Borobudur, Indonesia

It ranks with Angkor Wat (Cambodia) and Pagan (Burma) as one of the three wonders of Southeast Asia.

Yesterday I visited Borobudur, the 1200 year old Buddhist temple. It is situated about an hour from Yogyakarta (Jogjakarta) on the island of Java in Indonesia. Yogyakarta is 7 hours by train from the Indonesian capital of Jakarta. Borobudur is only a 40 minute taxi ride from Yogyakara, Indonesia's cultural center.

The photo shows one of thousands of pictures decorating the massive 118 x 118 meter temple. The ancient Javanese were great mariners and it is thought that in ships similar to the one pictured on the temple, Javanese traveled as far as Madagascar. A museum near the temple contains a full scale replica of this ship. In 1992 it was sailed across the Indian Ocean to Africa. There are some interesting similarities in vocabulary and also cultural artifacts (musical instruments) shared by Indonesia and Madagascar.

More about my impression of the climb to the top of Borobudur here. There is a humorous photo here.

My taxi ride through the water splash festival

Today was not the day to hire a tuk-tuk to take you around Bangkok -- if you like to stay dry, that is!

Casio F1

". . . make no mistake: no camera has ever offered anything like the F1's high-speed stills, high-speed videos or high-speed flash for anywhere near its price. Everybody who sees this camera in action winds up slack-jawed with disbelief" writes Pogue in the NY Times reviewing the Caiso F1

Thailand's water splash festival

The Songkran holiday "water splash" festivities were in full swing in Bangkok today. Tomorrow is Thai New Year.

View from the bar at the Banyan Tree hotel is the best

The bar with the best view of Bangkok? Hands down its Vertigo, located on the sixty-first floor of the Banyan Tree Hotel in Bangkok's Silom district. Adjacent to the bar is a restaurant.

As with certain other Bangkok hotels, this restaurant-bar enforces the annoying requirement that men wear covered shoes. Fortunately, they provide shoes for the unwary male customer who shows up in flip-flops.
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Photo: by Jotman
Hotel website.

Travel to Mae Sae, Tachilek, and beyond

Travelers considering a trip beyond the Thai border town of Mae Sae into Shan State may want to check out these posts where I describe my own journey into this remote corner of Southeast Asia.

Would you flip for this travel video cam?

The NY Times' tech review guru Pogue reviews the Flip. He describes it as "a tiny, stripped-down video recorder the size of a digital camera." The attribute of simplicity has allowed the maker of the Flip, Pure Digital to capture 13% of the video cam market. Flip escaped the peril of "feature creep" that plagues most consumer technologies today. Pogue writes:

There are no menus, no settings, no video light, no optical viewfinder, no special effects, no headphone jack, no high definition, no lens cap, no memory card. And there's no optical zoom - only a 2X digital zoom that works by blowing up and degrading the picture. Ouch.

Instead, the Flip has been reduced to the purest essence of video capture. You turn it on, and it's ready to start filming in two seconds. You press the red button once to record and once to stop. You press Play to review the video, and the Trash button to delete a clip.

Also noteworthy: the Flip takes superior videos in low-light conditions. This is one quality that also makes me appreciate the movie capabilities of the Casio digitals.

ATM Pollution

Thailand surely has one of the highest numbers of ATM machines per capita of any country in the world. With increasing frequency, I notice these machines have been installed in questionable or inappropriate locations. In the middle of a sidewalk, beside a scenic spot, or in front of a public sculpture. ATM pollution is not widely acknowledged, but its a growing threat to the integrity of public spaces in Thailand.

Kite festival in Bangkok

I took some photos at the kite festival held in Bangkok last weekend. More photos here.

Best SLR for travel - and what is an SLR good for anyway?

What's the difference between an SLR and non-SLR? An SLR camera will allow you to 1) photograph fast-moving subjects; 2) make photos of relatively higher image quality in low light conditions without having to lengthen your exposure time. 3) take photos that enhance the texture of your subject.

For quick photos on-the-go and short movies still I depend on my rugged little Casio.

But I'm having a lot of fun -- and I would like to think some success -- lately with my Nikon D40. It's full-featured digital SLR. Olympus has a model that's a tad smaller, but the Nikon D40 and D40X are also small and light. Most importantly, they are easy to grip. You don't need a second hand to change the settings. The D40 is true masterpiece of ergonomic engineering. And it feels solid and fairly rugged. It looks and feels like a camera costing ten times as much -- and more importantly, so do the results.

Best tripod for travel

To me the ideal tripod is very small and very lightweight and -- most importantly -- the top module snaps off for installment on the base of your camera. This way you can set it up quickly.

I recently discovered the Joby "Gorillapod" and it was love at first sight. This lightweight plastic tripod meets all my criteria -- and then some. It comes in various colors (I chose grey) and two sizes: small size for regular digital cameras, and larg size for SLRs and video cams.

As illustrated by the photo, the tripod works like a normal tripod, but also can be wrapped around poles, railings, or tree branches.

My philosophy of photography gear is that if it's not easy to carry and set up, then you will miss the good photos.

Photo: Jotman. I took a photo of my Gorillapod in its package -- I think this innovative company also deserves to win a packaging award.