Halfway Descent

We descend from a morning high above the snow-line, to noon in a very different world.

This is the Nubra Valley, where all is fiercely arid yet almost bizarrely  colourful.

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 Pictures taken during our descent to the Nubra Valley, Ladakh

Aspiring To Altitude: A Door Opens

A door, shoes and light.
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Picture taken in a Tibetan Buddhist monastery in Ladakh

Aspiring To Altitude: Looking Up

Our new hotel’s ceiling.

Three Colours: Red

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Picture taken in Fort Cochin.
Clip from the “Three Colours: Red” Trilogy 

Autumnal Variations

There is, of course, no autumn in the tropics,
nor spring, nor winter too.

Here on the Malabar coast, our temperatures vary very little between January and July.
What marks Kerala’s tropical seasons are the monsoon rains.

But deciduous trees must still drop their leaves.
They may fall individually, while the tree remains dressed in full and lustrous foliage.
Or occasionally, a tree will capriciously display its entire autumn wardrobe,
to stand alone in wistful copper tones, against the sea of vibrant greens.

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Photographs all taken in Kerala: the first two pictures shot in the Koottickal foothills of the Western Ghats; the last, a discarded coconut palm “leaf skeleton”, from the Chellanam backwaters.

Three Colours: White

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Pictures taken in Fort Cochin
Video clip from the “Three Colours: Trilogy“ 

Three Colours: Blue

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Pictures of shop refitting taken in Kannur, Kerala
Video clip from the “Three Colours Trilogy“.

The Forgotten Colours Of Eating

Returning to Cochin, I hoped to find the restaurant we used on our outbound journey.
Although its wash-rooms had been busy with mosquitoes – a hazard that afflicts lady diners more than men  - my guests particularly enjoyed the food.

It was a forlorn hope:
None of us had any idea of its name and we now had a different driver.

As the hours passed and we all became increasingly hungry,
I realised just how impractical the idea was.
With solemn reference to “stepping into the same river twice” and embracing new experiences, I asked Solly, our driver, to stop at the first decent-looking eatery.

Just a few moments later, a sign advertising good food appeared. Solly slowed the car to cross the road and enter a car-park.

 It was, of course, the same restaurant we had so happily patronised four days previously.
And the food?
Just as good as before.
Though, for the life of me, I still cannot remember its name..
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Pictures taken in a restaurant somewhere on the road from Cochin to Trivandrum, Kerala.

Taking A Jaundiced View

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Picture taken in Mattancherry, Cochin.

In Search Of The Exotic

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Gangtok maintains a garden of colourful flowers.

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Its older blooms are particularly exotic.

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Pictures taken at the Flower Show, Gangtok.