Adam Teale: News From Above

What’s the best thing you can do after doing mental hours in the vfx world and not seeing your friends and family for weeks on end?

There are probably many options out there. One of them is to let your friends do all the hard work and book a nice little house up in the Blue Mountains in a little town called Mt Victoria and cook tasty food and let you eat it and then drag you along on bush walks.

Fresh air, sunlight & good friends are truly amazing things.

So I finally got to test out my new camera, the Canon 550D (a.k.a the Rebel T2i) or as it is affectionately known in Japan, the “Kiss X4″.

I am sticking with 550D.
(I just need some black electrical tape to cover the red “Kiss” logo on the front of the camera.)

This camera is impressing me so far, and I think a fair amount of that impressiveness is coming from the “Tamron SP AF17-50mm f2.8 XR DiII VC” lens I was recommended.

Anyway enough gas bagging, here are some pics I punched through Lightroom 3 and put up on Flickr. Yes I know the grading is over the top and has killed all the nice dynamic range in the original image, lots to learn!

I’ve found that rendering out 1:1 previews in Lightroom gives me back a lot more speed on my MacBook Air.

Pretty easy to do just select all your photos and do this:

A month ago I’d not have imagined I’d be typing up a blog entry from Indonesia amongst travels with one of my best friends.

Whilst on the “Dude, Where’s my jakkayarn?” tour from Bangkok to Singapore ride I was lucky to catch Liam on iChat and after a few minutes managed to convince him to come on an adventure to somewhere in Asia. It turned out that NIN were going to playing in Singapore around the same time I was going to be there, so it didn’t take much to get Liam over!

View Indoneville in a larger map

Our brainstorming ended us up with an idea to go to the island of Java, Indonesia. So after a few days with the flu in Singapore we managed to get a ticket with Air Asia to Bandung – the fourth largest city in Java (or was it Indonesia?). Cool temperature, lots of smiles, lots of motorcycles, and I think Bandung is surrounded by mountains but can’t make them out for all the smoggy air.

There are so many rice fields.

A big reason for coming here to Java is to try to see some active volcanoes, ideally some lava. It looks like Gunung Bromo will be one stop, and maybe Gunung Semuru.

“Garut! Garut! Garut!”

We left Bandung the next day one a little bus to a place called Garut and then to a nearby place callled Cipanas. The bus ride was amazing. Impressive mountains and rice fields all the way.
It took 2-3 hours to cover the 60km or so to Garut and Cipanas.

Cipanas is known for it’s hot springs and nearby volcanic sites like Gunung Telagabodas. We decided it was going to be a days effort to go check out the crater and it seems like there will be more possibly cooler volcanoes along the way. So we bused it last night from Garut to Tasik Malaya – an over packed night time rollercoaster ride!

We’ve been really lucky so far to get from place to place. It’s very affordable and everyone we’ve met so far has been very friendly and some have been curious about if we are scared of the bombings. I just tell them Liam is a terrorist and we all seem to laugh, except Liam.

Yogyakarta is cool. There are lots of places to check out in the city and within 50-100km. And if you are into it there is a lot of Batik art.

We were fortunate to meet some folks from Sumatra who showed us the sites of Gunung Merapi and the ancient Hindu temples at/of Prambanan.

The next day Neville and I headed out to Borobudur.

Staying at the Loseman Anda – 40,000RP / night close to the Tugu train station.

Yogya to Malang – train 1.30am, RP150,000. Was late. Good seats, blankets, pillows.

Malang to Cemorro Lawang via Probolinggo – blue microlet from train station to Arjosari bus station – RP2500pp.
Arjosyro to Probolinggo (Bayuangga) – RP23000pp.
Probolinggo 2 Cemorro Lawang -RP50000pp but normally RP25000pp.
Jeep to lookout RP350,000 4people.

Then we  Gunung Bromo – what an amazing place to see. A neighbourhood of volcanoes living in one massive crater. A pricey place to stay – The Lava View hotel – 400,000RP/night but it was highly recommended and stares straight out to Bromo.

We then took a killer over night bus from Probolinggo (paid an extra 25,000RP to get on the comfortable bus but we didnt end up on it) to Denpasar Bali. Poor Nevs and I were squashed up the baack of the bus in between the toilet, luggage and some guys on their way home for Ramadan. It was pretty uncomfortable so we ended up getting on another bus mid ferry ride across to Bali – the bus we were meant to be on!

Some pics from yesterday’s ride from Bangkok to Ayutthaya.

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Some pics from Sunday’s ride around Bangkok with P’Boat & P’Nick.

Anobel & I had to kill 12 hours in Cairo after a misunderstanding with the train times, but getting to Luxor worked out fine in the end.

The train – not too bad. I think it cost around £175L.E., but you can pay double that and get a sleeping cabin which is meant to be pretty good – but yeah that is quite pricey for a 10 hour train ride in the middle east i think. Was a bit painful for me as usual (when it comes to travelling i hate being tall).

For £20L.E. each we got a room at the Nubian Oasis (Bob Marley) hostel which is a couple of hundred metres from the train station on the ‘east bank’ of Luxor. Pretty cool place, nice folks working there and a rooftop that does a happy hour! Rooms are basic but for the price what else should you expect.

Luxor is a cool place, lots of touts in the centre but still a reasonable atmosphere.

East bank
Closer to the river, maybe 1km from the Nubian Oasis, is the Luxor Temple. £50L.E. a ticket. This was my first true close up experience with Hieroglyphics and giant statues in the wild Massive pylons/columns and court areas.

A 10 minute horse & buggy ride north gets you to the Karnak Temple (or maybe the temples of Karnak). A gigantic site that is full of obelisks and columns, and one of the buildings still has a roof.
Many of the rooms/buildings still have colour on them!

West Bank

The next day we took a tour to the west bank of Luxor to checkout ‘the valley of the kings’ and the other sites nearby.

The Valley of the Kings, whilst being extremely well preserved and easily accessible, is a bit of a sham i think. Firstly, you pay £60L.E. or so to get it, then £4L.E.for a little train that take you 500m up the road, then you can only get into 3 of the tombs. If you want to see more you have to pay more money, and you have to do this back at the entrance. I paid an extra £100L.E. to get into Tutankhamun’s tomb. Also, no photography is allowed. Why? I asked and they said that the flash photography ruins the artwork. That is fair enough, but I told them I wasn’t going to use my flash. Then they said that when the camera takes a photo if sucks the colour off the wall. haha! what voodoo! You can’t take photos inside the tombs, yet there was a research team in King Tut’s tomb, who had a bunch of strobes going off. And, outside the tombs there are more touts selling photo sets of the inside of the tombs – where did these photos come from? Errrrrrrrrr!

Temple Of Hatchepsute

Ramses 3 Funerary Temple – a.k.a Medinat Habu
(I think that was the name of this place!)

Colossi Of Memnon
(i think)

Cairo is pumping. Whether midday or mignight, there are people everywhere, and most seem very friendly.
The mornings aren’t quite so hectic, which makes for a pleasant time to stroll around downtown, if that’s what your into.

In between the trips to the pyramids of Giza, Saqqara and Dahshur, Anobel and I checked out the backstreets and souqs outside of the downtown area, with an arvo in the Old Muslim area. We went down a small street and met a man who took us for a visit to the local Egyptian medicine man. Initially his shop looked small, but through a crack in the wall we found ourselves in the room with all the drugs – similar to what you see in a chinese medicine store. Anobel asked about what they used for something like kidney stones, and the medicine man pushed on one of the shelves. It opened up to reveal a secret room with more drugs. It was very open sesame (but that’s Persia right?).

The downtown area has some nice rooftop places, on top of hotels generally I think, but we did find a place (unfortunately no beer though) that overlooked one of the main streets.

We ended up on top of one hotel with £13Egyptian Stellas and spent the night talking to a South African lady who was on holiday from taking people on holiday – she works in SA and eastern Africa as a tour guide. It was interesting to hear her say how she will never be considered African by the locals, despite her family being there for over 100 years.

So yeah, Cairo is good, it wasn’t too scammy (except for the must see sights), you can get a nice place to stay for max £50Egyptian, and there are tons of coffee/tea/sheesha places everywhere.

Leaving Lebanon was pretty funny. We were sitting in Zahle drinking a smooth bottle of Arak, and a genius idea popped up to get the next flight to Cairo. So next day, headed back to Beirut, jumped on the net, $200 later we had paid for a ticket to Cairo. Done & done.

But, when we got to the airport a few hours later if turned out that we didn’t have a ticket as the transaction hadn’t processed. Luckily the flight was only half full and we picked up a ticket (for $10 less too) and took off to Cairo with our good friends Egypt Air – along with a gigantic block of cadbury’s fruit & nut chocolate

I hadn’t flown since landing into Sofia, Bulgaria, and that’s a small city. So the flight into Cairo was pretty amazing, the place is huuuuge!
Unfortunately I couldn’t get a night time glimpse of the pyramids.

Giza. The metro ride out to Giza was probably the most excited i have been since getting some lovin’ months ago! £1EGP pound for the metro and £1.25EGP for the mini bus later there I was, standing in front of the Sphinx and the Pyramids of Giza!!!!

Woah! I spent most of the day with my jaw dragging around on the sand and taking hundreds of photos of the same thing

£60EGP entry fee to the area around the pyramids and sphinx, then £100EGP to get inside the Great Pyramid (a.k.a Cheops/Kufu). Unfortunately my camera was taken off me so couldn’t sneak any photos in, but Anobel managed to sneak his whole DSLR and tripod in and gave some entrepreneur inside some backsheesh to get a few shots off.
It was an amazing feeling to be in the King’s Chamber. Not the hieroglyphics i was expecting, but blackness and an empty granite sarcophagus and a whole lot of headroom.

I managed to get bitten on the back of the head by a camel after it’s dickhead of an owner tried to force £10 out of me. Yes, there are a lot of people to want you on their camel or themselves in one of your photo for a little backsheeh.
The guards and folks running the place are really friendly and helpful. Go Cairo!

Did I mention construction was completed in 2560BC!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I would love to have seen these monsters back in their hay day!

Tomorrow, The Egyptian museum.

Hello Giza!

Originally uploaded by adamteale

Jumped the gun a little with by blog, but hey, I’m in Cairo, Egypt!!!
Just got back from a long day at Giza checking out all that is Pyramid!
“Wow!” is all I can come up with.
Will post a full entry with all the pics asap!

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