auto-rickshaw...NOT bajaj...
the auto-rickshaw - one of the most popular means of transportation in Mumbai (and perhaps the whole India, but since I haven't been to any other places outside of Mumbai then I wouldn't know).
also quite popular in Jakarta - but we call it bajaj (pronounce ba-jai) over there...maybe because the ones that we got in Jakarta were made by Bajaj originally (Bajaj is a company that makes these sorts of things, although recently they grew and started to do all kinds of business)...
riding one of this auto (that's the nickname for them in India) in the busy streets of Mumbai is one helluva adventure indeed...
in a place where the nobody follow the lines, couldn't care less of the traffic lights, and road signs serve no purpose other than decorative...a place where people could drive on both side of the traffic, to any directions as they please...a place where vehicles are (literally) less than an inch apart on all 8 directions of the wind...and to make matter even worse, cows are roaming on the street...
wait a minute...cows??? yup...right...cows. they are holy animals here, so they could do whatever they please and nobody will stop them (hmm, I think I have a picture of cows on the street. that'll be a topic for another day) - believe me, when a big bus or truck driver is being faced with two options: swerve right, hit the cow, get mauled by the crowd...OR...swerve left, hit the auto with that Indonesian inside, nobody cares - I don't think you have to be a psychic to tell which way the driver will swerve...
auto is a cheap and convenient way to go places - offcourse they are noisy and they vibrates like hell. and offcourse it is kinda scary sometimes (well OK, most of the times) when the driver snaking his way through tight spaces between (significantly) bigger cars, buses, and trucks...
but hey, you only live once, right?
I took this pic using my cell-phone. though image quality is not top notch, it's decent enough...
that guy in blue, he's my colleague from the same office. the other guy still sitting inside is also a colleague from work...
give us this day our daily bread...
a friend of mine sent me this picture (OK, so I was planning to post only my pics before, but this one is just too good for not to be shared - and NO, I have not ran out of ideas just yet!!!).
I don't know where it was taken, or when (though I got some ideas). but the background is quite familiar. there's no mistake. it is a place that I have visited too much within the last 5 years. a place where I spent most of my (now) lost youth (I've spent many easter, x-mas, new year, b'day, valentine's, lunar new year, the eid there). a place of many sleepless nights, lousy food, and funny tasting water. a place that for many people seems to be like an extension of hell...it's the floor of a drilling rig!!!
yet - no matter how often you've been to that place, there's almost always something new to see and learn...
take what happened in this pic for example...maybe the pipe was stuck, maybe the ROP was low, or maybe they're doing it just for the sake of doing it...I really don't know...and perhaps I don't even wanna know ;)
rice factory
I had a friend that thought that rice, due to the relatively uniform colour and size of the grains, were manufactured in factories...you know, like corn flakes etc :))
took this pic in Cipanas, West Java - Indonesia...and decided to name it "rice factory"...
colourful treats...
a friend of mine was celebrating his birthday. so, he took a bunch of guys (all Indians with the exception of myself) for a lunch - an authentic north Indian all vegetarian food.
the notion that it was pure vegetarian food was kinda misleading...
I mean, I grew up in a society where vegan food are tasteless and healthty...it sure wasn't the case here.
as starters, we had masala papad (nickname: Indian pizza) - lentil based cracker with a generous topping of chopped onion, tomato, and coriander leaves.
second starters: paneer tandoori - some sort of cheese on skewer with onion and salad, grilled to perfection.
main course - butter rothi and butter naan, and boy there were lots of dripping melted butter on top of the rothi and naan. that plus butter dhal, butter eggplant curry, butter fried okra, butter curry paneer. they were heavy, thick, and greasy. I mean, I got high from all the fat after only 10 minutes of eating. and believe me, I was eating slowly. butter everywhere!!! a healthfood-freak nightmare!!! man, my cardiologist ain't gonna be to happy with those food. but they taste so good!!!
dessert - buttered sweet lassi. it's like any normal lassi (yoghurt-shake) but topped with butter!!! can't help to think that the chef must be a sadist!!!
after the heavy food - time for the final dessert...PAN (or PAAN)...
as you can see from the picture - it is a compilation of sweets, spices, herbs - wrapped in leave...very colourful indeed...and smells horrible!!!
my friends told me that they are good for you digestive systems especially after a heavy meal...think I'll just take their words for that...
reality bites
the very first time I went to an offshore field, I was onboard the "Big Orange". it's a ship that carries a snubbing unit all over the field. It was not big, and certainly not orange. for the people onboard - it was their home away from home during their hitch...myself included.
I shared room with 3 other guys...in a room no bigger than 2.5m x 2.5m x 2.5m
during the hithc, that room served as our bedroom, changing room, recreation room, and last but not least...our office.
this is a picture of the room, taken with a (35mm equivalent) 38mm camera. the small field of view gives you the idea of just how cramped the room was. I was already standing at the corner with my back pressed againts the bulkhead (it was afterall a ship, and walls are not called walls on ships, they're bulkhead).
the lower bunk was my bed...if you look closely, at the lower right corner, you should be able to spot a black baseball cap with RMIT logo (that's my university). I don't think this picture would ever make it to their brochures.
RMIT has this slogan "your future starts here". imagine having this picture posted just underneath the slogan plus some writtings "and this is you future" or something like that :))
pretty in pink
I took this snap in Gunung Mas tea plantation (Puncak, West Java, Indonesia). the pic was dull, a pathetic attempt of macro-photography.
yet, during a rainy Sunday afternoon, with nothing better to do, I played around with the image...adding some effects and boosted the colour saturation. I am a big fan of Monet, and this is my attempt to immitate his style...electronically that is :)
boathouse
Amsterdam...so far, the coolest place that I have ever been to. nice and clean, compact yet not cramped, friendly people, good food and beer, cozy "coffee" shops. one of the unique thing about this place, other than the windmill that is, are the boathouses...and quite a lot of them. some even got turned into hotels. took this with a cheap point&shoot that only has a full-auto mode. surprisingly...the result turned out to be quite ok...don't you think?
the twilight zone...
anybody remembers that tv series called The Twilight Zone from the late 80s/early 90s??? I found it quite entertaining as it always (well, almost always) had interesting topic about something unexplainable...
well, my job has taken me to India...in Mumbai (previously known as Bombay) to be exact. Yup, I am now based here. Sometimes, I can't help to think that I am being punished by getting this assignment in this location.
don't get me wrong - India is not that bad, it's just...different. "how" you may ask? just look at the picture dude!
took this one donwtown Mumbai...in 2006, not 1960s!!! I wouldn't say that this is a good pic, but I must insist that it is kinda funky. My ex-boss used to say that being in India is just like going through a time warp, and this picture confirmed that. it is like going back through time...to the twilight zone ;)
oh and as for my ex-boss, he recently got transferred...to Siberia :D
le jardin
a snap of one of the many many many gardens of Chateau de Versailles. Beautiful place. So beautiful that I think I would need years and thousands of picture taking before I could capture the beauty properly...
from a distance...
I shot this when I was walking around Paris on a cool Sunday morning a couple of years ago. This is a picture that convinced me to upgrade my camera. A picture that made me fell in love with the art of photography. A picture that reminds me of how hurt my feet were thanks to the walking that I did that Sunday morning... :)
