Mapped: Photos from Chandigarh, India, Jan 2006

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This post about my trip to northern India in 2005-2006 is preceded by photos from New Delhi and Agra.

On 2 January 2006, Megha and her family took me to the Rock Garden in Chandigarh, just to the north of their home in Ambala.

The audacious background of the Rock Garden was just as interesting as the sculptures and the architecture. The Rock Garden is a pile of junk. Nek Chand, the force and vision behind the project, created the garden -- a 40-acre spread of sculptures, waterfalls, towers, and courtyards -- from scrap and waste. Discarded wires, porcelain, industrial materials, broken bangles, pieces of glass bottles -- all pieces of rubbish individually, but part of something whole and substantial when brought together; it is much more than a pile of junk.

The most striking aspect of the Rock Garden, to me, is the dedication -- I mean obsession -- that must have driven Nek Chand to continue working on it. It's not that hard to initiate something small, a few sculptures that can be hidden away with no effort, but to work in secret for nearly 20 years, creating an enormous work of art out of the forest... I can't even imagine it. I can only wonder if, somewhere, in the back of his head, he had an idea that he knew was so incredible that he had to follow through with it. Or maybe he was just passing time, keeping his hands busy and the art created itself.

If you're ever passing through northern India, through Punjab, I highly recommend that you stop at the Rock Garden for a long stroll through Nek Chand's masterpiece. And while you're there, take your time, wander. As a bonus during my trip there, we met Nek Chand for a few minutes in his studio, which is located in the garden itself.

• Rock Garden [wikipedia.org]


• Nek Chand Foundation [nekchand.com]

Have a look at the camera icons on the map below, which shows where the photos were snapped. Can't see everything in this window? Open it as a larger map.




If you use Google Earth, you can download the network link file for this trip to your My Places. Your placemarks will automatically be updated when I add photos to the rest of this trip, including Dak Patthar, Ambala, Allahabad, and Kolkata.

Photos from Agra, Dec 2005

The Beauty of Lies has moved to KirkKittell.com (Subscribe to the RSS feed). This post has been copied to http://kirkkittell.com/2008/03/25/photos-from-agra-dec-2005.

Listen. The Taj Mahal is awesome in the true sense of the word: inspiring awe. The pictures you've seen before, and that you see in this set of photos, are just a taste of what it is like in person. I mean, it looks big and majestic in images, but when you walk in the gate from the south and the Taj Mahal swings into view -- amazing.

Three of us -- Megha, her cousin, and I -- started from New Delhi at four in the morning, taking the bus to Sikandra, just on the outskirts of Agra. (The bus ride to and from Agra is another story altogether -- both the outrageous video game-like ramble down to Agra and the broken down bus in the night on the way back to Delhi. Oh yes, you must wait for the book, Train Cancellation Party.) In Sikandra we visited the mausoleum of Akbar the Great [wikipedia.org].

Next -- and maybe I'm too simple, blame it all on my roots or whatever -- was an auto ride to the Taj Mahal. It's like nothing else I had ever seen.



Then: the Taj Mahal [unesco.org]. I'm not going to try to describe it anymore. See the pictures here, and sometime in your life see it in person. From the Taj Mahal we traveled to Agra Fort [unesco.org], capital of the Mughal empire.

Photos from Agra
The map below displays the photos were they were taken in Agra. Click on the camera icons to open a display for each picture. Alternatively, you could view the photos in: Picasa; Flickr; or Panoramio.

(If it's hard to see the photos in the window below -- and don't forget to click the icons to see them... -- open it in a larger map)



As always, if you use Google Earth and download the network link file for this trip to your My Places, your placemarks will automatically be updated when I add photos to the rest of the trip.

This is set #2 of my photos from India in 2005-2006; the other sets are: (1) New Delhi; (2) Agra; (3) Chandigarh; (4) Allahabad; (5) Kolkata; (6) Ambala.

If you don't want to wait, you can see the placemarks and the photos in separate states:

• Most of my photos from India are in a Picasa web album.


• Map placemarks are posted on my wiki.

Photos from New Delhi, Dec 2005

The Beauty of Lies has moved to KirkKittell.com (Subscribe to the RSS feed). This post has been copied to http://kirkkittell.com/2008/03/22/photos-from-new-delhi-dec-2005.

I visited India for three weeks in December 2005 and January 2006. The time I spent there was outstanding -- it was my first opportunity to spend an appreciable amount of time with Megha, and her family were very excellent hosts. (Granted, she and I weren't an item then, and I don't think I would have visited like that if we were, but that's a song from a different opera.) Also, further down the tracks, I met some friends that I had known online only, and I also met with one of my classmates from Illinois -- Palash Basu -- and his family.

One day, when I finish writing it, you should read the book about my trip (Train Cancellation Party). In the meantime, I'm going to do what I like to do: post the photos on a map that shows where they were taken. It takes some time to merge the two elements -- the Google Earth placemarks and the photos -- so I'm going to do it in batches: (1) New Delhi; (2) Agra; (3) Chandigarh; (4) Allahabad; (5) Kolkata; (6) Ambala.

If you're impatient and want to see the placemarks and the photos in separate states:

• Most of my photos from India are in a Picasa web album.


• Map placemarks are posted on my wiki.

Photos from the Red Fort in New Delhi
If it's hard to see the photos in the window below -- and don't forget to click the icons to see them... -- open it in a larger map




As always, if you use Google Earth and download the network link file for this trip to your My Places, your placemarks will automatically be updated when I add photos to the rest of the trip.

Wikipedia Coffee Break 25 Feb 2008: Mukurthi National Park

The Beauty of Lies has moved to KirkKittell.com (Subscribe to the RSS feed). This post has been copied to http://kirkkittell.com/2008/02/25/wikipedia-coffee-break-25-feb-2008-mukurthi-national-park.

If I'm going to take a break for five minutes at work, I figure I might as well learn something. I suppose I'd have a cigarette if I was a smoker, but I'm not, so I don't. A five minute Wikipedia cruise is more interesting to me.

1. Start, Wikipedia Main Page: "Did you know..." ...that the railcar that ran on the Shimoga-Talaguppa railway in India had to be reversed on a turntable, so that it could start its return journey?
2. Shimoga-Talaguppa railway: British Indian authorities started laying the metre gauge line in the year 1938 from Shimoga to Talaguppa to provide access to Jog Falls.
3. Jog Falls: created by the Sharavathi River falling from a height of 253 meters (829 ft) is the highest plunge waterfall in India and the 7th deepest in the world. From the "Western Ghats" navigational box at the bottom of the page: Sispara Peak.
4. Sispara Peak: Sispara Peak is in the core area of the Nilgiri Biosphere Reserve. Location is 11°12'N, 76°28'E at the northeast end of Silent Valley National Park and the southwest end of Mukurthi National Park.
5. Mukurthi National Park. See especially: link to photos on Flickr tagged as Mukurthi.
6. Back to work.