Tag: Mountains
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Gyantse Dzong
The castle (dzong) of Gyantse of which the oldest parts date back to the 14th century, is towering above the city on the high clifs of the mountain. At the time Newari artists came from Nepal for carrying out the decoration of the buildings inside the fortress with murals that would influence later Tibetan painting…
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The Tibetan plateau
Lying north of the Himalayas, the Tibetan plateau has an average altitude of 4000 m. It is mostly dry and bare. Hardly any of the monsoon rains from India and Nepal manage to cross the barrier of the high Himalayan mountain ranges. So the average yearly rainfall in Tibet is only about 40 cm. That…
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Tashilhunpo Thanka
Tashilhunpo in Shigatse is the largest monastery in Tibet and the seat of the Panchen Lamas. The complex contains several golden roofed monuments and a multitude of chapels filled with statues and adorned with murals, thankas and other treasures. For 362 days of the year the view of this monastic city is not exactly like…
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Shekar Monastery
It may be in the middle of nowhere, but like most of the erstwhile 1000 monasteries in Tibet, this one too could not escape the destructive fury of the Cultural Revolution. Partly rebuilt, it has again become a centre of study and worship, nourished by the “White Crystal” (Shekar) inside. Photo of the week: Shekar…
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Timeless Tibet
A child coming down the village road. It could be 200 years ago but then Daguerre’s invention wasn’t there yet to deliver proof. It could be today from a smartphone sent instantly to your screen. It was, in fact, June 1996 captured by my camera on Kodak film. Photo of the week: Shekar, Dingri, China-Tibet…
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Giant boulders galore
“Better on it than under it”, the little bird must have thought when it landed on this massive piece of granite rock. This must be Hampi, yes indeed. It’s not just the old monuments of the historical capital city of the Vijayanagara Empire that enchant us, the boulder-strewn landscape in which they lie scattered is…
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3-D Devotion
Going through the Herkyna gorge south of Livadia, a town in Boeotia, Greece, one passes the Fountain of Memory and the Fountain of Forgetfulness, the ancient Mnemosyne and Lethe of which Pausanias speaks. For me the water of Mnemosyne has done its work because I remember well first having seen from down the façade of…
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Wintry welcome
This lonely hiker is not as lonely as it looks because I was there to take his picture. He is my friend, reaching the frozen chalet just a little after me. When I saw him appearing in the distance it struck my eye how his tiny figure enhanced the icy desolation of the scene. Photo…
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Snowbound
This is the fate of small villages lying isolated at higher altitudes in the mountains away from roads and passes that are kept open in winter. They’re deserted during this time of the year and inhabited only in summer. But as we can see here quite surprisingly, the hiker on skis or rackets who happens…
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Equine reveries
This little member of the horse family seems overwhelmed by the abundance of nature around her. I like to think it’s a she although the photo does not permit us to see and know. Standing stock-still, does she think she’s dreaming or is she closing her eyes behind the curtain of her dark manes, afraid…
καιρός remembered 