Dust at Thakurdwara

It may look pretty, but that haze is dust. This was a quick photograph snapped from the back of a jeep bouncing along the rough road to Thakurdwara, the village on the outskirts of Bardia National Park in Nepal.

Tomorrow I leave Mahendranagar and return to India.

[If you haven't already seen it, there's a new post on Pohanginapete]

All content © 2016 Pete McGregor

Rickshaw driver, Nepalgunj

He looks young, but he drove his rickshaw like a pro. I was only an hour or two in Nepalgunj after getting off the flight from Kathmandu, but I liked it.

Finding time to post photographs isn't easy when travelling, and I'm aware I still need to post on the main blog. I do have an Instagram account, though, and posting there's more efficient.

All content © 2016 Pete McGregor

Road crossing, New Delhi

Although a few places around the aptly named Connaught Circus do have traffic lights and pedestrian crossings, getting to the other side of the street is often a matter of stepping out into the traffic and assuming it'll swerve around you. The locals are much better at this than I am.

All content © 2016 Pete McGregor

Even the mynahs have a hard time

For all its charms (and there are many), Delhi isn't the cleanest of places, and most  of the birds I've seen haven't been in great shape. The air alone is currently among the worst in the world. Even though mynahs and crows are among the most adaptable and resilient of birds, they can do nothing about air quality.

(Just like last time, I'm having difficulty processing the photographs. Android isn't designed for high quality photoprocessing of RAW files - even the Lightroom app is lousy. Photomate R3 seems to be the bes of a bad bunch. Snapseed would be good, but the RAW files need to be converted to DNG, and the converter apps are appalling. I'm afraid you'll have to put up with approximations. Sorry.)

All content © 2016 Pete McGregor

Good cheap food at the Capital Hotel Restaurant

In New Zealand you'd pay almost ten times what you pay for a good meal here at the Capital Hotel restaurant. ('Restaurant' might convey slightly the wrong impression, though, as you can probably tell from this photograph.) The bonus is that you get waited on by these guys. Little wonder I like eating here.

All content © 2016 Pete McGregor

Chai wallah, Pahar Ganj, New Delhi

I'd rushed outside to photograph the early morning Sikh ritual, but I couldn't get a good angle for a photograph. I did notice the chai wallah, though. The chai cost me 10 rupees: an affordable luxury despite my almost complete lack of cash.

I hope the vast queues at the ATMs will subside in the next day or two so I can withdraw cash and be able to enjoy frequent cups of this wonderful drink (which bears almost no resemblance to the 'chai latte' in New Zealand.

In case you're wondering, I'm in India again. My arrival in the wee hours of Saturday morning coincided with the chaos following Prime Minister Modi's sudden announcement that 500 and 100 rupee notes were no longer valid, effective immediately.

All content © 2016 Pete McGregor

Survivors

It's just a record photograph, but I like what it records: some of the rabbits have survived. These two were feeding in the front paddock early this morning. Although the telephoto lens has compressed the perspective so the rabbits look similar in size, the closer of the two (on the right) is much larger than the one behind. I'm guessing we have two generations here.

[1/30 sec at f4, ISO 640]

All content © 2016 Pete McGregor

October in the Pohangina Valley

In mid October the valley couldn't make up its mind about which season it was supposed to be in. It should have been spring, but could just as easily have been autumn. On mornings like this, I didn't mind.

This was the view from near my gate.

[1/320 sec at f5.6, ISO 200]

All content © 2016 Pete McGregor