The Travel Blog Post

Expecting in Hanoi

David Gillbanks — Wed, 05 May 2010 11:04:46 +0000

I snapped this candid pic while on a work-related trip in Hanoi, Vietnam.

No, I wasn’t skiving! It was a coffee break. I was just having a smoke-o at a little cafe across the road from the hotel. It served the local coffee, the thick stuff you can almost stand your spoon up in. I love the rich chocolatey effect of the uber-sweet condensed milk that comes with it.

Anyway, I’m enjoying my coffee and can’t help but notice this woman who’s pretty pregnant. Indeed, she’s both pretty and pregnant. Very pregnant, in fact. “Glowing”. She’s listening to a mobile phone (right ear, obviously), which lends her an air of abstractedness. I take a couple of candid snaps with the little digicam I’m carrying, and I carry on my merry way.

That’s about it, really … I go home, process this pic, stick it on my Flickr account …

And it turns out to be my most viewed pic! That’s not saying much, though. Very rarely does an unwary netizen stumble through the backwaters of my Flickr account. But this pic is the only one that has attracted anywhere near triple figures! Why? Dunno! Maybe people enjoy images of glowing women.

Moving along. The point of this post are the following questions:

What’s the right thing to do when it comes to candid snaps? Is publicly posting pics of people acceptable without their express permission? What do professional and enthusiast photographers do? Do they always ask their otherwise unknowing subjects before publishing? Does the intrepid travel photojournalist carry release forms everywhere? Is there a double-standard where what’s unacceptable at home is considered fair game on foreign shores?

Please! A penny for your thoughts …

Calm

David Gillbanks — Thu, 22 Apr 2010 11:02:40 +0000

Calm

Calm water, crisp light, and cotton-candy clouds. My final morning at Waitata Bay, Marlborough, New Zealand was picture postcard perfection.

If you have to travel to the bottom of the world for a holiday, make sure you have more than a week. And if you can spare a week to simply chillax — and you don’t mind self-catering — you could do worse than rent out a cabin from the Brennans.

Tell ‘em ‘The Travel Blog Post’ sent you. If they look at you weirdly it is because they have never heard of ‘The Travel Blog Post’ before. You can explain that it is a corner of cyberspace that is probably quieter and more obscure than Waitata Bay and certainly far less beautiful.

Tripping the Light

David Gillbanks — Mon, 12 Apr 2010 15:46:06 +0000

Tripping the Light

I have very rarely had a bad experience with a taxi driver in my 10 years based in Bangkok. This post is for them!

Some expatriates I know give Bangkok cabbies a very poor wrap, but that’s probably got more to do with their own arrogance than anything that the drivers do or say. Some expatriates have become so cynical that they create their own problems when dealing with Thais of any occupation or social class. And they take great pleasure in describing how they really can’t understand “the mentality of these people”. I can only assume that the feeling is mutual!

Sure, you get the odd taxi driver who tries to take the pish; possibly more frequently with foreigners who look like they’ve just stepped off an airplane. (It always helps to learn a few local phrases, wherever you happen to be in the world.) But the vast majority of cab-men and -women are good people trying to make an honest living.

As it happens, many taxi drivers; possibly a majority, but I don’t actually know; sympathise with the UDD (Red Shirts). Let’s hope for the sake of their taxiing livelihoods that common sense returns to Thai politics!

Banyan Buddha

David Gillbanks — Sun, 11 Apr 2010 05:33:20 +0000

Banyan Buddha

The limestone head of a Buddha statue now cradled by banyan tree roots at Wat Mahathat in Ayutthaya, Thailand.

I have this pic featured as a POI (point of interest) on the interactive map at SoutheastAsia.org. Anyone can add their picture and description of a thing to do or see in Southeast Asia on the map!

There is also a photo & writing competition running through to June 2010 where you stand a chance to win a share of US$15,000 just by submitting your holiday snaps and stories from Southeast Asia. I can’t participate in the contest because I’m professionally associated with the site. Good luck to those of you who do!

Coca Tea

David Gillbanks — Sat, 10 Apr 2010 16:25:01 +0000

Coca Tea

My travel companion and I enjoyed a lot of coca tea in Peru, especially during our first two days at altitude in Cusco. A fine tonic to ease the symptoms of altitude sickness, coca tea is simply dried coca leaves steeped in hot water. With a slightly bitter, grassy flavour, I would not recommend it as a replacement for coffee or regular tea at sea level. Coca is a stronger stimulant though, and more importantly it helps temporarily ease the queasy, head-achey, hangover feeling newcomers to altitude experience during their first couple of days.

We also chewed on the leaves when hot water wasn’t available, such as while walking around town, exploring a ruin, or riding a tour bus. Unless you are super fit, be sure to give yourself a couple of days to get used to altitude before you attempt anything strenuous.

The legendary capital city of the Incas and now a thriving and picturesque tourist town, Cusco is 3,400 m (11,200 feet) above sea level. We flew there direct from Lima, the coastal Peruvian capital.

Machu Picchu Llama

David Gillbanks — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 07:14:04 +0000

Machu Picchu Llama

I always feel a little silly and self-conscious taking dodgy pictures of the same thing from the same angle at the same time as hundreds of other tourists, particularly if I’m wielding a relatively expensive camera. And even if the result isn’t too shabby, I’ll know that the kid with the camera phone got the same clichéd shot.

When my better half and I visited Machu Picchu in May 2009, I managed to take some shots of a llama with the Incan ruins themselves in the background. I was pretty stoked to say the least! There were relatively few people around us at that moment. And what people there were had their lenses pointing in other directions.

The proximity, the angle, the backdrop … what had I done to deserve such an opportunity? Me, rank amateur snapper who wouldn’t know an f-stop from a lens cap, taking shots like these!

Then I searched for “Machu Pichu llama” images in my go-to search engine. Of course! What did I expect? … hundreds of people … every day … same herd of camelids … same walk trails … same Incan ruins …

As a rank amateur I’m still very happy with my pic, though!

‘The Travel Blog Post’ Seeks Raison D’être

David Gillbanks — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 08:56:09 +0000

The Travel Blog Post at www.travelblogpost.com seeks a reason to exist.

If you have any good ideas, please email travelblogpost[at]gmail.com, or leave a comment below.