width: 75px; height: 75px; float: left;"><img src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8261/8698499512_688b0fd75d_s.jpg" alt="IMG_8017 - Guardian Kerma" style="border:none; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 75px; height: 75px;"/></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/25936994@N00/8724471128/in/set-72157633377689127/" title="IMG_9806 - Taka Mountains Kassala" style="display: block; padding: 0 10px 10px 0; width: 75px; height: 75px; float: left;"><img src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7296/8724471128_1661fa3fff_s.jpg" alt="IMG_9806 - Taka Mountains Kassala" style="border:none; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 75px; height: 75px;"/></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/25936994@N00/8699217024/in/set-72157633377689127/" title="IMG_8884 - Pyramids Nuri" style="display: block; padding: 0 10px 10px 0; width: 75px; height: 75px; float: left;"><img src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8395/8699217024_fde08c9595_s.jpg" alt="IMG_8884 - Pyramids Nuri" style="border:none; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 75px; height: 75px;"/></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/25936994@N00/8697456903/in/set-72157633377689127/" title="IMG_8386 - Darfur Camel Herder" style="display: block; padding: 0 10px 10px 0; width: 75px; height: 75px; float: left;"><img src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8125/8697456903_c2246c8df5_s.jpg" alt="IMG_8386 - Darfur Camel Herder" style="border:none; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 75px; height: 75px;"/></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/25936994@N00/8698495922/in/set-72157633377689127/" title="IMG_8050 - Sesibi" style="display: block; padding: 0 10px 10px 0; width: 75px; height: 75px; float: left;"><img src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8558/8698495922_f099bb68d5_s.jpg" alt="IMG_8050 - Sesibi" style="border:none; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 75px; height: 75px;"/></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/25936994@N00/8723332629/in/set-72157633377689127/" title="IMG_9873 - Beja man in Taka Mountains" style="display: block; padding: 0 0 10px 0; width: 75px; height: 75px; float: left;"><img src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7365/8723332629_b708e0b996_s.jpg" alt="IMG_9873 - Beja man in Taka Mountains" style="border:none; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 75px; height: 75px;"/></a><br clear="all"/><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/25936994@N00/8704526726/in/set-72157633377689127/" title="IMG_9225 - Begrawiya Pyramids (or Meroe)" style="display: block; padding: 0 10px 10px 0; width: 75px; height: 75px; float: left;"><img src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8131/8704526726_bdd1319a3f_s.jpg" alt="IMG_9225 - Begrawiya Pyramids (or Meroe)" style="border:none; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 75px; height: 75px;"/></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/25936994@N00/8704523144/in/set-72157633377689127/" title="IMG_9257 - camel men Begrawiya Pyramids (or Meroe)" style="display: block; padding: 0 10px 10px 0; width: 75px; height: 75px; float: left;"><img src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8274/8704523144_7dd1338504_s.jpg" alt="IMG_9257 - camel men Begrawiya Pyramids (or Meroe)" style="border:none; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 75px; height: 75px;"/></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/25936994@N00/8701593136/in/set-72157633377689127/" title="IMG_9004 - Pyramid portraits Nuri" style="display: block; padding: 0 10px 10px 0; width: 75px; height: 75px; float: left;"><img src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8135/8701593136_fe670590d3_s.jpg" alt="IMG_9004 - Pyramid portraits Nuri" style="border:none; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 75px; height: 75px;"/></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/25936994@N00/8723359807/in/set-72157633377689127/" title="IMG_9795 - Beja man Kassala" style="display: block; padding: 0 10px 10px 0; width: 75px; height: 75px; float: left;"><img src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7297/8723359807_aaa57c3797_s.jpg" alt="IMG_9795 - Beja man Kassala" style="border:none; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 75px; height: 75px;"/></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/25936994@N00/8715040324/in/set-72157633377689127/" title="IMG_9409 - Begrawiya Pyramids (Meroe)" style="display: block; padding: 0 10px 10px 0; width: 75px; height: 75px; float: left;"><img src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7281/8715040324_3292c8620d_s.jpg" alt="IMG_9409 - Begrawiya Pyramids (Meroe)" style="border:none; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 75px; height: 75px;"/></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/25936994@N00/8697464989/in/set-72157633377689127/" title="IMG_8268 - Soleb Temple" style="display: block; padding: 0 0 10px 0; width: 75px; height: 75px; float: left;"><img src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8536/8697464989_1f54b1ccc8_s.jpg" alt="IMG_8268 - Soleb Temple" style="border:none; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 75px; height: 75px;"/></a><br clear="all"/></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 5px"><p><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/25936994@N00/sets/72157633377689127/">Sudan 2012</a>, a set on Flickr.</p></div><p>I recently had the very great pleasure of once again travelling around Sudan whilst updating the Sudan chapter of the Africa Lonely Planet guide.<br /><br />Sudan suffers from a very bad rep, but I love the place. I'm not normally very interested in old ruins etc but in Sudan, where sand half buries temples and pyramids, they are just so romantic. Combine that with beautiful desert scenery, some of the friendliest people you can hope to meet and a fascinating ethnic jigsaw and you get what I consider to be one of the most rewarding countries in Africa - even in it's shrunk down form after the independence of the south.<br /><br />Here is a small selection of photos taken on my most recent trip. <br /><br />http://www.flickr.com/photos/25936994@N00/sets/72157633377689127/</p>stuart butlerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03344630768242182508noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6765681853641695349.post-50973548441911494382013-05-11T14:21:00.001-07:002013-05-11T14:21:44.504-07:00Best of Ethiopia<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
I have just written a piece for the Lonely Planet website on the Best of Ethiopia - now if only I had had the space to include some of the southern parks, Addis, Lake Tana and so on...<br />
Here it is http://www.lonelyplanet.com/africa/travel-tips-and-articles/77723</div>
stuart butlerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03344630768242182508noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6765681853641695349.post-5310434174788360612013-05-03T01:20:00.001-07:002013-05-03T01:20:58.663-07:00New Books<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
There's new Lonely Planet books that I have co-authored falling out of the sky this week - France, Spain, Discover Spain, best trips France and Indonesia all out now! Buy them at http://shop.lonelyplanet.com/<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9cq7UfU-oZc96RPFZ72k8yEpMGMB_PTXWnnxOg9zqcKFxsBbyinx9CgZE_rV7qxvgWKQZyOpiT7A0ZUqaupStDPGfjIP9uS4yZb5Ai7bWWD3Hvu7CS3yLtW50_X4SJTpmy11ExOjxz5o/s1600/Discover_Spain_travel_guide_-_3rd_Edition_Large.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9cq7UfU-oZc96RPFZ72k8yEpMGMB_PTXWnnxOg9zqcKFxsBbyinx9CgZE_rV7qxvgWKQZyOpiT7A0ZUqaupStDPGfjIP9uS4yZb5Ai7bWWD3Hvu7CS3yLtW50_X4SJTpmy11ExOjxz5o/s1600/Discover_Spain_travel_guide_-_3rd_Edition_Large.png" /></a></div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7unvwwy7jIjw8r25RrJ12Gx7uHJpvGpLdBFpHbFllCrRU9oVvCryLkUwntoGjzsam-KfT2mIflFgYt7nJSQlPJjnXw6z3wlbJ04zaVAyF2ScVuVrfC9bXmale36OhyvkujmWEc7mB9P8/s1600/France_travel_guide_-_10th_Edition_Large.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7unvwwy7jIjw8r25RrJ12Gx7uHJpvGpLdBFpHbFllCrRU9oVvCryLkUwntoGjzsam-KfT2mIflFgYt7nJSQlPJjnXw6z3wlbJ04zaVAyF2ScVuVrfC9bXmale36OhyvkujmWEc7mB9P8/s1600/France_travel_guide_-_10th_Edition_Large.png" /></a></div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLkWTCC17bNLuvREG5iOFiDbSm9Hh_iTlmvsERSv5VQkyYoJODO_88S3XgSf_1ze5Ft_GGa-Brxa5nR5FfQaUllyyRHpgWe0lNLElkYQwLM9Mjs9lf75JfOj_JdIMp1m1iLnuDTh73-MQ/s1600/Indonesia_travel_guide_-_10th_Edition_Large.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLkWTCC17bNLuvREG5iOFiDbSm9Hh_iTlmvsERSv5VQkyYoJODO_88S3XgSf_1ze5Ft_GGa-Brxa5nR5FfQaUllyyRHpgWe0lNLElkYQwLM9Mjs9lf75JfOj_JdIMp1m1iLnuDTh73-MQ/s1600/Indonesia_travel_guide_-_10th_Edition_Large.png" /></a></div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSV_r5Ka2IJLviJ06M6EyMJhemO-HfeFqIGtx4MQ84jwAMG8PNttdqs7BDNcLS66lDWlAbRMgqXkg5JORj7J3kUH3RBvfxZxEFUBEP0vWCBTPJZ7CdQkzv7yHnWTbykHe5Na8j7tMYw1k/s1600/Spain_travel_guide_-_9th_Edition_Large.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSV_r5Ka2IJLviJ06M6EyMJhemO-HfeFqIGtx4MQ84jwAMG8PNttdqs7BDNcLS66lDWlAbRMgqXkg5JORj7J3kUH3RBvfxZxEFUBEP0vWCBTPJZ7CdQkzv7yHnWTbykHe5Na8j7tMYw1k/s1600/Spain_travel_guide_-_9th_Edition_Large.png" /></a></div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGFBnf0mpZxJDKK5tLVpWt6ihYFRKLdEFUj2OxHgIDTw-M10hUnIVFEqaqF6llyNopgKJtTFnM16pSifSLHj-C0z0FpXWvpfYHkXJV6qEd_xy_mOhhm0frt9zBlP4KsyH8TtsaPMVbcHQ/s1600/France_s_Best_Trips_Medium.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGFBnf0mpZxJDKK5tLVpWt6ihYFRKLdEFUj2OxHgIDTw-M10hUnIVFEqaqF6llyNopgKJtTFnM16pSifSLHj-C0z0FpXWvpfYHkXJV6qEd_xy_mOhhm0frt9zBlP4KsyH8TtsaPMVbcHQ/s1600/France_s_Best_Trips_Medium.png" /></a></div>
<br /></div>
stuart butlerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03344630768242182508noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6765681853641695349.post-74280934835335446342013-04-27T14:02:00.003-07:002013-04-27T14:07:08.580-07:00Travellers Guide: Coastal Catalonia<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div class="widget storyContent article widget-editable viziwyg-section-1024 inpage-widget-6138699 articleContent">
<span class="storyTop ">
The following is a feature I wrote for the Independent newspaper in the UK. It appeared in print on April 27th 2013 as part of a series on Spain. The online version is available here: http://www.independent.co.uk/travel/europe/travellers-guide-coastal-catalonia-8589543.html<br />
Or you can read the same below.<br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>Travellers Guide: Coastal Catalonia</b><br />
<br />
</span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span class="storyTop "><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBUjMedlB3sKUQVDF1-ybzoodtAt-5j_N5SejSqUIddp01xw_g9ZUqDBBXUvrzlvFizGt1U1EiFDpVHuB03Xu_8iWSDUJXVayC8-Kvswh0Ydn17ziT3VEe0RjkN8mE884SUtI77aClUWo/s1600/Tossa+del+Mar+Costa+Brava.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBUjMedlB3sKUQVDF1-ybzoodtAt-5j_N5SejSqUIddp01xw_g9ZUqDBBXUvrzlvFizGt1U1EiFDpVHuB03Xu_8iWSDUJXVayC8-Kvswh0Ydn17ziT3VEe0RjkN8mE884SUtI77aClUWo/s320/Tossa+del+Mar+Costa+Brava.jpg" width="320" /></a></span></div>
<span class="storyTop ">
<br />
For many tourists, Barcelona is the be-all and end-all of Catalonia,
but venture beyond the city limits and out spreads a coastline of such
diversity that you could spend weeks dissecting it. As well as being
varied, this corner of the Iberian peninsula also offers something
culturally very different from the rest of the Spanish Mediterranean. In
fact, many Catalans will insist that they're not really Spaniards at
all. For a visitor, the most obvious manifestation of this is the use of
Catalan as a day-to-day language (although everybody will speak to you
in Castilian Spanish – or even English in the tourist towns), and the
abundant fluttering of Catalan flags.<br />
<br />
</span>
<br />
<div class="body ">
Political and cultural differences aside, after fleeing the
region's capital, the priority for most people is to lay a towel
down on a beach. Catalonia has around 580km of coastline, which
stretches from the rocky French frontier at Port Bou in the north
to the marshlands marking the frontier with the province of
Valencia.<br />
<br />
Package tourism may have been born on the Costa Brava, to the
north of Barcelona. But the "Wild Coast" is very different to the
heavily visited Costa Blanca and Costa del Sol – and contains some
of Spain's most exceptionally beautiful slips of sand.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjY6rnQ_2h2nxqwQJ5zsxHAgyV3WZRx58tpVV9ti7gMNquuOF2xEW1PUgiPclabN6sOjAzdnsTjdJhR70XIKvNblep9yqzQ9iZyZhuRNPdkAyz-sNjulztRhy2Z45Uxnzmi8nDHQ2MzwBw/s1600/llafranc+Costa+brava.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjY6rnQ_2h2nxqwQJ5zsxHAgyV3WZRx58tpVV9ti7gMNquuOF2xEW1PUgiPclabN6sOjAzdnsTjdJhR70XIKvNblep9yqzQ9iZyZhuRNPdkAyz-sNjulztRhy2Z45Uxnzmi8nDHQ2MzwBw/s320/llafranc+Costa+brava.jpg" width="213" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
One hundred kilometres north-east of Barcelona is the one-time
fishing town of Tossa de Mar – which curves around a boat-speckled
bay and is guarded by a headland crowned with impressive medieval
walls – is today the most low-key and attractive of the bigger
resorts. Come early or late in the season (May is a delight) and it
can almost come across as undiscovered.<br />
<br />
Further north, not far from the French border, is the
sea-sprayed, white-washed town of Cadaqués. There's a special magic
to Cadaqués – a fusion of wind, sea, light and rock that has long
attracted the creative. Federico García Lorca, Paul Eluard and
Gabriel García Márquez are some of those who have been inspired by
the town. However, it was the painter, Salvador Dalí, who really
put Cadaqués on the holiday wish list of the chic set. He once
described L'Hostal, a Cadaqués bar that's still going strong, as
the "lugar más bonito del mundo" (the most beautiful place on
Earth) .<br />
<br />
Although man created a work of art when he built Cadaqués,
nature has done an even better job with the nearby Cap de Creus.
This easternmost point of the Spanish mainland is a place of
sublime, rugged beauty, battered by the merciless Tramuntana
wind. The odd-shaped rocks, barren plateaux and deserted shorelines
that feature in so many of Dalí's paintings were not just a product
of his fertile imagination. This is the landscape the artist would
draw inspiration from, described by him as a "grandiose geological
delirium".
<br />
<br />
Sitting roughly halfway between Tossa de Mar and Cadaqués are
the small towns of Palafrugell and Begur. In between these, lie
dozens of pocket-sized coves hemmed in by pine trees and lapped by
azure waters. Even the names of some of these beaches – Aigua
Blava, Fornells, Sa Tuna and Aiguafreda – sound exotic. And the
best thing is that on account of their small size and difficult
access, many remain largely undeveloped, hosting no more than one
or two upmarket, boutique-style hotels.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0NUg7EUy6g9MH58CO9R0LV51ifCmYrIr5J2UC_fWmAU5oEQWBZdF_m1lr8r0m3bT3keWi9slib1gHjbk7Z5mUFxMSvJ7hwPe38jR81WNWwX0WMXRrSx29UFIoC5CPjeep0-UWO2XWFR8/s1600/Aguablava+Costa+Blanca.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0NUg7EUy6g9MH58CO9R0LV51ifCmYrIr5J2UC_fWmAU5oEQWBZdF_m1lr8r0m3bT3keWi9slib1gHjbk7Z5mUFxMSvJ7hwPe38jR81WNWwX0WMXRrSx29UFIoC5CPjeep0-UWO2XWFR8/s320/Aguablava+Costa+Blanca.jpg" width="213" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
South of Barcelona, the coast is very different to the Costa
Brava. This is a region of apparently endless flat, sandy beaches
and, beyond the history-soaked streets of Tarragona, there are few
coastal places of interest. Until that is the Ebro, one of the
great waterways of Spain, mutates from stately river to become the
flamingo-tinted Ebro Delta; a confused web of channels, lagoons and
dune-backed beaches reaching down to Catalonia's southern border
and forming northern Spain's most important wetland bird
habitat.<br />
<br />
<b>Cities by the sea</b>
<br />
There is more urban fun to be had outside Barcelona. Just 35km
south, Sitges is an old fishing village that's now a beach resort
and a favourite with locals since the late 19th century. It was
also central to the Modernist movement that paved the way for
Picasso. It now attracts shoppers, clubbers, honeymooners,
weekending families and, in July and August, Sitges turns into one
big beach party with nightlife to rival Ibiza as well as a renowned
Carnaval bacchanalian (February-March).<br />
The sunny port city of Tarragona is a fascinating mix of beach
life, Roman history and medieval alleyways. Its top attraction is
its sea-facing amphitheatre and other Roman sites (
<a href="http://museutgn.com/" target="_blank">museutgn.com</a>;
admission €3.25 per site/ €10.85 all sites), but the town's
medieval heart is also one of the most beautifully designed in
Spain.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdtG9yPTdBIzFnxDDwhFsKkb2JamgcuHKd65iCYsFm_xEFkA4JufhOuBUa3Kyr7wUBpRQpFxSdEmwTYsV_OsSf-aZTsFAUe9sOIpwmmz6qAV9cTtGzCeYoZjccUj0E5how7rZMaLoJ2Hk/s1600/Tarragonna+Roman+amphitheatre.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdtG9yPTdBIzFnxDDwhFsKkb2JamgcuHKd65iCYsFm_xEFkA4JufhOuBUa3Kyr7wUBpRQpFxSdEmwTYsV_OsSf-aZTsFAUe9sOIpwmmz6qAV9cTtGzCeYoZjccUj0E5how7rZMaLoJ2Hk/s320/Tarragonna+Roman+amphitheatre.jpg" width="213" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
<b>Gourmet hot spots</b>
<br />
Catalonia has something for all tastes, from simple beachside
shacks serving seafood to esteemed temples of gastronomy. El Bulli,
with three Michelin stars and a record five "Best Restaurant in the
World" titles, has closed. But others were quick to move in. One of
the best is El Celler de Can Roca in Girona (00 34 972 22 21 57; <a href="http://cellercanroca.com/" target="_blank">cellercanroca.com</a>; tasting menus from €130),
pictured. Its style is playful – try a "dry gambini", with a prawn
serving the olive role in a dry Martini.<br />
In Tossa de Mar, La Cuina de Can Simón (00 34 972 34 12 69;
Carrer del Portal 24; tasting menus €68 to €98) has the most
imaginative dishes in town (try pig trotters and sea cucumber).<br />
In the Ebro Delta, Mas Prades (00 34 977 05 90 84; menus €30) is
where gourmets from Barcelona go for superb delta cuisine such as
mussels and baby squid or rice with wild duck.<br />
<br />
<b>Dally with Dalí</b>
<br />
Salvador Dalí was a boy of the Catalan coast, born in Figueres
in 1904. His art defined a movement and his presence still echoes
throughout the coast. The Teatre-Museu Dalí (00 34 972 677 500; <a href="http://salvador-dali.org/" target="_blank">salvador-dali.org</a>; entry €12), pictured, in his
home town, was created by the artist with the goal of allowing
everyone to experience his "desires, enigmas, obsessions and
passions".<br />
In his youth, Dalí holidayed in Cadaqués, not far from Figueres,
and later set up home in the village of Port Ligat. His house, now
the Casa Museu Dalí (00 34 972 25 10 15; <a href="http://salvador-dali.org/" target="_blank">salvador-dali.org</a>; €11), is open to visitors by
reservation only.<br />
Towards the end of their lives Dalí and his wife Gala moved to
the Castell de Púbol (00 34 972 488 655; <a href="http://salvador-dali.org/" target="_blank">salvador-dali.org</a>; €8), not far from Girona,
where Gala now lies in a crypt surrounded by stone elephants with
giraffes' legs and other oddities.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpwgP9r_4z8jpFm4oeh9nZoN9cIwIobXH-I5BHquK332ia8Ebk5Io66J3XpsX8Ly1b3YoVJhExrYAkctgxhNYayfGcZLH-DqZKDAdcCkx9QvsPqCkhoFTR_Qln0dsb1XY0xb3Erqmubwg/s1600/Teatro+Museu+Dali+Figueres.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpwgP9r_4z8jpFm4oeh9nZoN9cIwIobXH-I5BHquK332ia8Ebk5Io66J3XpsX8Ly1b3YoVJhExrYAkctgxhNYayfGcZLH-DqZKDAdcCkx9QvsPqCkhoFTR_Qln0dsb1XY0xb3Erqmubwg/s320/Teatro+Museu+Dali+Figueres.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
<b>What lies beneath</b>
<br />
The Costa Brava has some of the best diving in the western Med.
The focus is on the Illes Medes, a group of seven islets offshore
from the town of L'Estartit. Some 1,300 species of plants and
animals have been seen in the waters here, including conger eels,
rays and groupers.<br />
The tourist office has lists of scuba-diving operators – Costa
Brava Divers (00 34 972 752 034; <a href="http://costa-brava-divers.com/" target="_blank">costa-brava-divers.com</a>) is one option; two-hour
trips from €35pp.<br />
<br />
<b>Where to stay</b>
<br />
There are fabulous places to stay all along the Catalan coast.
The Hostal Sa Rascassa (00 34 972 622 845; <a href="http://hostalsarascassa.com/" target="_blank">hostalsarascassa.com</a>; doubles from €135,
B&B), pictured, overlooking the rocky cove of Aiguafreda, has a
handful of delightful rooms and a sense of utter tranquillity.<br />
<br />
The Hotel Cap d'Or (00 34 972 34 00 81; <a href="http://hotelcapdor.com/" target="_blank">hotelcapdor.com</a>; doubles from €103, B&B),
which rubs up against the Old Town walls of Tossa de Mar, is a
classic Spanish guesthouse with simple but lovingly decorated
rooms.<br />
<br />
The Hotel Mediterrani (00 34 972 61 45 00; <a href="http://hotelmediterrani.com/" target="_blank">hotelmediterrani.com</a>; doubles from €130,
B&B) has swish, arty rooms decked out in placid creams – some
with breathtaking views of a sliver of sand on the edge of Calella
de Palafrugell, one of the nicest beach towns on the Costa
Brava.<br />
The website <a href="http://rusticae.es/" target="_blank">rusticae.es</a> lists
more, properties with character along the coast.<br />
<br />
<b>Getting there and getting around</b>
<br />
Barcelona is the main flight hub for the region, served from the
UK by easyJet (0843 104 5000; <a href="http://easyjet.com/" target="_blank">easyjet.com</a>),
Ryanair (0871 246 0000; <a href="http://ryanair.com/" target="_blank">ryanair.com</a>), BA
(0844 493 0787; <a href="http://ba.com/" target="_blank">ba.com</a>), Monarch (0871
940 5040; <a href="http://monarch.co.uk/" target="_blank">monarch.co.uk</a>),
Jet2 (0871 226 1737; <a href="http://jet2.com/" target="_blank">jet2.com</a>) and Vueling
(0906 754 7541; <a href="http://vueling.com/" target="_blank">vueling.com</a>).
Ryanair also flies from eight UK airports to the city of Girona,
close to the beaches of the Costa Brava.<br />
<br />
Package holidays are available from a range of UK airports with
Thomson (0871 231 4691; <a href="http://thomson.co.uk/" target="_blank">thomson.co.uk</a>)
and Thomas Cook (
<a href="http://thomascook.com/" target="_blank">thomascook.com</a>). Specialist operators include
Keycamp (0844 334 8253; <a href="http://keycamp.co.uk/" target="_blank">keycamp.co.uk</a>)
for camping; Solmar Villas (0845 508 7775; <a href="http://www.solmarvillas.com/" target="_blank">www.solmarvillas.com</a>) and James Villas (0800
074 0122; <a href="http://jamesvillas.co.uk/" target="_blank">jamesvillas.co.uk</a>) for rentals.<br />
Getting around is a breeze; excellent trains run close to the
coast all the way from the French border to south of Tarragona,
with reliable and cheap bus services filling in the gaps.<br />
For more information go to: <a href="http://www.costadaurada.info/" target="_blank">www.costadaurada.info</a>, <a href="http://en.costabrava.org/" target="_blank">en.costabrava.org</a> and <a href="http://catalunya.com/" target="_blank">catalunya.com</a>.<br />
<i><br /></i>
</div>
</div>
</div>
stuart butlerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03344630768242182508noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6765681853641695349.post-47847008048762320602013-04-05T01:20:00.000-07:002013-04-05T01:20:24.038-07:00Photo Galleries<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Rather than posting up individual sets of photos I thought it was time I simply posted a link to all my sets of photos on my Flickr account here - one day i will get around to sorting out my website and getting the galleries up on that.<br />
http://www.flickr.com/photos/25936994@N00/sets</div>
stuart butlerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03344630768242182508noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6765681853641695349.post-33575804443280837222013-04-02T13:16:00.001-07:002013-04-27T14:08:30.943-07:00Central Africa (Republic Congo, DR Congo, Central African Republic) 2012<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div style="margin: 0; overflow: hidden; padding: 0; width: 500px;">
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/25936994@N00/8605470853/in/set-72157633122199299/" style="display: block; float: left; height: 75px; padding: 0 10px 10px 0; width: 75px;" title="Western Lowland gorilla IMG_8591"><img alt="Western Lowland gorilla IMG_8591" src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8123/8605470853_f9b71babe3_s.jpg" style="border: none; height: 75px; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 75px;" /></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/25936994@N00/8603855874/in/set-72157633122199299/" style="display: block; float: left; height: 75px; padding: 0 10px 10px 0; width: 75px;" title="BaAka man with bow and arrow IMG_2277"><img alt="BaAka man with bow and arrow IMG_2277" src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8519/8603855874_4c14f30656_s.jpg" style="border: none; height: 75px; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 75px;" /></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/25936994@N00/8612042279/in/set-72157633122199299/" style="display: block; float: left; height: 75px; padding: 0 10px 10px 0; width: 75px;" title="Net hunting with the BaAka IMG_9745"><img alt="Net hunting with the BaAka IMG_9745" src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8539/8612042279_40a259ca52_s.jpg" style="border: none; height: 75px; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 75px;" /></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/25936994@N00/8605458847/in/set-72157633122199299/" style="display: block; float: left; height: 75px; padding: 0 10px 10px 0; width: 75px;" title="Western lowland gorilla IMG_8620"><img alt="Western lowland gorilla IMG_8620" src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8538/8605458847_d7b8430d3a_s.jpg" style="border: none; height: 75px; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 75px;" /></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/25936994@N00/8611984843/in/set-72157633122199299/" style="display: block; float: left; height: 75px; padding: 0 10px 10px 0; width: 75px;" title="BaAka hunting IMG_9563"><img alt="BaAka hunting IMG_9563" src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8109/8611984843_d99bee04c9_s.jpg" style="border: none; height: 75px; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 75px;" /></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/25936994@N00/8605419551/in/set-72157633122199299/" style="display: block; float: left; height: 75px; padding: 0 0 10px 0; width: 75px;" title="Surfing in Congo IMG_7732"><img alt="Surfing in Congo IMG_7732" src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8521/8605419551_b89c31828e_s.jpg" style="border: none; height: 75px; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 75px;" /></a><br />
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/25936994@N00/8606759162/in/set-72157633122199299/" style="display: block; float: left; height: 75px; padding: 0 10px 10px 0; width: 75px;" title="dugout canoe journey IMG_8860"><img alt="dugout canoe journey IMG_8860" src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8260/8606759162_d272004664_s.jpg" style="border: none; height: 75px; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 75px;" /></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/25936994@N00/8605621673/in/set-72157633122199299/" style="display: block; float: left; height: 75px; padding: 0 10px 10px 0; width: 75px;" title="Forest elephant in bai IMG_9014"><img alt="Forest elephant in bai IMG_9014" src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8240/8605621673_f17ee96f54_s.jpg" style="border: none; height: 75px; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 75px;" /></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/25936994@N00/8613104958/in/set-72157633122199299/" style="display: block; float: left; height: 75px; padding: 0 10px 10px 0; width: 75px;" title="Net Hunting with the BaAka IMG_9391"><img alt="Net Hunting with the BaAka IMG_9391" src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8539/8613104958_62e5754463_s.jpg" style="border: none; height: 75px; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 75px;" /></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/25936994@N00/8602835203/in/set-72157633122199299/" style="display: block; float: left; height: 75px; padding: 0 10px 10px 0; width: 75px;" title="BaAka man IMG_2471"><img alt="BaAka man IMG_2471" src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8261/8602835203_b8a8c94b0b_s.jpg" style="border: none; height: 75px; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 75px;" /></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/25936994@N00/8613145404/in/set-72157633122199299/" style="display: block; float: left; height: 75px; padding: 0 10px 10px 0; width: 75px;" title="Net Hunt with the BaAka IMG_9782"><img alt="Net Hunt with the BaAka IMG_9782" src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8404/8613145404_91a7d8db95_s.jpg" style="border: none; height: 75px; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 75px;" /></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/25936994@N00/8603932400/in/set-72157633122199299/" style="display: block; float: left; height: 75px; padding: 0 0 10px 0; width: 75px;" title="Village portraits IMG_2502"><img alt="Village portraits IMG_2502" src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8542/8603932400_c15b4c7663_s.jpg" style="border: none; height: 75px; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 75px;" /></a><br />
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/25936994@N00/8613095188/in/set-72157633122199299/" style="display: block; float: left; height: 75px; padding: 0 10px 10px 0; width: 75px;" title="BaAka net hunting IMG_9507"><img alt="BaAka net hunting IMG_9507" src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8380/8613095188_5a6c261b76_s.jpg" style="border: none; height: 75px; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 75px;" /></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/25936994@N00/8603916582/in/set-72157633122199299/" style="display: block; float: left; height: 75px; padding: 0 10px 10px 0; width: 75px;" title="Village Portraits IMG_2530"><img alt="Village Portraits IMG_2530" src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8241/8603916582_08cd076e3a_s.jpg" style="border: none; height: 75px; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 75px;" /></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/25936994@N00/8613112784/in/set-72157633122199299/" style="display: block; float: left; height: 75px; padding: 0 10px 10px 0; width: 75px;" title="Net hunting with the BaAka IMG_9343"><img alt="Net hunting with the BaAka IMG_9343" src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8402/8613112784_312e1723d4_s.jpg" style="border: none; height: 75px; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 75px;" /></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/25936994@N00/8603860750/in/set-72157633122199299/" style="display: block; float: left; height: 75px; padding: 0 10px 10px 0; width: 75px;" title="Pygmy Hunters IMG_2112"><img alt="Pygmy Hunters IMG_2112" src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8398/8603860750_8a9851b8a2_s.jpg" style="border: none; height: 75px; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 75px;" /></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/25936994@N00/8606529540/in/set-72157633122199299/" style="display: block; float: left; height: 75px; padding: 0 10px 10px 0; width: 75px;" title="Surfing in Congo IMG_7694"><img alt="Surfing in Congo IMG_7694" src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8107/8606529540_7686f900cf_s.jpg" style="border: none; height: 75px; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 75px;" /></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/25936994@N00/8605492101/in/set-72157633122199299/" style="display: block; float: left; height: 75px; padding: 0 0 10px 0; width: 75px;" title="Hiking to Mondika IMG_8164"><img alt="Hiking to Mondika IMG_8164" src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8114/8605492101_b550445d8a_s.jpg" style="border: none; height: 75px; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 75px;" /></a><br />
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/25936994@N00/8603868680/in/set-72157633122199299/" style="display: block; float: left; height: 75px; padding: 0 10px 10px 0; width: 75px;" title="Pygmy Hunters"><img alt="Pygmy Hunters" src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8107/8603868680_296dc013e6_s.jpg" style="border: none; height: 75px; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 75px;" /></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/25936994@N00/8613555279/in/set-72157633122199299/" style="display: block; float: left; height: 75px; padding: 0 10px 10px 0; width: 75px;" title="BaAka portrait IMG_9982"><img alt="BaAka portrait IMG_9982" src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8250/8613555279_b9af37c881_s.jpg" style="border: none; height: 75px; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 75px;" /></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/25936994@N00/8613581853/in/set-72157633122199299/" style="display: block; float: left; height: 75px; padding: 0 10px 10px 0; width: 75px;" title="Pangolin caught by BaAka IMG_9870"><img alt="Pangolin caught by BaAka IMG_9870" src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8534/8613581853_957efde6c3_s.jpg" style="border: none; height: 75px; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 75px;" /></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/25936994@N00/8605429949/in/set-72157633122199299/" style="display: block; float: left; height: 75px; padding: 0 10px 10px 0; width: 75px;" title="Surfing in Congo IMG_7661"><img alt="Surfing in Congo IMG_7661" src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8534/8605429949_4f4b6d3ac3_s.jpg" style="border: none; height: 75px; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 75px;" /></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/25936994@N00/8613109116/in/set-72157633122199299/" style="display: block; float: left; height: 75px; padding: 0 10px 10px 0; width: 75px;" title="Net Hunting with the BaAka IMG_9373"><img alt="Net Hunting with the BaAka IMG_9373" src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8389/8613109116_4eec5ffd48_s.jpg" style="border: none; height: 75px; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 75px;" /></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/25936994@N00/8603845356/in/set-72157633122199299/" style="display: block; float: left; height: 75px; padding: 0 0 10px 0; width: 75px;" title="BaAka dance IMG_2341"><img alt="BaAka dance IMG_2341" src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8100/8603845356_6b3b736d54_s.jpg" style="border: none; height: 75px; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 75px;" /></a></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 5px; margin-top: 0px;">
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/25936994@N00/sets/72157633122199299/">Central Africa (Republic Congo, DR Congo, Central African Republic) 2012</a>, a set on Flickr.</div>
I spent part of late 2012 in the Central African countries of Republic of Congo, Democratic Republic of Congo and Central African Republic (although my trip through the eastern part of DRC was cut short though by the M23 invasion of Goma). I was there both for Lonely Planet researching the relevant chapters for the monster that is the Africa book and for a variety of magazines and websites. The Congo was a trip I had always wanted to make and it didn't let me down - gorillas and elephants, boat rides, surfing and hunting with the pygmies. An amazing experience. Enjoy the photos!</div>
stuart butlerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03344630768242182508noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6765681853641695349.post-14414037193119118112013-03-15T05:53:00.001-07:002013-04-27T14:10:14.191-07:00Maha Kumbh Mela Allahabad 2013<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div style="margin: 0; overflow: hidden; padding: 0; width: 500px;">
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/25936994@N00/8542087738/in/set-72157632958837870/" style="display: block; float: left; height: 75px; padding: 0 10px 10px 0; width: 75px;" title="Gods"><img alt="Gods" src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8105/8542087738_59f3bc886f_s.jpg" style="border: none; height: 75px; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 75px;" /></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/25936994@N00/8547402223/in/set-72157632958837870/" style="display: block; float: left; height: 75px; padding: 0 10px 10px 0; width: 75px;" title="Holy men IMG_9876"><img alt="Holy men IMG_9876" src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8227/8547402223_4a4eb42ced_s.jpg" style="border: none; height: 75px; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 75px;" /></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/25936994@N00/8542017565/in/set-72157632958837870/" style="display: block; float: left; height: 75px; padding: 0 10px 10px 0; width: 75px;" title="Coomunal Bathing February 10th 2013"><img alt="Coomunal Bathing February 10th 2013" src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8231/8542017565_9aace685c0_s.jpg" style="border: none; height: 75px; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 75px;" /></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/25936994@N00/8540596377/in/set-72157632958837870/" style="display: block; float: left; height: 75px; padding: 0 10px 10px 0; width: 75px;" title="Act of Devotion"><img alt="Act of Devotion" src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8506/8540596377_9d52a757c1_s.jpg" style="border: none; height: 75px; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 75px;" /></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/25936994@N00/8542250684/in/set-72157632958837870/" style="display: block; float: left; height: 75px; padding: 0 10px 10px 0; width: 75px;" title="Procession of the Naga 3"><img alt="Procession of the Naga 3" src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8530/8542250684_96b3832bf7_s.jpg" style="border: none; height: 75px; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 75px;" /></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/25936994@N00/8544240695/in/set-72157632958837870/" style="display: block; float: left; height: 75px; padding: 0 0 10px 0; width: 75px;" title="Away from the Crowds 5"><img alt="Away from the Crowds 5" src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8391/8544240695_3347f30ea0_s.jpg" style="border: none; height: 75px; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 75px;" /></a><br />
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/25936994@N00/8542083654/in/set-72157632958837870/" style="display: block; float: left; height: 75px; padding: 0 10px 10px 0; width: 75px;" title="Bathing Pilgrim 2"><img alt="Bathing Pilgrim 2" src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8237/8542083654_f1037c6403_s.jpg" style="border: none; height: 75px; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 75px;" /></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/25936994@N00/8542204432/in/set-72157632958837870/" style="display: block; float: left; height: 75px; padding: 0 10px 10px 0; width: 75px;" title="Sleeping under the stars"><img alt="Sleeping under the stars" src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8111/8542204432_ddc80dbcdd_s.jpg" style="border: none; height: 75px; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 75px;" /></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/25936994@N00/8540975345/in/set-72157632958837870/" style="display: block; float: left; height: 75px; padding: 0 10px 10px 0; width: 75px;" title="Boat man"><img alt="Boat man" src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8512/8540975345_9421c27c85_s.jpg" style="border: none; height: 75px; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 75px;" /></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/25936994@N00/8542008171/in/set-72157632958837870/" style="display: block; float: left; height: 75px; padding: 0 10px 10px 0; width: 75px;" title="Sari women"><img alt="Sari women" src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8378/8542008171_1ae40aa38d_s.jpg" style="border: none; height: 75px; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 75px;" /></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/25936994@N00/8543112214/in/set-72157632958837870/" style="display: block; float: left; height: 75px; padding: 0 10px 10px 0; width: 75px;" title="Sadhu"><img alt="Sadhu" src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8236/8543112214_20eb2749ef_s.jpg" style="border: none; height: 75px; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 75px;" /></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/25936994@N00/8542265570/in/set-72157632958837870/" style="display: block; float: left; height: 75px; padding: 0 0 10px 0; width: 75px;" title="Musical Procession"><img alt="Musical Procession" src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8248/8542265570_843ff1450b_s.jpg" style="border: none; height: 75px; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 75px;" /></a><br />
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/25936994@N00/8542090988/in/set-72157632958837870/" style="display: block; float: left; height: 75px; padding: 0 10px 10px 0; width: 75px;" title="200 year old Guru"><img alt="200 year old Guru" src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8101/8542090988_99db110784_s.jpg" style="border: none; height: 75px; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 75px;" /></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/25936994@N00/8541703936/in/set-72157632958837870/" style="display: block; float: left; height: 75px; padding: 0 10px 10px 0; width: 75px;" title="Turbaned pilgrim"><img alt="Turbaned pilgrim" src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8089/8541703936_7b8179bf58_s.jpg" style="border: none; height: 75px; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 75px;" /></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/25936994@N00/8541973967/in/set-72157632958837870/" style="display: block; float: left; height: 75px; padding: 0 10px 10px 0; width: 75px;" title="Procession of the Naga"><img alt="Procession of the Naga" src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8379/8541973967_3766af8d60_s.jpg" style="border: none; height: 75px; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 75px;" /></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/25936994@N00/8542095346/in/set-72157632958837870/" style="display: block; float: left; height: 75px; padding: 0 10px 10px 0; width: 75px;" title="Cardboard temples"><img alt="Cardboard temples" src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8518/8542095346_d786e7ece9_s.jpg" style="border: none; height: 75px; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 75px;" /></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/25936994@N00/8541710308/in/set-72157632958837870/" style="display: block; float: left; height: 75px; padding: 0 10px 10px 0; width: 75px;" title="Chest of Naga Sadhu"><img alt="Chest of Naga Sadhu" src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8522/8541710308_2f09b21da1_s.jpg" style="border: none; height: 75px; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 75px;" /></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/25936994@N00/8542150234/in/set-72157632958837870/" style="display: block; float: left; height: 75px; padding: 0 0 10px 0; width: 75px;" title="Pilgrim"><img alt="Pilgrim" src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8236/8542150234_8b8c613a14_s.jpg" style="border: none; height: 75px; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 75px;" /></a><br />
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/25936994@N00/8543069612/in/set-72157632958837870/" style="display: block; float: left; height: 75px; padding: 0 10px 10px 0; width: 75px;" title="Dawn Procession"><img alt="Dawn Procession" src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8380/8543069612_0e5ca1a0c3_s.jpg" style="border: none; height: 75px; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 75px;" /></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/25936994@N00/8544255549/in/set-72157632958837870/" style="display: block; float: left; height: 75px; padding: 0 10px 10px 0; width: 75px;" title="Away from the Crowds 3"><img alt="Away from the Crowds 3" src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8377/8544255549_4c42bac857_s.jpg" style="border: none; height: 75px; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 75px;" /></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/25936994@N00/8541100619/in/set-72157632958837870/" style="display: block; float: left; height: 75px; padding: 0 10px 10px 0; width: 75px;" title="Toilet Block"><img alt="Toilet Block" src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8373/8541100619_8d7a98ffa9_s.jpg" style="border: none; height: 75px; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 75px;" /></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/25936994@N00/8548447854/in/set-72157632958837870/" style="display: block; float: left; height: 75px; padding: 0 10px 10px 0; width: 75px;" title="Sadhu IM_9792"><img alt="Sadhu IM_9792" src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8103/8548447854_797e4abdc3_s.jpg" style="border: none; height: 75px; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 75px;" /></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/25936994@N00/8545581520/in/set-72157632958837870/" style="display: block; float: left; height: 75px; padding: 0 10px 10px 0; width: 75px;" title="Bridges to Heaven"><img alt="Bridges to Heaven" src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8379/8545581520_6a4a324881_s.jpg" style="border: none; height: 75px; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 75px;" /></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/25936994@N00/8543079232/in/set-72157632958837870/" style="display: block; float: left; height: 75px; padding: 0 0 10px 0; width: 75px;" title="Procession of the Naga 2"><img alt="Procession of the Naga 2" src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8511/8543079232_69a8d8745d_s.jpg" style="border: none; height: 75px; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 75px;" /></a></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 5px; margin-top: 0px;">
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/25936994@N00/sets/72157632958837870/">Maha Kumbh Mela Allahabad 2013</a>, a set on Flickr.</div>
In early February 2013 I travelled to India for the Maha Kumbh Mela festival. Wow, what an experience that was! Doubt I'll ever see something like that again! It is probably the only thing I have ever done that I can honestly say is completely impossible for someone who wasn't there to comprehend. <br />
<br />
I was there to photograph and write about the event for the BBC and Lonely Planet. The following is taken from my first blog post for BBC Travel and gives the general background to this most extraordinary of events.<br />
<br />
The original can be seen here: http://www.bbc.com/travel/blog/20130116-india-hosts-the-worlds-biggest-gathering<br />
<br />
The following is a link to my Flickr site where the final edit of my favourite images from the festival can be found. http://www.flickr.com/photos/25936994@N00/sets/72157632958837870/<br />
<br /></div>
stuart butlerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03344630768242182508noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6765681853641695349.post-46405674306795431232013-03-14T05:55:00.001-07:002013-04-27T14:11:13.438-07:00The Future of Conservation in Kenya?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhW0MKVTcUebVVPhChDsPFLj4kfRFA8r4XKAVyma0MpE7vSfvbNziF4cjJ-KushyphenhyphensUzvxcjpY5g2QjEE30kLj54azqY8C-ZOJJlW4ceBGheO_HtHMQh9pw2BYjJgM0maQrP29tL8dVVmXw/s1600/Ranger+tracking+lions+Lewa+Kenya.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhW0MKVTcUebVVPhChDsPFLj4kfRFA8r4XKAVyma0MpE7vSfvbNziF4cjJ-KushyphenhyphensUzvxcjpY5g2QjEE30kLj54azqY8C-ZOJJlW4ceBGheO_HtHMQh9pw2BYjJgM0maQrP29tL8dVVmXw/s320/Ranger+tracking+lions+Lewa+Kenya.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
The following is a piece I wrote a few months back for the BBC (see the
original article here, but note that due to licensing reasons people in
the UK will not be able to view this: on conservation and private conservancies in northern Kenya. I'll shortly be heading back to East Africa and South Sudan in order to work on some similar projects for the BBC and other media outlets.<br />
<br />
The Future of Conservation in Kenya<br />
<br />
<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
<w:WordDocument>
<w:View>Normal</w:View>
<w:Zoom>0</w:Zoom>
<w:PunctuationKerning/>
<w:ValidateAgainstSchemas/>
<w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>
<w:IgnoreMixedContent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent>
<w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>
<w:Compatibility>
<w:BreakWrappedTables/>
<w:SnapToGridInCell/>
<w:WrapTextWithPunct/>
<w:UseAsianBreakRules/>
<w:DontGrowAutofit/>
</w:Compatibility>
<w:BrowserLevel>MicrosoftInternetExplorer4</w:BrowserLevel>
</w:WordDocument>
</xml><![endif]--><br />
<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
<w:LatentStyles DefLockedState="false" LatentStyleCount="156">
</w:LatentStyles>
</xml><![endif]--><!--[if !mso]><img src="//img2.blogblog.com/img/video_object.png" style="background-color: #b2b2b2; " class="BLOGGER-object-element tr_noresize tr_placeholder" id="ieooui" data-original-id="ieooui" />
<style>
st1\:*{behavior:url(#ieooui) }
</style>
<![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 10]>
<style>
/* Style Definitions */
table.MsoNormalTable
{mso-style-name:"Table Normal";
mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0;
mso-tstyle-colband-size:0;
mso-style-noshow:yes;
mso-style-parent:"";
mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt;
mso-para-margin:0cm;
mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt;
mso-pagination:widow-orphan;
font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:"Times New Roman";
mso-ansi-language:#0400;
mso-fareast-language:#0400;
mso-bidi-language:#0400;}
</style>
<![endif]-->
<br />
The bejewelled and feather-dressed Samburu tribesmen must have laughed all
the way home when Italian journalist Riccardo Orizio gathered them together a
decade ago and told them of his plans to turn a couple of lumpy granite
outcrops in the heart of Samburu country into a luxury game lodge overlooking
the searing, acacia-speckled plains of northern Kenya.<br />
<br />
Several years and one luxury lodge later, nobody is laughing. The <a href="http://www.sarunisamburu.com/">Saruni Samburu Lodge</a> is so perfectly
designed that its permanent tents virtually meld into the rocky bluff on which
it is located. And these tents have stone bath tubs, open-air showers,
terraces, designer furnishings, heavenly beds and views overlooking a
little-visited corner of the northern savannah lands that are quite simply out
of this world.<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIwk7UcONuSojLUysTmUrhuSAtfm3STYjQjSKyaksqnKcOQwureMo1noZAPhvBuxPGYkuJbVZGPU8uUzeH_ay-wUZ6kwgnME40KS3UO-RgUZhY7a9Nyqk0KfSdVlR3UOyBcSH2g3b-Eko/s1600/Cheetah+Lewa+Kenya+11.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIwk7UcONuSojLUysTmUrhuSAtfm3STYjQjSKyaksqnKcOQwureMo1noZAPhvBuxPGYkuJbVZGPU8uUzeH_ay-wUZ6kwgnME40KS3UO-RgUZhY7a9Nyqk0KfSdVlR3UOyBcSH2g3b-Eko/s320/Cheetah+Lewa+Kenya+11.jpg" width="213" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
For many years conservation -- and safaris -- in Kenya
meant visiting one of the nation’s famous government-run national parks or
reserves, such as <a href="http://www.kws.org/parks/parks_reserves/AMNP.html">Amboseli
National Park</a> and the <a href="http://www.maasaimara.com/">Masai Mara National
Reserve</a>. Saruni Samburu, though, sits in the middle of the 384sqkm
community-owned and -managed <a href="http://www.nrt-kenya.org/conservancies/Kalama.html">Kalama Community Wildlife
Conservancy</a>, one of a growing number of privately-owned wildlife reserves
in Kenya.<br />
<br />
According to the <a href="http://www.kws.org/partners/index.html">Kenya
Wildlife Service</a>, up to 70% of Kenya’s wildlife lives outside of
the protection of the national parks and reserves. So many people believe that
the future of conservation in Kenya
lies in this new breed of private reserves -- there are at least 15 such
conservancies in north Kenya
alone. Some of these, such as Kalama, are owned by the local community and are
located on former communal cattle grazing land. Others are owned by private
individuals and are often located on former cattle ranches. Together they are
changing the face of conservation and tourism in Kenya.<br />
Such protected land is not just good news for wildlife though; they are also
bringing about huge benefits to local people. The land on which these reserves
lie was often used for livestock grazing. In the past, wildlife was seen mainly
as a nuisance and a danger, but over time people realised that wildlife could
attract foreign tourists, which in turn translated into dollars for the
community.<br />
<br />
Investors such as Orizo, who were willing to construct luxury
tourist lodges, were needed to build the essential infrastructure. Much of the
money generated through tourism is pumped straight back into the community,
which means that the locals have a vested interest in the survival of wildlife
on their lands – a fact that is not always true in the state-run national parks
and reserves. The final icing on the cake is that tourist numbers are generally
limited to the capacity of one or two lodges – meaning wildlife watching is
undisturbed by streams of other safari vehicles.<br />
<br />
One of the first, and certainly one of the finest examples of this kind of
community-based conservation is found just a short way to the south of Kalama,
at the <a href="http://www.lewa.org/">Lewa Wildlife Conservancy</a> (LWC).
Although Lewa has luxury lodges, stunning scenery, astounding wildlife and has
hosted Prince William, they would rather focus on their community and
conservation projects. Founded in 1995, LWC is a non-profit organisation that
relies on tourism-generated money and donations. Today it has an annual
operating budget of around $2.5 million, about 70% of which is ploughed
directly back into healthcare, education and various community projects for the
surrounding villages, while the rest funds further conservation and security
projects.<br />
<br />
The conservation effort at Lewa -- which is a mixture of classic habitat
preservation, stringent security measures (the rhinos have their own security
guards at all times) and the use of the latest technology to enhance the
knowledge of a species and its breeding patterns -- has been astounding. And
20% of the world’s Grevy’s zebras, 12% of Kenya’s black rhinos, a rare
population of aquatic sitatunga antelope and sizeable populations of white
rhinos, elephants and buffalos thrive here. Of the predators, there are small
but growing populations of leopards and lions. Lewa has been so successful that
it is being used as a model for private conservation throughout East Africa. For a visitor this means not just the
near-guaranteed opportunity to see all the “big five” (lion, buffalo, elephant,
rhino and leopard), but that joy also comes with the knowledge that your money
is helping the local community.<br />
<br />
Lewa might be one of Kenya’s finest wildlife viewing areas and Kalama might
offer one of the most luxurious and chic safaris, but for a true East African
wilderness experience look no further than <a href="http://www.kitichcamp.com/">Kitich
Camp</a> in the Matthews Mountain range. These dramatic mountain slopes, which
rise up out of the semi-desert to the north of Kalana and Lewa, are carpeted in
misty forests and support a wealth of wildlife, including elephants, lions,
buffalos and what might be Kenya’s
largest wild dog population. The mountains fall under the protection of the <a href="http://www.nrt-kenya.org/conservancies/Namunyak.html">Namunyak Wildlife
Conservation Trust</a>, another community-run conservation area that was
established in 1995 by the mountains’ Samburu people.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-TDL8g7rxIPvKI9LbM9bXan4BScugFU-JapVJA2B5BBmAe6xImdNtGtVAampNDnYcAM7-yzaaQtThlPNKzeVvnaA04s8p4InWUjUwpvIpU41GbnHOEFUDcY1rc68u-Cl45txN-Hg3loQ/s1600/kitich+camp+kenya+2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-TDL8g7rxIPvKI9LbM9bXan4BScugFU-JapVJA2B5BBmAe6xImdNtGtVAampNDnYcAM7-yzaaQtThlPNKzeVvnaA04s8p4InWUjUwpvIpU41GbnHOEFUDcY1rc68u-Cl45txN-Hg3loQ/s320/kitich+camp+kenya+2.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
Today, it is one of
Kenya’s
most successful community conservation programs and and this accomplishment has
seen animal populations rise dramatically. It acts as a vital corridor for
elephants migrating across barren northern Kenya and it is one of the few
places in the country where wild dog populations and Grevy’s zebra are
increasing.. And the Kitich Camp itself is arguably the most remote camp in Kenya; staying here is a true wild Africa experience. Elephants pass through almost daily --
coming so close to your tent at night that you can hear them breathing -- and
passing lions are not unheard of either.<br />
<br />
With private conservancies starting to pop up all across Kenya, the
Samburu, Maasai and other pastoralist communities are laughing again. This time
though, it is due to the joy that they have finally found a way of combining
their traditional lifestyle, conservation and the demands of the modern world
into one happy, wildlife-filled bundle.<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
</div>
stuart butlerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03344630768242182508noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6765681853641695349.post-18307805772237453952013-03-05T13:39:00.001-08:002013-03-05T13:39:20.966-08:0024 hrs in Varanasi, India<div style="padding: 0; overflow: hidden; margin: 0; width: 500px;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/25936994@N00/8530093657/in/set-72157632921790476/" title="Sadhu" style="display: block; padding: 0 10px 10px 0; width: 75px; height: 75px; float: left;"><img src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8245/8530093657_3ccd28df1a_s.jpg" alt="Sadhu" style="border:none; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 75px; height: 75px;"/></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/25936994@N00/8530096413/in/set-72157632921790476/" title="Varanasi Ghats" style="display: block; padding: 0 10px 10px 0; width: 75px; height: 75px; float: left;"><img src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8528/8530096413_077233b1df_s.jpg" alt="Varanasi Ghats" style="border:none; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 75px; height: 75px;"/></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/25936994@N00/8531113254/in/set-72157632921790476/" title="Pilgrim" style="display: block; padding: 0 10px 10px 0; width: 75px; height: 75px; float: left;"><img src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8226/8531113254_784f6100e6_s.jpg" alt="Pilgrim" style="border:none; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 75px; height: 75px;"/></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/25936994@N00/8530106457/in/set-72157632921790476/" title="Evening ceremony" style="display: block; padding: 0 10px 10px 0; width: 75px; height: 75px; float: left;"><img src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8389/8530106457_da7c78ec74_s.jpg" alt="Evening ceremony" style="border:none; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 75px; height: 75px;"/></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/25936994@N00/8530076117/in/set-72157632921790476/" title="Welcome" style="display: block; padding: 0 10px 10px 0; width: 75px; height: 75px; float: left;"><img src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8375/8530076117_1a159e620b_s.jpg" alt="Welcome" style="border:none; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 75px; height: 75px;"/></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/25936994@N00/8530087971/in/set-72157632921790476/" title="Lassi Shop" style="display: block; padding: 0 0 10px 0; width: 75px; height: 75px; float: left;"><img src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8515/8530087971_f216bc48ce_s.jpg" alt="Lassi Shop" style="border:none; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 75px; height: 75px;"/></a><br clear="all"/><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/25936994@N00/8531192320/in/set-72157632921790476/" title="Golden Temple queue" style="display: block; padding: 0 10px 10px 0; width: 75px; height: 75px; float: left;"><img src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8390/8531192320_62488e883a_s.jpg" alt="Golden Temple queue" style="border:none; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 75px; height: 75px;"/></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/25936994@N00/8530099205/in/set-72157632921790476/" title="Sunrise boat ride" style="display: block; padding: 0 10px 10px 0; width: 75px; height: 75px; float: left;"><img src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8086/8530099205_96251bce23_s.jpg" alt="Sunrise boat ride" style="border:none; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 75px; height: 75px;"/></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/25936994@N00/8530005261/in/set-72157632921790476/" title="Pilgrim 2" style="display: block; padding: 0 10px 10px 0; width: 75px; height: 75px; float: left;"><img src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8112/8530005261_ba73e42224_s.jpg" alt="Pilgrim 2" style="border:none; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 75px; height: 75px;"/></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/25936994@N00/8530102753/in/set-72157632921790476/" title="Evening puja" style="display: block; padding: 0 10px 10px 0; width: 75px; height: 75px; float: left;"><img src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8244/8530102753_645e41db6b_s.jpg" alt="Evening puja" style="border:none; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 75px; height: 75px;"/></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/25936994@N00/8531155742/in/set-72157632921790476/" title="Tourist Signs" style="display: block; padding: 0 10px 10px 0; width: 75px; height: 75px; float: left;"><img src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8088/8531155742_6c6b55e24a_s.jpg" alt="Tourist Signs" style="border:none; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 75px; height: 75px;"/></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/25936994@N00/8530072671/in/set-72157632921790476/" title="Boatman" style="display: block; padding: 0 0 10px 0; width: 75px; height: 75px; float: left;"><img src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8506/8530072671_f81a480ab5_s.jpg" alt="Boatman" style="border:none; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 75px; height: 75px;"/></a><br clear="all"/><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/25936994@N00/8531194278/in/set-72157632921790476/" title="Shiva" style="display: block; padding: 0 10px 10px 0; width: 75px; height: 75px; float: left;"><img src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8386/8531194278_71e6cfb06d_s.jpg" alt="Shiva" style="border:none; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 75px; height: 75px;"/></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/25936994@N00/8531196994/in/set-72157632921790476/" title="Shop owner" style="display: block; padding: 0 10px 10px 0; width: 75px; height: 75px; float: left;"><img src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8245/8531196994_bc57e07dd9_s.jpg" alt="Shop owner" style="border:none; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 75px; height: 75px;"/></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/25936994@N00/8531115824/in/set-72157632921790476/" title="Pilgrim" style="display: block; padding: 0 10px 10px 0; width: 75px; height: 75px; float: left;"><img src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8386/8531115824_d4c5b11515_s.jpg" alt="Pilgrim" style="border:none; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 75px; height: 75px;"/></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/25936994@N00/8531178944/in/set-72157632921790476/" title="Crowds for evening puja" style="display: block; padding: 0 10px 10px 0; width: 75px; height: 75px; float: left;"><img src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8366/8531178944_2671df0f53_s.jpg" alt="Crowds for evening puja" style="border:none; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 75px; height: 75px;"/></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/25936994@N00/8531128616/in/set-72157632921790476/" title="Varanasi" style="display: block; padding: 0 10px 10px 0; width: 75px; height: 75px; float: left;"><img src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8106/8531128616_7753b63732_s.jpg" alt="Varanasi" style="border:none; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 75px; height: 75px;"/></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/25936994@N00/8531122098/in/set-72157632921790476/" title="Female pilgrim" style="display: block; padding: 0 0 10px 0; width: 75px; height: 75px; float: left;"><img src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8102/8531122098_1b4c9e3d15_s.jpg" alt="Female pilgrim" style="border:none; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 75px; height: 75px;"/></a><br clear="all"/><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/25936994@N00/8530011921/in/set-72157632921790476/" title="Owner of pilgrim hostel" style="display: block; padding: 0 10px 10px 0; width: 75px; height: 75px; float: left;"><img src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8518/8530011921_a9e6a184ca_s.jpg" alt="Owner of pilgrim hostel" style="border:none; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 75px; height: 75px;"/></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/25936994@N00/8530019121/in/set-72157632921790476/" title="Tea" style="display: block; padding: 0 10px 10px 0; width: 75px; height: 75px; float: left;"><img src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8088/8530019121_5da5a937c9_s.jpg" alt="Tea" style="border:none; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 75px; height: 75px;"/></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/25936994@N00/8531182492/in/set-72157632921790476/" title="Camp fire" style="display: block; padding: 0 10px 10px 0; width: 75px; height: 75px; float: left;"><img src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8104/8531182492_c360a70674_s.jpg" alt="Camp fire" style="border:none; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 75px; height: 75px;"/></a><div style="padding: 0 10px 10px 0; width: 75px; height: 75px; float: left;"><img src="http://l.yimg.com/g/images/gallery-empty-icon.gif" style="margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 75px; height: 75px;"></div><div style="padding: 0 10px 10px 0; width: 75px; height: 75px; float: left;"><img src="http://l.yimg.com/g/images/gallery-empty-icon.gif" style="margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 75px; height: 75px;"></div><div style="padding: 0 0 10px 0; width: 75px; height: 75px; float: left;"><img src="http://l.yimg.com/g/images/gallery-empty-icon.gif" style="margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 75px; height: 75px;"></div><br clear="all"/></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 5px"><p><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/25936994@N00/sets/72157632921790476/">24 hrs in Varanasi, India 2013</a>, a set on Flickr.</p></div><p>On the way to Allahabad for the Maha Kumbh Mela I stopped off for a day (along with what seemed like millions of others) in fascinating Varanasi. India is full of places of religious importance but few come bigger and more spiritual than the city of Shiva. To bathe in the Ganges here is to wash away a life of sins and to die here is to break free of the cycle of reincarnation. It's a filthy dirty city, crowded, noisy, in your face and intense but few cities on the planet can claim to be as interesting. Next time I'll be there for longer than 24hrs...<br /><br />Here are my photos from that all too short stay (but hey I had to get home - my wife gave birth a few days later!!)</p>stuart butlerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03344630768242182508noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6765681853641695349.post-83114724858830808272013-02-28T01:30:00.001-08:002013-02-28T01:30:25.185-08:00BBC Kumbh Mela Photo Story<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinArc6gz-DAcmUQTUQ7A9ypjQ2rB1DcIHiB7exoF5nKqCOh22K76tIf6shFp8STsezysoz7itvUTKXwRvmNAdNTFLrdL78ClBojS1K_aeTr906hznKj8qavekuotGlYfoaB3hGgyEJl70/s1600/IMG_9069.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinArc6gz-DAcmUQTUQ7A9ypjQ2rB1DcIHiB7exoF5nKqCOh22K76tIf6shFp8STsezysoz7itvUTKXwRvmNAdNTFLrdL78ClBojS1K_aeTr906hznKj8qavekuotGlYfoaB3hGgyEJl70/s320/IMG_9069.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
My latest for the BBC, a photo essay on India's Kumbh Mela festival, has just been published. This is largely a different set of images from those I have had published elsewhere. Note that as usual with features for BBC Worldwide people based in the UK are likely to find the link blocked (for license reasons - sorry nothing can be done about that...). I'll try and work out a way of displaying the full slide show here.<br />
<br />
http://www.bbc.com/travel/slideshow/20130227-indias-extraordinary-pilgrimage<br />
<br />
Enjoy! And now it's back to planning my travels around the Basque country for a new Bradt Guide to the Basque Country due out early next year and planning a series of upcoming projects in South Sudan and East Africa later this year!</div>
stuart butlerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03344630768242182508noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6765681853641695349.post-56532207242363064082013-02-26T13:34:00.001-08:002013-02-26T13:34:24.247-08:00Sri Lanka 2011/12<div style="padding: 0; overflow: hidden; margin: 0; width: 500px;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/25936994@N00/8502490553/in/set-72157632840755595/" title="Tropical Beach" style="display: block; padding: 0 10px 10px 0; width: 75px; height: 75px; float: left;"><img src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8243/8502490553_6213228a51_s.jpg" alt="Tropical Beach" style="border:none; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 75px; height: 75px;"/></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/25936994@N00/8502321885/in/set-72157632840755595/" title="Tea bushes" style="display: block; padding: 0 10px 10px 0; width: 75px; height: 75px; float: left;"><img src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8239/8502321885_d07ea5fda3_s.jpg" alt="Tea bushes" style="border:none; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 75px; height: 75px;"/></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/25936994@N00/8507288381/in/set-72157632840755595/" title="Dance show Kandy Sri Lanka photo S.Butler 10" style="display: block; padding: 0 10px 10px 0; width: 75px; height: 75px; float: left;"><img src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8231/8507288381_7a518cf7e7_s.jpg" alt="Dance show Kandy Sri Lanka photo S.Butler 10" style="border:none; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 75px; height: 75px;"/></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/25936994@N00/8503939263/in/set-72157632840755595/" title="Train ride -13" style="display: block; padding: 0 10px 10px 0; width: 75px; height: 75px; float: left;"><img src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8368/8503939263_0b80f4ccd2_s.jpg" alt="Train ride -13" style="border:none; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 75px; height: 75px;"/></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/25936994@N00/8508463700/in/set-72157632840755595/" title="Dance show Kandy Sri Lanka photo S.Butler 39" style="display: block; padding: 0 10px 10px 0; width: 75px; height: 75px; float: left;"><img src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8251/8508463700_62e16ba94a_s.jpg" alt="Dance show Kandy Sri Lanka photo S.Butler 39" style="border:none; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 75px; height: 75px;"/></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/25936994@N00/8503421196/in/set-72157632840755595/" title="Dambatenne tea factory" style="display: block; padding: 0 0 10px 0; width: 75px; height: 75px; float: left;"><img src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8237/8503421196_10dcbfcfd2_s.jpg" alt="Dambatenne tea factory" style="border:none; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 75px; height: 75px;"/></a><br clear="all"/><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/25936994@N00/8503900879/in/set-72157632840755595/" title="Mulkirigala Rock temple" style="display: block; padding: 0 10px 10px 0; width: 75px; height: 75px; float: left;"><img src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8380/8503900879_c97a863f4d_s.jpg" alt="Mulkirigala Rock temple" style="border:none; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 75px; height: 75px;"/></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/25936994@N00/8508491322/in/set-72157632840755595/" title="waterfalls Horton Plains National Park Sri Lanka photo S.Butler 4" style="display: block; padding: 0 10px 10px 0; width: 75px; height: 75px; float: left;"><img src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8375/8508491322_91dccf152b_s.jpg" alt="waterfalls Horton Plains National Park Sri Lanka photo S.Butler 4" style="border:none; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 75px; height: 75px;"/></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/25936994@N00/8502377915/in/set-72157632840755595/" title="Gateway Kataragama" style="display: block; padding: 0 10px 10px 0; width: 75px; height: 75px; float: left;"><img src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8109/8502377915_5444006ca6_s.jpg" alt="Gateway Kataragama" style="border:none; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 75px; height: 75px;"/></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/25936994@N00/8502485279/in/set-72157632840755595/" title="Tropical Beach 2" style="display: block; padding: 0 10px 10px 0; width: 75px; height: 75px; float: left;"><img src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8235/8502485279_0028b63d19_s.jpg" alt="Tropical Beach 2" style="border:none; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 75px; height: 75px;"/></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/25936994@N00/8502366007/in/set-72157632840755595/" title="Tea pickers" style="display: block; padding: 0 10px 10px 0; width: 75px; height: 75px; float: left;"><img src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8379/8502366007_22e6a13104_s.jpg" alt="Tea pickers" style="border:none; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 75px; height: 75px;"/></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/25936994@N00/8503873295/in/set-72157632840755595/" title="Galle" style="display: block; padding: 0 0 10px 0; width: 75px; height: 75px; float: left;"><img src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8508/8503873295_9458497cba_s.jpg" alt="Galle" style="border:none; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 75px; height: 75px;"/></a><br clear="all"/><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/25936994@N00/8507363209/in/set-72157632840755595/" title="Dance show Kandy Sri Lanka photo S.Butler 32" style="display: block; padding: 0 10px 10px 0; width: 75px; height: 75px; float: left;"><img src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8100/8507363209_94b7221ca2_s.jpg" alt="Dance show Kandy Sri Lanka photo S.Butler 32" style="border:none; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 75px; height: 75px;"/></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/25936994@N00/8503605566/in/set-72157632840755595/" title="View from Ella Rock" style="display: block; padding: 0 10px 10px 0; width: 75px; height: 75px; float: left;"><img src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8508/8503605566_f3dfcfe391_s.jpg" alt="View from Ella Rock" style="border:none; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 75px; height: 75px;"/></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/25936994@N00/8502291619/in/set-72157632840755595/" title="Sign post" style="display: block; padding: 0 10px 10px 0; width: 75px; height: 75px; float: left;"><img src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8392/8502291619_8b4db4cc7f_s.jpg" alt="Sign post" style="border:none; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 75px; height: 75px;"/></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/25936994@N00/8507397713/in/set-72157632840755595/" title="Temple of the Tooth Kandy Sri Lanka photo S.Butler 9" style="display: block; padding: 0 10px 10px 0; width: 75px; height: 75px; float: left;"><img src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8091/8507397713_8ab8db37a6_s.jpg" alt="Temple of the Tooth Kandy Sri Lanka photo S.Butler 9" style="border:none; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 75px; height: 75px;"/></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/25936994@N00/8502318823/in/set-72157632840755595/" title="Bambarakanda waterfalls" style="display: block; padding: 0 10px 10px 0; width: 75px; height: 75px; float: left;"><img src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8228/8502318823_9e3343d634_s.jpg" alt="Bambarakanda waterfalls" style="border:none; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 75px; height: 75px;"/></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/25936994@N00/8503432516/in/set-72157632840755595/" title="Buduruwagala Buddha statues/carvings" style="display: block; padding: 0 0 10px 0; width: 75px; height: 75px; float: left;"><img src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8372/8503432516_e8421f55dc_s.jpg" alt="Buduruwagala Buddha statues/carvings" style="border:none; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 75px; height: 75px;"/></a><br clear="all"/><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/25936994@N00/8507351505/in/set-72157632840755595/" title="Dance show Kandy Sri Lanka photo S.Butler 44" style="display: block; padding: 0 10px 10px 0; width: 75px; height: 75px; float: left;"><img src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8250/8507351505_a3f1d36562_s.jpg" alt="Dance show Kandy Sri Lanka photo S.Butler 44" style="border:none; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 75px; height: 75px;"/></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/25936994@N00/8502331609/in/set-72157632840755595/" title="Dagoba" style="display: block; padding: 0 10px 10px 0; width: 75px; height: 75px; float: left;"><img src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8238/8502331609_296ec8a499_s.jpg" alt="Dagoba" style="border:none; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 75px; height: 75px;"/></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/25936994@N00/8505053632/in/set-72157632840755595/" title="Train ride -5" style="display: block; padding: 0 10px 10px 0; width: 75px; height: 75px; float: left;"><img src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8386/8505053632_82cb789365_s.jpg" alt="Train ride -5" style="border:none; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 75px; height: 75px;"/></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/25936994@N00/8508449084/in/set-72157632840755595/" title="Lawyer signs Kandyy Sri Lanka photo S.Butler" style="display: block; padding: 0 10px 10px 0; width: 75px; height: 75px; float: left;"><img src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8530/8508449084_4072817a6e_s.jpg" alt="Lawyer signs Kandyy Sri Lanka photo S.Butler" style="border:none; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 75px; height: 75px;"/></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/25936994@N00/8502336805/in/set-72157632840755595/" title="Door, Kataragama" style="display: block; padding: 0 10px 10px 0; width: 75px; height: 75px; float: left;"><img src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8390/8502336805_108fe3dce0_s.jpg" alt="Door, Kataragama" style="border:none; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 75px; height: 75px;"/></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/25936994@N00/8502350859/in/set-72157632840755595/" title="Tea plants" style="display: block; padding: 0 0 10px 0; width: 75px; height: 75px; float: left;"><img src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8252/8502350859_2eca594aca_s.jpg" alt="Tea plants" style="border:none; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 75px; height: 75px;"/></a><br clear="all"/></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 5px"><p><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/25936994@N00/sets/72157632840755595/">Sri Lanka 2011/12</a>, a set on Flickr.</p></div><p>Ok I've (as usual) been really slow with this lot, but finally here are a selection of my images from my last Lonely Planet research trip to Sri Lanka. For this current edition I had the great pleasure of re-researching the south coast and west coast as with the previous edition, but I also got to cool off in the delightful hill country. I love doing the Sri Lanka book, it's one of those jobs that feels as much a holiday as a job - the people are warm and friendly, the curries the best in the world, the scenery beautiful, the beaches near perfect and so I could go on.... In fact the only negative I can ever really come up with is that I don't find it as photographically stimulating as its big brother to the north!<br /><br />I'll be back in Sri Lanka later this year and am looking forward to a rice and curry already!</p>stuart butlerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03344630768242182508noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6765681853641695349.post-25481961618313464802013-02-08T09:13:00.001-08:002013-02-08T09:13:39.320-08:00<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<h5 class="uiStreamMessage userContentWrapper" data-ft="{"type":1,"tn":"K"}">
<span class="messageBody" data-ft="{"type":3}"><span class="userContent">Wow!
Glastonbury you don't have a patch on this! Finally made it to the
Kumbh Mela. Gods, gurus, saddhus, holymen, boat, masses of pilgrims and
noise - lots and lots of noise! Tomorrow millions and millions of
pilgrims are expected to arrive!</span></span></h5>
<h5 class="uiStreamMessage userContentWrapper" data-ft="{"type":1,"tn":"K"}">
<span class="messageBody" data-ft="{"type":3}"><span class="userContent">Some photos of the first crazy evening!</span></span></h5>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjELoAnJo9cfcKcgUOW8wCVAu6i8xPQXbww3l-CalaMtAdrOIvO7rEgeTB5eoX2PvTqkjQkjfovEYuGmvy2nDtYdGNg4DsLi-z0io7Sw9H1hYAPz2xvKyW70LznQpjibLbwPp8v4Eu7KG8/s1600/Boat+man+Allahabd+Kumbh+Mela.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjELoAnJo9cfcKcgUOW8wCVAu6i8xPQXbww3l-CalaMtAdrOIvO7rEgeTB5eoX2PvTqkjQkjfovEYuGmvy2nDtYdGNg4DsLi-z0io7Sw9H1hYAPz2xvKyW70LznQpjibLbwPp8v4Eu7KG8/s320/Boat+man+Allahabd+Kumbh+Mela.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhF4uyrf9ooklSh1s22LGiLgEZgy_JEn8kGZsbQkOfE1Aeuv3peTjGgLs9qOzTHawVSkrerQK7JKJg71u37_6S-B58eW5vW5LNhHSnasLUx5VdEmnYtSZVGMzlEJpcT8ABCxnatMTL3AY4/s1600/Boats+in+allahabad+kumbh+mela.jpg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhF4uyrf9ooklSh1s22LGiLgEZgy_JEn8kGZsbQkOfE1Aeuv3peTjGgLs9qOzTHawVSkrerQK7JKJg71u37_6S-B58eW5vW5LNhHSnasLUx5VdEmnYtSZVGMzlEJpcT8ABCxnatMTL3AY4/s1600/Boats+in+allahabad+kumbh+mela.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMf45lDZS3jcQbRvxS0BSFcELJQ0cI_LE2UoR9RQ2PyKnsqPsWlgjBfJdZ2rjOna5ze1wm7dLGX2mrDBni7X9ITn_a1aaZylR1Dq88EDzs_T1ngtbuT-AAwZpRgYw10VZqia6At5epskM/s1600/Night+boat+Allahabad+Kumbh+Mela.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMf45lDZS3jcQbRvxS0BSFcELJQ0cI_LE2UoR9RQ2PyKnsqPsWlgjBfJdZ2rjOna5ze1wm7dLGX2mrDBni7X9ITn_a1aaZylR1Dq88EDzs_T1ngtbuT-AAwZpRgYw10VZqia6At5epskM/s320/Night+boat+Allahabad+Kumbh+Mela.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgAJRQXKjCwmRz_g-IjaMPRYUWFXEtSpZKY50gF3MLDodTRHQfu5LbfoGe4SY4O5qjRD-_5CLz9655liayI679FzwHMBkwSWIISF_4k1PVg9TsD3SVYk_tNQTuQS4jHnJeayMRtrzytRQ/s1600/snake+charmer.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgAJRQXKjCwmRz_g-IjaMPRYUWFXEtSpZKY50gF3MLDodTRHQfu5LbfoGe4SY4O5qjRD-_5CLz9655liayI679FzwHMBkwSWIISF_4k1PVg9TsD3SVYk_tNQTuQS4jHnJeayMRtrzytRQ/s320/snake+charmer.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<h5 class="uiStreamMessage userContentWrapper" data-ft="{"type":1,"tn":"K"}">
<span class="messageBody" data-ft="{"type":3}"><span class="userContent"> </span></span></h5>
</div>
stuart butlerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03344630768242182508noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6765681853641695349.post-57445718309564555432013-02-07T09:24:00.001-08:002013-02-07T09:24:26.138-08:00<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
<w:WordDocument>
<w:View>Normal</w:View>
<w:Zoom>0</w:Zoom>
<w:PunctuationKerning/>
<w:ValidateAgainstSchemas/>
<w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>
<w:IgnoreMixedContent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent>
<w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>
<w:Compatibility>
<w:BreakWrappedTables/>
<w:SnapToGridInCell/>
<w:WrapTextWithPunct/>
<w:UseAsianBreakRules/>
<w:DontGrowAutofit/>
</w:Compatibility>
<w:BrowserLevel>MicrosoftInternetExplorer4</w:BrowserLevel>
</w:WordDocument>
</xml><![endif]--><br />
<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
<w:LatentStyles DefLockedState="false" LatentStyleCount="156">
</w:LatentStyles>
</xml><![endif]--><!--[if !mso]><img src="//img2.blogblog.com/img/video_object.png" style="background-color: #b2b2b2; " class="BLOGGER-object-element tr_noresize tr_placeholder" id="ieooui" data-original-id="ieooui" />
<style>
st1\:*{behavior:url(#ieooui) }
</style>
<![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 10]>
<style>
/* Style Definitions */
table.MsoNormalTable
{mso-style-name:"Table Normal";
mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0;
mso-tstyle-colband-size:0;
mso-style-noshow:yes;
mso-style-parent:"";
mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt;
mso-para-margin:0cm;
mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt;
mso-pagination:widow-orphan;
font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:"Times New Roman";
mso-ansi-language:#0400;
mso-fareast-language:#0400;
mso-bidi-language:#0400;}
</style>
<![endif]-->
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
Kumbh Mela</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
First day in India
and on the way to the Kumbh Mela; the worlds largest religious gathering. I flew
from Delhi to Varanasi this morning. What a crazy city this
is. There are thousands of pilgrims in town at the moment many of whom are on
the way to Allahabad
and the Kumbh Mela themselves. Hindus believe that bathing in the Ganges river
here washes away sins and the riverside ghats were awash in sin releasing colour
and noise (a LOT of noise). Not much of a day
for photos (jet-lagged and getting things sorted out) but took a boat out onto
the river at sunset and got a couple of pictures.</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKPx-LuZxeNSGcsyPMtK9xIYWvAmdtMaH85hMkKx3Kw4CIqVYRnpvjsOrghA29TLszEG2aFJeAoNtdATBDsAeksx_Dd4dHS_KoOTVr-Q44W5Be69ccSWSfWZwk2XBMDPbJirrIK85haO0/s1600/Kumbh+Mela+1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKPx-LuZxeNSGcsyPMtK9xIYWvAmdtMaH85hMkKx3Kw4CIqVYRnpvjsOrghA29TLszEG2aFJeAoNtdATBDsAeksx_Dd4dHS_KoOTVr-Q44W5Be69ccSWSfWZwk2XBMDPbJirrIK85haO0/s320/Kumbh+Mela+1.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
This one, of a couple setting up a campfire, was taken on the opposite side of river from town. </div>
</div>
stuart butlerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03344630768242182508noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6765681853641695349.post-3459647767173607012013-01-20T06:20:00.001-08:002013-01-20T06:20:18.824-08:00Congo National Parks<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
I recently spent an exciting few weeks in the Republic of Congo and DR Congo. I was there updating the relevant chapters of the Lonely Planet Africa guide and writing a few magazine features. I got to do all kinds of cool things like sleep in a shipping crate, pay insane amounts of money for leaky dug-out canoes, eat dog food and have my enjoyment curtailed by a rebel army, M23, invading the town I was heading for. <br />
<br />
But the best thing by far was visiting the forest national parks in the Republic of Congo and have close up encounters with gorillas, visit forest clearings filled with elephants, bongo, chimps, gorillas and buffalo (you might have seen those on the recent David Attenborough series, Africa).<br />
<br />
The following was published on the BBC Worlwide website a couple of days ago (and for those outside the UK here is the link to the real thing; http://www.bbc.com/travel/feature/20130117-gorilla-spotting-in-the-republic-of-congo) but for those people in the UK here is copy and paste version.<br />
<br />
<h1 itemprop="name headline">
Gorilla spotting in the Republic of Congo</h1>
<div class="meta-information">
<div class="author">
By <span class="authorname" itemprop="author">Stuart Butler </span>
</div>
</div>
<div class="share-tools">
<a class="print" href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6765681853641695349" title="Print this story"></a></div>
<div class="feature-main-image">
<img alt="Republic of Congo Africa Parc National d’Odzala Nouabalé-Ndoki Conkouati-Douli" height="170" src="http://ichef.bbci.co.uk/wwtravel/304_170/images/live/p0/13/ww/p013wwk6.jpg" width="304" />
<div class="description">
(<strong>photo - </strong>Stuart Butler)</div>
</div>
<div class="intro" itemprop="description">
<br />
Three days of
uncomfortable buses and torn up roads, one day on a leaky dug-out canoe
puttering slowly upriver, one hour wading barefoot through the
thigh-deep waters of a jungle swamp – and finally, here I was, eyeball
to eyeball with a western lowland gorilla. This was exactly what I had
hoped for from a gorilla safari to the Republic of Congo.<br />
</div>
The
Congo? Isn’t that the home of cannibalistic militias and rebel armies?
Isn’t that where Joseph Conrad set his Heart of Darkness novel and where
the blood-stained battlefields of Africa’s World War can be found?
Wrong. You are thinking of the Democratic Republic of Congo, the
lumbering giant at the heart of Africa. This is smaller Republic of
Congo, which lies to the north of its big bad neighbour. Sure, this
Congo has also taken a battering at the hands of power-hungry
politicians and has seen more than its fair share of war and misery
(most recently with a civil war during the 1990s and first few years of
the new century), but today the Republic of Congo is safe, stable and
open to trailblazing visitors in search of the ultimate jungle
experience.<br />
There is no shortage of rainforest in the Congo; some
60% of the country consists of nothing but steamy lowland jungle, so
pristine that the rainforests are considered one of the richest and most
biologically important forest ecosystems on Earth. But it is only now,
after years of false starts, that access to the area is improving,
national parks are being established and a visitor-friendly
infrastructure has been put in place.<br />
Even with the recent
improvements, visiting many parts of the country remains difficult. But
whether you splash through dank swamps or relax on the terrace of a
luxury lodge, there is no doubt that a safari to the Congo is a
wildlife-watching bonanza unlike any other.<br />
<br />
<strong>Parc National d’Odzala</strong><br />One of the oldest national parks in Africa, established in 1935, the 13,600sqkm <a href="http://www.protectedplanet.net/sites/7425">Parc National d’Odzala</a>,
located in the far northwest of the country close to the borders of
Gabon and Cameroon, has had a turbulent past. Once celebrated for having
around 20,000 gorillas, the population was decimated between 2003 and
2005 by several outbreaks of the horror movie-worthy ebola virus which
wiped out between 70% and 95% of the park’s gorillas. The park was also
neglected for about 20 years, thanks to conflict and the ebola
outbreak.<br />
Today, the situation is much improved. Gorilla numbers
are growing, and the park has received a much needed boost with the
arrival of <a href="http://www.wilderness-safaris.com/">Wilderness Safaris</a>,
a company that actively manages park tourism on a day-to-day basis. The
goal of the Botswana-based company – the only one operating in the park
– is to use responsible tourism to build sustainable conservation
economies in Africa. By working alongside local communities, Wilderness
Safaris has embarked on a programme of rehabilitating the park’s
previously crumbling infrastructure, building <a href="http://www.wilderness-safaris.com/">two luxury tourist lodges</a>
and training local guides and rangers. The benefits to the park, the
wildlife, the local people and the tourist industry are already visible.
In fact, despite the park having re-opened to tourists only in August
2012, Wilderness reports that their exclusive fly-in safaris from
Congo’s capital Brazzaville are already heavily oversubscribed. And when
the activities on offer include face-to-face encounters with habituated
west lowland gorilla families, jungle walks with local Baka (or pygmy)
guides and pirogue trips downriver in search of birds and other
wildlife, it is hardly a surprise that Odzala has been garnering such
attention.<br />
<br />
<strong>Parc National Nouabalé-Ndoki</strong><br />When a
team from National Geographic magazine called this northern corner of
Congo “the worlds last Eden” in the mid-1990s, they chose their words
wisely. The 23,500sqkm <a href="http://www.wildlifehotspots.com/nouabalendokinp.html">Parc National Nouabalé-Ndoki</a>
is the world before the chainsaw. This vast region of swampy forest is
home to healthy populations of western lowland gorillas, forest
elephants, chimpanzees and more. And what makes this park so enthralling
is the ease with which these creatures are seen.<br />
The forest is known for its natural clearings in which elephants and gorillas gather, and the <a href="http://www.wcs.org/">World Conservation Society</a>
(WCS) has built viewing platforms alongside these clearings where
travellers can ogle the antics of Congolese megafauna. If you need to
get even closer to the wildlife, Nouabalé-Ndoki also has groups of
habituated gorillas.<br />
<br />
<strong>Parc National Conkouati-Douli</strong><br />The <a href="http://whc.unesco.org/en/tentativelists/5375/">Parc National Conkouati-Douli</a>
is an altogether different experience to the previous two reserves.
This 5,049sqkm coastal area stretches from the beaches of the Atlantic
Ocean where turtles clamber ashore at night to lay eggs, through a band
of savannah and up into jungle-clad mountains where shy groups of
gorillas, chimpanzees and elephants slink through the shadows. As with
so many protected areas in Congo, the years of conflict meant that
conservation was very low on the government’s list of priorities, and as
such, this park, with its open terrain and easy access, suffered more
than most from human encroachment and poaching.<br />
Today, the
day-to-day management of the park has been largely taken over by WCS,
and the society has started training new guides and rangers, cracking
down on poaching, establishing new accommodation for tourists, and
setting up safari-related activities such as river boat trips in search
of elephants or forest walks to look for shy and elusive gorillas. The
park also contains a chimpanzee rehabilitation sanctuary where
travellers can see young chimps, orphaned due to poaching, being
reintroduced to life in the wild.<br />
Since the animals here are not
habituated to humans, sightings tend to be much more fleeting than in
the northern forest parks. But as poaching levels drop, the wildlife are
likely to become less fearful and encounters more frequent.<br />
<br />
<strong>Practicalities</strong><br />For
many people, just the name Congo implies adventure, and getting to most
national parks here is going to make you feel like an explorer.
Wilderness Safaris offer <a href="http://www.wilderness-safaris.com/congo_odzala_kokoua/odzala_camp/introduction/">packages</a>
to Odzala National Park, where everything including flights from
Brazzaville is included. This is the recommended option for those who
require comfort on their safari.<br />
Safaris to Nouabalé-Ndoki and
Conkouati-Douli are organised through the WCS and are better suited to
those with more time and stamina. You will have to make long overland
journeys by bus or private car from Brazzaville and be prepared to walk
long distances through the forest, even wading through swamps and riding
boats up-river.<br />
No matter which park you choose to visit, you
must inform either the WCS or Wilderness Safaris in advance so that they
can prepare for your trip.</div>
stuart butlerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03344630768242182508noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6765681853641695349.post-8310109102198357882013-01-20T05:59:00.004-08:002013-01-20T05:59:27.684-08:00Maha Kumbh Mela India 2013<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Yes, I am guilty of blog neglect! But I've been busy, busy rushing around France, Spain, Indonesia, both the Congos, CAR, Ethiopia, Sudan and Uganda over the past six months! <br />
<br />
But, fret not, you'll be delighted to know that I am now back in front of a computer. Well, for 2 weeks anyway, after which I'll be on a short trip to India for the huge Kumbh Mela festival. And what you may ask is the Kumbh Mela? Well, read this, the first of my BBC blog features/articles and you'll find out. Whilst at the Kumbh Mela I'll be doing frequent (well, one or two if I get around to it) twitter updates for the Lonely Planet twitter account.<br />
<br />
This was published on the BBC Worldwide Travel website a couple of days ago. This is the original link but if you're in the UK you won't be able to see it. Everyone else can. http://www.bbc.com/travel/blog/20130116-india-hosts-the-worlds-biggest-gathering<br />
<br />
And for those in the UK (because I'm sure you're simply desperate to read this) here is a copied and pasted version of the same.<br />
<br />
<h1 itemprop="name headline">
India hosts the world’s biggest gathering</h1>
<div class="meta-information">
<div class="author">
By <span class="authorname" itemprop="author">Stuart Butler </span>
</div>
</div>
<div class="share-tools">
<div class="share-help" id="share-tools">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div class="feature-main-image">
<img alt="Maha Kumb Mela Allahabad India" height="330" src="http://ichef.bbci.co.uk/wwtravel/624_330/images/live/p0/13/vn/p013vn09.jpg" width="624" />
<div class="description">
Until 10 March, the Maha Kumb Mela will see some 100 million Hindu pilgrims cleansing their sins in Allahabad. (Getty Images)</div>
</div>
<div class="intro" itemprop="description">
<br />
<br />
It has been 144 years in the making, but India’s <a href="http://www.mahakumbhfestival.com/">Maha Kumbh Mela</a> is finally here.</div>
The Maha Kumbh Mela, a mass Hindu pilgrimage, has been taking place
for thousands of years, with its origins in Hindu mythology. In Hindu
creation myths, the gods and demons fought over a <em>kumbh</em>
(pitcher) containing the nectar of immortality, but during the fight
four drops of the liquid fell to earth, one at Allahabad in Uttar
Pradesh, one at Hardiwar in Uttarakhand, one at Ujjian in Madhya Pradesh
and one at Nashik in Maharashtra.<br />
Today, a Kumbh Mela is held
roughly once every twelve years in Hardiwar, Ujjian and Nashik. The one
in Allahabad, which is also held every twelve years, is the most
important and largest, and this is called a Maha (or great) Kumbh Mela.
Thanks to an unusual alignment of the planets, this year’s event is even
more auspicious than normal. In fact, the last time there was one this
important was 144 years ago and the next will not be until around 2157.
Pilgrims believe that by attending the festival and bathing in the
waters of the rivers that run through Allahabad or the other host
cities, they will cleanse away their sins and bring salvation.<br />
When
we say the Maha Kumbh Mela is big, we really mean big. The last Kumbh
Mela, held in Hardiwar in 2010, was attended by an estimated 40 to 70
million pilgrims. But for this year’s event, running until 10 March,
Allahabad authorities estimate that some 100 million pilgrims will pour
into the city of 1.2 million inhabitants to take a dip at the confluence
of the Ganges, Yamuna and mythical Sarasvati Rivers. Although people
bathe every day throughout the festival, there are three especially holy
days when bathing brings even greater merit. The most auspicious of
these is on 10 February, when up to 35 million people are expected to
dip in the sacred waters.<br />
The Kumbh Mela brings together Hindus of all castes and creeds, but its most famous attendees are the <em>sadhus</em>
(wandering Hindu holy men who have renounced caste, money, possessions
and social position). On each of the main bathing days they lead the
dawn charge to the river, but always at the very front come the <em>nagas</em> (sadhus who have renounced virtually everything, including clothing).<br />
The Maha Kumbh Mela got off to <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-21006259">an awe-inspiring start</a>
on Monday, with the first of the main bathing days seeing an estimated
10 million taking a dip. However, if you want to attend, you will need
to be quick. The authorities have set up tented camps along the banks of
the Ganges and Yamuna rivers, but with about 100 million people
attending, demand for accommodation is very high.</div>
stuart butlerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03344630768242182508noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6765681853641695349.post-52834323375811034292012-04-08T23:40:00.001-07:002012-04-08T23:40:57.983-07:00The TripAdvisor Experiment: Crowd-Sourcing Vs Lonely Planet | Travels with a Nine Year OldI found this blog piece about the age old (well a few years anyway) debate over which is better - a guidebook or TripAdvisor and such like?<br />
<br />
<a href="http://travelswithanineyearold.com/2012/04/08/tripadvisor-versus-lonelyplanet/">The TripAdvisor Experiment: Crowd-Sourcing Vs Lonely Planet | Travels with a Nine Year Old</a><br />
<br />
For me I obvioulsy prefer a guidebook but I do use TripAdvisor as a way of reconfirming my personal opinion on a hotel if I'm not sure about it (ie - if its a new place that seems fantastic but I'm not sure then I like to check what other people say). Would I go away without a guidebook - no, no and no!<br />
<br />
It would be interesting to hear other peoples opinions on this.<br />
<br />
Oh yes and before we go down that path. Yes, we do go to the place we write about, no we don't get paid to write good reviews and so on. For example I have been to Iraq for Lonely Planet this year - not exactly a lot of tourists there but still they send me and shortly I am off to the very remote far west of Ethiopia - again very few tourists there but as normal we go out and cover it.stuart butlerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03344630768242182508noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6765681853641695349.post-17719100190996700442012-03-20T14:38:00.000-07:002012-03-20T14:38:13.487-07:00Tracks Magazine - Java feature.<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">The new Tracks magazine is out in Australia with 'Conversations with a Dancer', my article on surfing in Java in it. <a href="http://www.tracksmag.com/20110211459/Magazine/Magazine/In-This-Issue-2011.html">http://www.tracksmag.com/20110211459/Magazine/Magazine/In-This-Issue-2011.html</a><br />
<br />
And for those of us unlucky enough not to be in Australia then here is the full version of the story (but minus the pretty magazine style layout).<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJ9g-ufSbpvtu1xrBwG3pz1qkSQsUR_6Cbkot8AWkk7U0FhQsZwNfBY9Xbz7bWcI5imtKW3SliADOKrmwo-FTVWxZq-F1hRnScgI8CheSuzSymceouAhx4B_nqSVw8qOdFssspDjBVJ94/s1600/One+Palm+Point+Panaitain+Island+off+West+Java+Photo+S.Butler+38.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="209" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJ9g-ufSbpvtu1xrBwG3pz1qkSQsUR_6Cbkot8AWkk7U0FhQsZwNfBY9Xbz7bWcI5imtKW3SliADOKrmwo-FTVWxZq-F1hRnScgI8CheSuzSymceouAhx4B_nqSVw8qOdFssspDjBVJ94/s320/One+Palm+Point+Panaitain+Island+off+West+Java+Photo+S.Butler+38.JPG" width="320" /></a></div><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">CONVERSATIONS WITH A DANCER<o:p></o:p></span></b></div><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Her name means melody and she could be the modern face of Java. I first met Nada in a hotel in-which I was staying. She worked the day shift behind the reception. She told me her hotel job paid the bills, but that she saved her passions for the night.<o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIjSh5madTiiQZ2_J66wTOuvIfOGNI0GSvP7r3ocOji9BvaS3b4NK45YTyYLf1vuiyk7yWQrwRx548ttcqJ7V0z_1_8HqvpH82A4hGWWfPPB-3YrtxjSYkC_Ma6OR_wbaWrma4gmLwjhw/s1600/Girl+in+Malang+Java+2+Photo+S.Butler4.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="232" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIjSh5madTiiQZ2_J66wTOuvIfOGNI0GSvP7r3ocOji9BvaS3b4NK45YTyYLf1vuiyk7yWQrwRx548ttcqJ7V0z_1_8HqvpH82A4hGWWfPPB-3YrtxjSYkC_Ma6OR_wbaWrma4gmLwjhw/s320/Girl+in+Malang+Java+2+Photo+S.Butler4.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><br />
</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">I had been to <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:country-region w:st="on">Indonesia</st1:country-region></st1:place> before of course. What surfer hasn’t? I’d surfed with the masses in Bali and some years ago I spent several slow months riding cargo boats and ferries down the entire length of <st1:place w:st="on">Sumatra</st1:place>; back then some of the waves I surfed were mere whispers of rumours, but now they host surf camps and yacht charters. And though, like many surfers, I knew all about the surf in Bali, the Mentawais, Nias, <st1:place w:st="on">Lombok</st1:place> and so on, all I really knew about the waves in Java was G-Land. Yet, after Sumatra, Java has more Indian Ocean exposed coastline than any other island in <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Indonesia</st1:place></st1:country-region>, but stories from the line ups of Java are few and far between. This silence couldn’t help but make me think that I was missing something. And so I decided it was time I went for myself to look for surf in the heart of <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Indonesia</st1:place></st1:country-region>. <o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><br />
</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">And what a heart it is. With over half of <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Indonesia</st1:place></st1:country-region>’s 240 million inhabitants, Java is the undisputed political, economic and commercial powerhouse of the archipelago. From its glittering fields of rice to its equally glittering shopping malls, Java, with its backbone of slumbering and lumbering volcanoes, is an island of extraordinary beauty and great diversity. It was Nada though, and my conversations with her, who really brought home to me just how refined, artistic, cultured and utterly contradictory this island could be. I had been on the road for a month or more when I first met Nada and in that time I had experienced the whole range of Java’s different surfing moods. From skirting the reefs of One Palm Point to playing in crumbly beach breaks or kicking back in hidden villages fronting idyllic beaches with perfect reef breaks. But I hadn’t just come to <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:country-region w:st="on">Indonesia</st1:country-region></st1:place> for the waves. I’d done that too many times before and always left without really getting to know the place. This time I had vowed to explore Java in depth. I would venture inland, away from the waves, and explore the islands towns and cities, hike its mountain trails and peer into its volcanoes and I would talk to as many Javanese as I could. Nada, the smiling girl who had checked me into her hotel, was just one of these people. Our conversations began one afternoon, as I was sat in the hotel lobby waiting for a rainstorm to clear, she came and sat down beside me and offered me some <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">bandrek</i> (ginger tea with coconut and pepper) and spicy snacks. From then until the day I checked out every afternoon was the same; as the heavens opened we sat together drinking <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">bandrek</i> and, watching the rain flood the streets outside, we talked. She told me how it was to be a young woman in Java and she told me about Javanese culture and in return I told her stories about sleeping under a sickle moon on creaky, wooden boats and about diving into the ocean at dawn to race the swell lines of Antarctic storms.<o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><br />
</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">In the steamy tropical night, when the cry of cicadas was strongest and fruit bats swooped low on the horizon, I squeezed past coy couples and noisy families and eased myself down onto the hard stone bench. Moments later a rhythmic drum beat brought silence to the audience and the darkness of the stage was pierced by a spotlight. And there stood Nada. She was transformed, like the melody of her name, from demure hotel receptionist to something confident and bold, something full of energy and passion, something of art and sometimes something of sin. Her exact form depended on the night and the stroke of a make-up brush. On one night she could be a graceful ballet dancer, or another the cowered and veiled girl in a gritty tale on contemporary life in the slums of Jakarta, but tonight she was a dancer in her favourite role; that of Sita, the beautiful wife of Rama, from the Hindu Epic the Ramayana. <o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEha68cTJ7mrYAcP9UBdU9WPJ3PZcpiJ9n_fac4wVl3siwRux8qlpjA08xU7jr0qUygFkRTPDgwXFgzIKsgZ0pd3dS8l3Yyi4fbGH2u9AUquseVWP_s7pjdzMWWrhkfU4EjjdAWkFO_BM84/s1600/Dancers+in+traditional+dress+Yogyakarta+Java+Photo+S.Butler.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEha68cTJ7mrYAcP9UBdU9WPJ3PZcpiJ9n_fac4wVl3siwRux8qlpjA08xU7jr0qUygFkRTPDgwXFgzIKsgZ0pd3dS8l3Yyi4fbGH2u9AUquseVWP_s7pjdzMWWrhkfU4EjjdAWkFO_BM84/s320/Dancers+in+traditional+dress+Yogyakarta+Java+Photo+S.Butler.JPG" width="320" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><br />
</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Our first conversations were tame. We spoke about the sights of Java. I told her about the beautiful beaches I had seen and she told me where she likes to go for picnics with her family and friends when she has a day off. Her favourite place to picnic, she said, was on the grassy lawns in-front of a Hindu temple complex more than a thousand years old. She asked me where my favourite places to surf had been and I told her about how I had ridden down muddy dirt roads in clapped out <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">bemos</i> (minibuses widely used as public transport throughout Indonesia) and on the back of slowly-dying mopeds to reach a tiny half-forgotten village in the middle of nowhere where I had found a room in a villagers house and each morning I had walked across a beach that bubbled with ghost crabs to surf a long left point break with nobody else around. In return I asked her about her home city, <st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Malang</st1:place></st1:city>, and she said that each year, when a big festival was held, dancers, actors and musicians took over the roads for a week of street theatre. I could just imagine how much she enjoyed such a show. “But”, she said, “I prefer my adopted city of <st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Yogyakarta</st1:place></st1:city> because here the streets are art and everyone is an actor or an actress all of the time”. She asked me where else I intended to visit in Java and I told her of a newly found wave not far from where we were sat which broke more like something from Tahiti or Hawaii and of course I told her of G-Land and how you slept in a hut in the jungle and rode endless lefts that set the standard for waves the world over. But I also told her of how I would venture inland to exploding volcanoes and to photograph miners who descend into the depths to dig stinking sulphur out of the belly of one such volcano. We both sighed and agreed that there could be few islands as diverse as Java.<o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><br />
</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">One evening, a fortnight or so after I had met Nada, I was in the small fishing <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:placetype w:st="on">village</st1:placetype> of <st1:placename w:st="on">Batu Karas</st1:placename></st1:place>, about halfway along the Javanese coast. Breaking off the rocky, forest-clad headland that fronts the village is a right point. The wave begins with a steep, sucky drop before quickly reinventing itself as a gently sloping wave that peels down sandbars for a couple of hundred metres. It might be far from Java’s best wave, but as a fiery-orange sun dipped below the horizon, I was still able to get out of the water happy to have surfed a rare righthander in this land of lefts. Walking away from the waves, I reached the point where the beach became the village and found dozens of red plastic chairs being set out around a makeshift stage. I rushed back to my guesthouse, hurriedly changed out of my wet gear, and returned to the centre of activity just as the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">wayang kulit</i>, or shadow puppet performance, began. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Wayang kulit</i> is one of the most visible forms of Javanese cultural expressions. It is also, with its performances based on the great Indian Hindu epics of the Ramayana and Mahabharata, an obvious example of how Javanese culture reaches back into the days long before Islam when Hinduism dominated the island. Traditionally a <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">wayang kulit</i> performance lasts all night and is performed by a single puppeteer who manipulates dozens, sometimes hundreds, of puppets in a performance. As if this weren’t enough the puppeteer also has to direct a <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">gamelan orchestra</i> at the same time. Consisting of around sixty instruments the hypnotic tempo of a <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">gamelan</i> performance could be described as the sound of Java. Whilst this <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">wayang kulit</i> wasn’t as grand (or as long – something I became thankful for after a few hours!) as some, it had a rough and authentic feel to it that made it stand out from the more polished performances I had seen elsewhere. As the show wore on I remembered back to one of my conversations with Nada. She had told me how her grandfather had been a renowned puppeteer and that when she’d been small she’d been fascinated by how he could make these static puppets burst suddenly to life and enthral an audience. She thought perhaps it was this early exposure to the glitz and glamour of the stage that had led her to dancing and she said that even now she loved the stories of the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">wayang kulit</i>. “There are so many different characters in the puppet shows, some are Kings, some are Gods, some are ordinary people and some are monsters with magical powers. In the old days people believed they were all real. Maybe some people still do. It would be nice to believe that stories like these could be real don’t you think?” Then, with a hint of a smile creasing across her lips, she asked “Do you know the stories of the Queen of the Southern Sea? Do you believe in her?” I had told her I knew that Nyai Roro Kidul, as she is called, was responsible for the storms that wrack the oceans, that she was both gorgeous but deadly and that it was she who took fishermen to a watery grave. I then told her that there was one place in Java where I’d genuinely felt close to Nyai Roro Kidul. “Really?”, she had cried, “Tell me about it”. So, pouring another <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">bandrek</i> I had launched into my tale.<o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidOSuUoXrpjP5uCwr4LWQm5OyFxS4-r7I0ojFQzzk3C6KGdN0RS6vDsNx2pv1wpodSQDq8hGhl913t77p3j9_IJ0NErMTHoAQ5u6_0PRYhbv20XImy9DTSRdsWcnVYmAL1ne97uc8FBUM/s1600/Barbeques+Panaitain+Island+West+Java+Photo+S.Butler5.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidOSuUoXrpjP5uCwr4LWQm5OyFxS4-r7I0ojFQzzk3C6KGdN0RS6vDsNx2pv1wpodSQDq8hGhl913t77p3j9_IJ0NErMTHoAQ5u6_0PRYhbv20XImy9DTSRdsWcnVYmAL1ne97uc8FBUM/s320/Barbeques+Panaitain+Island+West+Java+Photo+S.Butler5.JPG" width="320" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><br />
</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">I told Nada how my journey to Panaitain Island, a tiny wild blob of an island, had begun in a sleepy fishing village close to the western tip of Java where I had boarded a rickety wooden fishing boat and puttered and spluttered off out into the treacherous channel that separates Java from Sumatra. Passing the brooding cone of Krakatua; the volcano that in 1883 was responsible for the most violent eruption in recorded human history, my boat had rolled with the swell into one of <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:placename w:st="on">Panaitain</st1:placename> <st1:placetype w:st="on">Islands</st1:placetype></st1:place> wide bays. I described to Nada how before me had been immaculate coastal forests, pristine white beaches and waves. My goodness what waves they had been. On seeing One Palm Point for the first time I was simply silenced. There, in-front of me was the most perfect wave on the planet. It was 4-6ft, the winds were offshore and there was not another human being for a hundred kilometres. I instantly dived off the boat and paddled to the line up and my close encounter with Nyai Roro Kidul. However, as faultless as the scene appeared to be, as soon as I took a look over the edge of a wave I had realised that there was a beast hidden within this beauty. Never before had I attempted (and I use the word ‘attempted’ with reason) to ride quite such a ferocious wave. What looked like the worlds best wave from the safety of the boat had turned out to break at the speed of a hunting shark and it had teeth to match. The wave raced off across ankle deep, fang-like coral for hundreds of metres and once committed to it there was no emergency escape exit. It was merely a case of outrunning the lip for as long as you could, but in the end the wave would always win and then it was just a matter of how hard she’d whip you over the reef. Yes, I’d told Nada, if ever there was a place where the presence of Nyai Roro Kidul was palpable then it was surely in the beautiful but deadly waves of <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:placename w:st="on">Panaitain</st1:placename> <st1:placetype w:st="on">Island</st1:placetype></st1:place>.<o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><br />
</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Nada was sublime in the role of Sita. Sitting on the hard bench I was transfixed for hours as she and her fellow dancers spiralled and twirled under a rainbow of spotlights. With their dance they carried us far away from the Java of today, across an Indian Ocean ripe in spice, to an <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">India</st1:place></st1:country-region> of thousands of years ago, when Sita and Rama lived and loved together. As the night wore on the Javan dancers told us a story as old as <st1:place w:st="on">Asia</st1:place>. They showed how the happiness of Sita and Rama was not to last. Sita, the goddess of the Earth, and the embodiment of the perfect woman, may have been in love with Rama, but that didn’t stop her from having other admirers. One of these was Ravana, the evil King of Lanka, who abducted Sita and took her back to his island kingdom where, (in what is probably a classic example of how not to win a woman’s heart), he kept her prisoner for one year. Meanwhile, the heart broken, Rama and the monkey God Hanuman scoured the world in their search for Sita. Through the use of acrobatics, fireworks and fire walks the dancers showed us how Rama and Hanuman finally found Sita hidden away in Lanka and then how they launched an almighty battle against nasty old Ravana and Sita was rescued. As the final explosion of fireworks died away, the drums fell silent again and the dancers wiped away their make up it was hard not to reflect on how the many thick layers of local and foreign cultures have shaped the past of Java and will continue to mould its future.<o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><br />
</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">The old ideas of Java are being left behind and a tide of new thought and influences is flowing over the top of them. In the distant past Java had been both a Hindu and a Buddhist island. Today Islam rules supreme but even here Java has put its own twist on things. In some parts of Islam’s Middle Eastern homeland for a girl to dance in-front of a mixed sex audience would be unheard of, and possibly even dangerous for all involved, but here in Java it seemed as if Islam was a colourful, cosmopolitan and accepting version of the faith that stands in utter contrast to the Islam of Saudi Arabia. Nada had laughed when I said this to her and she told me that this was only partially true. Yes, for the vast majority of Javanese there was something of a live and let live attitude to other peoples beliefs, cultures and desires, but it wasn’t always like that. “When I was younger, I suppose about fifteen years ago, people here became more conservative. More and more people started to attend the Mosques and some people called for Sharia law (a code of conduct, or Islamic law, as laid out in the Quran). Imagine Sharia here? I suppose if that had happened then I would have had to have stopped my dancing – at least in public”. She paused, as if reflecting on what could have been, before continuing, “We Javanese are very religious you know, but we are not extremists. You are right we have a colourful form of Islam. We still believe in spirits and magic from the old religions before Islam and so when some people started killing for Islam with bombs in <st1:city w:st="on">Jakarta</st1:city> and <st1:place w:st="on">Bali</st1:place> the rest of us turned against them and now not so many people talk about Sharia and I can still dance in the evenings!” That Javanese Islam is like this is important, because with <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:country-region w:st="on">Indonesia</st1:country-region></st1:place> having the worlds largest Muslim population, some 90% of whom are found on Java, what happens to Islam here matters to the whole world.<o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1mJTtXRG2s8Dn-NPfSw265zjcgin_zvbOLjlf-NcRSqQbdLFeoVdIyiwORAha5Ny6KM8HNQbLiUqQaAZ20dCqF05iXdQaxnAfEx1PQSyurwadF9mJqTg5bSr1jeFXgdObA2KKKmKSwik/s1600/Ramyana+dance+show+Yogyakarta+Java+Photo+S.Butler18.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1mJTtXRG2s8Dn-NPfSw265zjcgin_zvbOLjlf-NcRSqQbdLFeoVdIyiwORAha5Ny6KM8HNQbLiUqQaAZ20dCqF05iXdQaxnAfEx1PQSyurwadF9mJqTg5bSr1jeFXgdObA2KKKmKSwik/s320/Ramyana+dance+show+Yogyakarta+Java+Photo+S.Butler18.JPG" width="213" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><br />
</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">My journey through Java eventually came to an end on the surf beaches for the city surfers of <st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Jakarta</st1:place></st1:city>. Don’t get me wrong, Cimaja isn’t all that close to the capital but even so every weekend a jam of cars and buses carries surfers the five hours from <st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Jakarta</st1:place></st1:city> to the long, playful waves found around here. Proximity to the big city wasn’t the only reason why Cimaja seemed to me a suitable place to end my trip. You see the Cimaja region, with it’s small fishing villages and often remote coastline, is a Java of old. It’s here that the myths of Nyai Roro Kidul, the Queen of the South Sea’s, are strongest (a large hotel in the area even has a room set aside only for her use) and traditions run strong. Yet for two days every week the waves of Cimaja are invaded by the new face of <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Indonesia</st1:place></st1:country-region>; and some of these people no longer fear Nyai Roro Kidul. For better or for worse, as the surfers of today’s Jakarta arrive with their big city ideas and aspirations and Java, old and new, meet on beaches that have been ruled for so long by Nyai Roro Kidul, a wave of new ideas is being spawned and another layer of culture, this one dominated by Californian surf vibes, is slowly being added to the tapestry of the coast of Java.<o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><br />
</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">But in the end, no matter how much Java moulds itself into an ever more complex, artistic, refined and cultured an island some things will probably always remain the same. The people will continue to smile at visitors, the volcanoes will continue to bluster and blow, dancers will continue to recreate the Indian Epics, the cities will continue to bustle, the villagers will carry on consulting the Gods of old at the same time as attending the Mosques of today and the Queen of the South Sea’s will continue to guard her lair with it’s precious liquid jewels born a thousand miles away across an Indian Ocean ripe in spice.<o:p></o:p></span></div></div>stuart butlerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03344630768242182508noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6765681853641695349.post-66678169802439987372012-03-20T12:04:00.001-07:002012-03-20T12:04:56.280-07:00Kenya 2011<div style="padding: 0; overflow: hidden; margin: 0; width: 500px;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/25936994@N00/6848236006/in/set-72157629617907595/" title="Turkana women near Lyagalani Kenya black and white 3 (1 of 1)" style="display: block; padding: 0 10px 10px 0; width: 75px; height: 75px; float: left;"><img src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7049/6848236006_34b803c59e_s.jpg" alt="Turkana women near Lyagalani Kenya black and white 3 (1 of 1)" style="border:none; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 75px; height: 75px;"/></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/25936994@N00/6848171822/in/set-72157629617907595/" title="Pokot tribal people north of Lake Baringo Kenya 12" style="display: block; padding: 0 10px 10px 0; width: 75px; height: 75px; float: left;"><img src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7181/6848171822_f17ea356e7_s.jpg" alt="Pokot tribal people north of Lake Baringo Kenya 12" style="border:none; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 75px; height: 75px;"/></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/25936994@N00/6994306377/in/set-72157629617907595/" title="Portraits of Samburu south Horr black and white 2 (1 of 1)" style="display: block; padding: 0 10px 10px 0; width: 75px; height: 75px; float: left;"><img src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7039/6994306377_5b61083db3_s.jpg" alt="Portraits of Samburu south Horr black and white 2 (1 of 1)" style="border:none; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 75px; height: 75px;"/></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/25936994@N00/6848114610/in/set-72157629617907595/" title="Cheetah Lewa Kenya 11" style="display: block; padding: 0 10px 10px 0; width: 75px; height: 75px; float: left;"><img src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7205/6848114610_d15948d325_s.jpg" alt="Cheetah Lewa Kenya 11" style="border:none; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 75px; height: 75px;"/></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/25936994@N00/6994333645/in/set-72157629617907595/" title="Takaunga creek Kenya 3" style="display: block; padding: 0 10px 10px 0; width: 75px; height: 75px; float: left;"><img src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7052/6994333645_0f6e3c5a79_s.jpg" alt="Takaunga creek Kenya 3" style="border:none; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 75px; height: 75px;"/></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/25936994@N00/6994284521/in/set-72157629617907595/" title="Pokot tribal people north of Lake Baringo Kenya 3" style="display: block; padding: 0 0 10px 0; width: 75px; height: 75px; float: left;"><img src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7039/6994284521_6024733cb7_s.jpg" alt="Pokot tribal people north of Lake Baringo Kenya 3" style="border:none; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 75px; height: 75px;"/></a><br clear="all"/><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/25936994@N00/6848134972/in/set-72157629617907595/" title="Fisherman Mida Creek Kenya 5" style="display: block; padding: 0 10px 10px 0; width: 75px; height: 75px; float: left;"><img src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7039/6848134972_d784c9148a_s.jpg" alt="Fisherman Mida Creek Kenya 5" style="border:none; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 75px; height: 75px;"/></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/25936994@N00/6848157728/in/set-72157629617907595/" title="matatu stuck in sand between Lodwar and Kalakol passengers pushing one way and Toby pushing the other Kenya" style="display: block; padding: 0 10px 10px 0; width: 75px; height: 75px; float: left;"><img src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7057/6848157728_54853744e8_s.jpg" alt="matatu stuck in sand between Lodwar and Kalakol passengers pushing one way and Toby pushing the other Kenya" style="border:none; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 75px; height: 75px;"/></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/25936994@N00/6848246250/in/set-72157629617907595/" title="Masai in Samburu Serani lodge Kenya 2" style="display: block; padding: 0 10px 10px 0; width: 75px; height: 75px; float: left;"><img src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7040/6848246250_2b510c40ab_s.jpg" alt="Masai in Samburu Serani lodge Kenya 2" style="border:none; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 75px; height: 75px;"/></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/25936994@N00/6994356361/in/set-72157629617907595/" title="Turkana women near Lyagalani Kenya black and white 2 (1 of 1)" style="display: block; padding: 0 10px 10px 0; width: 75px; height: 75px; float: left;"><img src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7178/6994356361_6be13cc01c_s.jpg" alt="Turkana women near Lyagalani Kenya black and white 2 (1 of 1)" style="border:none; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 75px; height: 75px;"/></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/25936994@N00/6848191838/in/set-72157629617907595/" title="Rendille woman in Loyangalani Kenya 9" style="display: block; padding: 0 10px 10px 0; width: 75px; height: 75px; float: left;"><img src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7057/6848191838_4047ec666c_s.jpg" alt="Rendille woman in Loyangalani Kenya 9" style="border:none; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 75px; height: 75px;"/></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/25936994@N00/6994246937/in/set-72157629617907595/" title="Donkey Lamu Kenya 2" style="display: block; padding: 0 0 10px 0; width: 75px; height: 75px; float: left;"><img src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7195/6994246937_2045a1b971_s.jpg" alt="Donkey Lamu Kenya 2" style="border:none; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 75px; height: 75px;"/></a><br clear="all"/><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/25936994@N00/6994345001/in/set-72157629617907595/" title="Turkana portraits Loyangalani Lake Turkana Kenya 18" style="display: block; padding: 0 10px 10px 0; width: 75px; height: 75px; float: left;"><img src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7204/6994345001_2156ede953_s.jpg" alt="Turkana portraits Loyangalani Lake Turkana Kenya 18" style="border:none; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 75px; height: 75px;"/></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/25936994@N00/6994321655/in/set-72157629617907595/" title="Samburu man in photo studio Maralal Kenya 2" style="display: block; padding: 0 10px 10px 0; width: 75px; height: 75px; float: left;"><img src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7196/6994321655_68045302ab_s.jpg" alt="Samburu man in photo studio Maralal Kenya 2" style="border:none; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 75px; height: 75px;"/></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/25936994@N00/6994367641/in/set-72157629617907595/" title="Zebra Samburu National Park Kenya" style="display: block; padding: 0 10px 10px 0; width: 75px; height: 75px; float: left;"><img src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7050/6994367641_598313b73d_s.jpg" alt="Zebra Samburu National Park Kenya" style="border:none; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 75px; height: 75px;"/></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/25936994@N00/6994309687/in/set-72157629617907595/" title="Portraits Samburu South Horr Kenya 25" style="display: block; padding: 0 10px 10px 0; width: 75px; height: 75px; float: left;"><img src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7058/6994309687_fd9359e615_s.jpg" alt="Portraits Samburu South Horr Kenya 25" style="border:none; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 75px; height: 75px;"/></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/25936994@N00/6994312493/in/set-72157629617907595/" title="Ranger tracking lions Lewa Kenya" style="display: block; padding: 0 10px 10px 0; width: 75px; height: 75px; float: left;"><img src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7058/6994312493_af4c1b7f5c_s.jpg" alt="Ranger tracking lions Lewa Kenya" style="border:none; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 75px; height: 75px;"/></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/25936994@N00/6994318381/in/set-72157629617907595/" title="Road from Turbi to Moyale Kenya 2" style="display: block; padding: 0 0 10px 0; width: 75px; height: 75px; float: left;"><img src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7036/6994318381_0eb813c9bf_s.jpg" alt="Road from Turbi to Moyale Kenya 2" style="border:none; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 75px; height: 75px;"/></a><br clear="all"/><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/25936994@N00/6848243774/in/set-72157629617907595/" title="Weaver bird Lake Baringo Kenya" style="display: block; padding: 0 10px 10px 0; width: 75px; height: 75px; float: left;"><img src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7059/6848243774_eb92ea17d5_s.jpg" alt="Weaver bird Lake Baringo Kenya" style="border:none; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 75px; height: 75px;"/></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/25936994@N00/6848227276/in/set-72157629617907595/" title="Turkana portraits Loyangalani Lake Turkana Kenya 29" style="display: block; padding: 0 10px 10px 0; width: 75px; height: 75px; float: left;"><img src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7038/6848227276_b1b2ab4960_s.jpg" alt="Turkana portraits Loyangalani Lake Turkana Kenya 29" style="border:none; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 75px; height: 75px;"/></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/25936994@N00/6848174772/in/set-72157629617907595/" title="Pokot tribal people north of Lake Baringo Kenya 13" style="display: block; padding: 0 10px 10px 0; width: 75px; height: 75px; float: left;"><img src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7058/6848174772_7e00e14f44_s.jpg" alt="Pokot tribal people north of Lake Baringo Kenya 13" style="border:none; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 75px; height: 75px;"/></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/25936994@N00/6848120388/in/set-72157629617907595/" title="Dhow between Lamu and Pate Kenya" style="display: block; padding: 0 10px 10px 0; width: 75px; height: 75px; float: left;"><img src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7038/6848120388_76b5892910_s.jpg" alt="Dhow between Lamu and Pate Kenya" style="border:none; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 75px; height: 75px;"/></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/25936994@N00/6994303767/in/set-72157629617907595/" title="Portraits of Samburu peoples Loyangalani Lake Turkana Kenya" style="display: block; padding: 0 10px 10px 0; width: 75px; height: 75px; float: left;"><img src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7042/6994303767_857fb3e3f9_s.jpg" alt="Portraits of Samburu peoples Loyangalani Lake Turkana Kenya" style="border:none; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 75px; height: 75px;"/></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/25936994@N00/6994363823/in/set-72157629617907595/" title="Two friends relaxing on hill in Cherangani Hills North Kenya" style="display: block; padding: 0 0 10px 0; width: 75px; height: 75px; float: left;"><img src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7053/6994363823_5230502c18_s.jpg" alt="Two friends relaxing on hill in Cherangani Hills North Kenya" style="border:none; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 75px; height: 75px;"/></a><br clear="all"/></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 5px"><p><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/25936994@N00/sets/72157629617907595/">Kenya 2011</a>, a set on Flickr.</p></div><p>Finally I have got around to editiing my pictures from a Lonely Planet research trip a few months ago to the remote north of Kenya and to the beautiful Kenyan coast. I was there updating the relevant chapters of the Lonely Planet Kenya guide - and the Kenya book is always one of my favourite jobs to do!</p>stuart butlerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03344630768242182508noreply@blogger.com0