Its been two decades since I entered this world, and the ride has been anything but smooth. Here I am venting out my thoughts for others to ponder on.....for I've given up hope!
It’s a rainy afternoon and I was getting off the LRT in KL with arms that were screaming out in agony after 5 shots of vaccinations and a note asking me to come back in a few days for two more. Yep, Africa didn’t sound interesting anymore.
A day earlier, a colleague of mine had pinged me asking me if I was available to help them with a project in Africa. Now since the only work I was doing in the office was keeping myself awake, I volunteered. A couple of meetings after office hours (my hatred towards Timezones just went from yellow alert to red!) and a bunch of vaccination shots later, I was on my way to the Dark Continent. 11 hours of flight and 5 hours of transit in one of the most boring transit hubs in the world (yes Dubai T3, I’m talking about you!) I was in Nairobi’s Jomo Kenyatta Airport. I got my on-arrival visa, my bags and a quick hello to the customs officer later, I was out breathing African air. To my surprise, the place wasn’t a hot and sweaty country with vultures lingering around to see you drop on the ground like I had imagined. Instead, I felt a cool breeze that reminded me of my early morning walks to the bus stop in Bangalore. Ofcourse, the vultures were around, but they were busy looking at something else much further away (phew!).
A bit about Nairobi before I continue rambling about the amazing adventure I had over the weekend – My company has a security officer in all countries that are marked as a high risk. Now the only work this fellow really does is scare the world around him and make his presence feel meaningful. We’ve got one in KL who walks around and steals our laptops and then sends out an e-mail telling us that there were violations of the security code where we had to lock our laptops to our tables and that he has confiscated a few laptops to prevent theft. I mean, this is the fellow who actually marked Kuala Lumpur as a high risk city to live in, just like Afghanistan (No, I’m not kidding. KL = Afghanistan according to my company!). So it was no surprise when I saw a security advice from the local security officer in Kenya:
The need for personal security is even more relevant now during this build up to the Christmas season. Robberies, carjacking and burglaries etc are on the increase.
Please refrain from carrying passport or credit cards etc on your person unless there is a requirement for you to do so.
If you go out in the evening it is advisable to carry a wallet with a small amount of money (10,000 max) and any additional money you carry, spread it around several other pockets. If someone robs you then hand the wallet over, they will not spend time going through your other pockets, they will want your phone and your wallet and possibly any jewellery that you are wearing.
……
Be aware that many thieves are armed with guns or knives, if you do not make yourself look like an obvious target to them they will look for a softer target to attack and will leave you alone. If they do approach you, avoid eye contact where possible, speak clearly to them when they question you, do not insult them or try to belittle them, follow their commands and back away. They do not intend to murder you, they intend to rob you so let them take what they want and you will remain unharmed.
Ofcourse, the mail went on for 7 more paragraphs but I won’t go on with that. The security officer had written the email just before he walked out in the night to a local pub and picked up a random woman and got robbed for a different reason.
Barring the jokes, yes, Nairobi ain’t one of the safest cities and is known to have quite a bit of crime happening around. We took precautions obviously, but the city still surprised me. All the running and working out I had done while I was in KL after my trip to Singapore went straight down the drains ‘coz the food was amazing! We started off with Indian grill on the first day, moved on to Lebanese the next day, and then Japanese Teppanyaki on the third, and a bunch of buffet lunches and dinners followed. Kenya is definitely not the place to go on a diet! To counter the sudden change in inclination of my weight chart, I started going to the gym at the hotel where a personal trainer tortured me and a colleague every evening.
On Thursday evening while having dinner after all our meetings were done with, we decided to drive down to Masai Mara for the weekend. Being the illiterate soul who has no access to National Geographic for the last few months, I had no clue where this was or why it was significant. A friend of mine then educated me – Masai Mara Game Reserve is one of the largest Natural Wildlife Reserves in Africa. The area is famous for one of nature’s most amazing wildlife migration where animals from the Serengeti Wildlife Reserve in Tanzania cross over to the Mara’ every year for 3-4 months. I had apparently landed in Kenya just around the migration when the animals headed back to Tanzania so that made the trip just perfect! We picked Keekorok for our stay in the Mara which is known to be the ONLY lodge in the area without fences. In other words, if you were unlucky, you could be opening your door in the morning to see a lion sitting outside your room saying “Jambo”.
The highlight of my weekend with the animals was on Saturday. We had left quite early in the morning from the lodge (around 6am) to try our luck and oh we got lucky! The morning started off with a few vultures hogging away a recent kill. We drove around a bit and when we got back to the same spot some 20 minutes later, the Hyennas had popped in for their share of the meat. Strangely, those fellows kinda reminded me of dogs. Guess one of them walking around with a bone made it a bit convincing. The three 4x4s we were in, continued to roam around the Mara in search of something more…but instead we kept going round in circles with our buddy up front cursing his GPS that kept going “Lost Satellite Reception”. Come to think of it, I’m sure the lady who recorded her voice for Garmin is probably the most cursed person around the world. After a couple of circles we finally stopped for a bit to figure out where to head to next. Now at a distance, I had spotted a couple of bushes…but strangely those bushes were moving. With zoom lenses and binoculars aimed, we noticed why it was moving…a massive herd of buffaloes, wildebeests and zebras were standing there (probably just waking up then). The herd was spread across over 2.5kms and that was just amazing. 1km or two later, we slew down while I was busy taking shots of the dry grass 
as it kinda reminded me of those scenes in Gladiator (all those fellows in Abu Dhabi can stop laughing now 
). We moved on a bit further and suddenly the car in front of us stopped….my lens was still on the dry grass but strangely there was something more than just grass ahead…..gulp…a lioness! No wait…a Lion! …. ok so it was not just one lioness, but 3 lionesses and a lion sitting around staring at the herd of animals at a distance. Wow…so much for Lion King…this was awesome. They were right in front of our path and I had an adrenaline rush just seeing those fellows so close to me. Now the lion got bored of seeing the 3 cars around him and started walking towards the herd of animals some 3kms away….two lionesses followed, but didn’t go far. After walking some 100m, they stopped, talked to each other….and walked back. Now we were busy having our packed breakfast at this point in time and it took us a few minutes before we realized why the lion had really stopped. At a distance, 6 other lions/lionesses from the pride were heading back from a kill. 10 minutes later, all of them were circling around our vehicles with one even sniffing our friend’s car behind us. Breakfast with the lions…what else could you ask for from a Safari!
After breakfast, we headed back towards our lodge, randomly driving around for other sights. We weren’t all that lucky, but our lucky streak followed in the afternoon when we went for our second game drive. Our first stop was in front of a tree where a bunch of Matatus and Range Rovers had gathered. We stopped right on the edge of the massive ditch that was in front of the tree, and strained our eyes to figure out what all the fuss was about. One of my buddies spotted something and screamed out “Leopard!” I being the most blind of the lot, couldn’t spot it till over 15 minutes later when one of my buddies grabbed my camera and took a shot . I tried getting a better angle but well, all we got was the thing’s ass. (when we got back to the lodge, another guy who was around near us told us that the leopard had come down a little later with two cubs…sigh…we missed that!). One of the Matatus (it’s basically one of those tiny minibuses from Nissan) got stuck while climbing up a ditch ahead of us and after a lot of struggle, the thing finally moved ahead while we waited to test the 4×4 on the Pajero . A few minutes after we crossed the ditch, we spotted a Cheetah and her cubs walking right in front of our vehicles. Photos followed, the thing disappeared into the bushes. All the matatus around us followed, while we waited patiently for it to run away from them and come back to where we were. And like we guessed, they came straight towards us. We were apparently extremely lucky to have caught all but one of the Big 5s in a single day. Quite an experience I must say!
At night, we had a walk around the lodge with a few security guards as escorts (to keep the animals away) and somewhere around the lookout area, I saw one of the most beautiful sights in my life. The stars…..I have no words the describe the sight. The sight reminded me of Sir Bani Yas 10 years back when I went for a study of the Reserve there with a few others from school. That trip inspired me to get into photography – Thanks to Karan Singh Sir’s amazing shots! The stars here were a lot more beautiful. I guess the lack of light pollution all around us made it much better. We spent around 30 mins just looking up, spotting shooting stars while we were there and the milky way (or atleast something that looked like it).
Sunday morning, just before we were going to leave for Nairobi we decided to visit the river the animals crossed during the Great Migration. We asked one of the local Masai’s to tag along with us and show us the way. Daniel volunteered to head out with us (he had helped us spot the leopard and the cheetah the previous evening when our trusty GPS kept complaining about losing satellite reception). While we were heading towards the river, Daniel told us that the Masai’s are taught to hunt when they are as little as 10 year olds and they need to kill a lion before they can get married. Ofcourse the Kenyan Govt does not allow hunting for Game anymore and he was telling us that the Masai’s now even marry outside their tribes. Supposedly after the lion is killed, to court the woman they want to get married to, they have to jump as high as they can. So all the single men jump and the highest jumper gets the girl. Kinda explains why Kenyans are good at hurdles. On our way to the river we spotted a couple of lions in their hunting stance, hiding behind a mound in anticipation of a stray animal. We blew their cover obviously ‘coz we drove right in front of them to take a few shots. I could see them getting irritated
The Mara river shocked me. When I was thinking about the whole event (The Great Migration ie.), I assumed the river would have a flat basin in the plains like the ones we see in India. Not this one though, the Mara river has an elevated basin and the animals have to run down the hill, cross a river filled with crocodiles and then climb back up on the other side. With so many animals migrating at the same time over very narrow openings into the river, I can imagine crazy stampedes as well. Sigh, now I understand why Darwin was right when he coined the term “Survival of the Fittest”.
Among all my trips around the world, Africa probably surprised me the most. 20 years back when I was in school, my Arts and Crafts teachers taught me how to draw a scenery. The weekend in Africa made me realize that it was Africa that I had imagined when I picked up my paintbrush to paint the images in my head….the images that came to life last weekend!
Disclaimer: The blog has hints of sarcasm and is not directed at any
individual and has been included in the blog entry for entertainment
purposes only. Trademarks and Text quoted in the blog entry are
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Photography by .
We're almost done....really!
Dear Govt of India,
Thank you for making us proud and making sure that the Commonwealth Games 2010 in Delhi remains etched in our hearts and minds. You have ensured that none of us Indian citizens would ever forget the Games and we thank you for that!
Regards
PS: Please don’t forget to remind me to vote for you during the next elections.
Citizen
November 2003 – somewhere in the West Indies, a ballot paper was being scribbled with 5 letters – D, E, L, H, I. 46 people wrote the same 5 letters on pieces of papers that led to the 9th Commonwealth Games venue being selected as Delhi, India.
September 2010 – India is on the verge to show the world how miserably we failed to win the hearts of the world.
Instead we brought dengue to one India’s most beautiful cities, broke down roads, constructed highways that would put most engineers to shame, build stadiums that have ceilings dropping off like pigeon droppings and many other interesting mishaps. With just two weeks to go, all 1.1billion Indians in India and the millions others who sweat it out in other countries to keep the tricolour flying high have their head held down in shame.
It took 7 years for the jerks we voted in to wake up and smell the shit they cooked up. Oh I’m sorry Mr Lalit, we Indians do sleep in the dirt with rubble all around us. Oh how could I forget?
Official spokesman Lalit Bhanot insisted the athletes village was “probably one of the best ever”, despite the strong criticism by the governing body. “Everyone has different standards about cleanliness,” he said. “The Westerners have different standards, we have different standards.”
And Sir, could you also clarify the definition of “World Class” please? I may have misunderstood the word for exceptional quality that matched construction in First World Countries….I hope you weren’t referring to the World that is under War in the Middle East or war-torn East Europe when you referred to the “World”
Lalit Bhanot added “I can reassure everyone that the athletes will enjoy their stay in New Delhi. The stadiums are world class and so is the Games village. We will be ready by the time they start arriving this week.”
It took 3 years for a company in the US to come up with the most advanced phone in the world, the iPhone…it took 6 years to build an 828m building with the help of companies from India (yes the same country who can’t build a few stadiums and clean up roads). What were you guys doing for 7 years????? Making money out of treadmills??
I hope and pray that once the drama is over, the Supreme Court tries every person involved in the tenders, who were part of the organizing committees and even them officials who put a stop to work through court orders and marks them as traitors. They don’t deserve the position they are in…..and yes…the 1.1b people who have their head down now regret having pressed the button on the Voting Machines for you!
Update: Out of curiosity, is it true that you were planning on giving away $100,000 to every participating country? uhm….did you pay up?
Deep thoughts by .
So just when we thought jail-breaking the iPhone couldn’t get any easier, apple has finally plugged the whole that http://jailbreakme.com used to jailbreak your phone. For those of you who didn’t know what they were doing, basically when you went to the site on your iPhone, the site allowed you to download a specially crafted PDF file which would then be used to jailbreak the iOS. It was a vulnerability that Apple had forgotten to address ages back and realized how potentially hazardous it was till the easy jail-breaking that went around.
All you guys who still want to jail-break….don’t upgrade to 4.0.2
iOS 4.0.2 Update for iPhone and iPod touch
FreeType
CVE-ID: CVE-2010-1797 Available for: iOS 2.0 through 4.0.1 for iPhone 3G and later, iOS 2.1 through 4.0 for iPod touch (2nd generation) and later Impact: Viewing a PDF document with maliciously crafted embedded fonts may allow arbitrary code execution Description: A stack buffer overflow exists in FreeType’s handling of CFF opcodes. Viewing a PDF document with maliciously crafted embedded fonts may allow arbitrary code execution. This issue is addressed through improved bounds checking.
IOSurface
CVE-ID: CVE-2010-2973 Available for: iOS 2.0 through 4.0.1 for iPhone 3G and later, iOS 2.1 through 4.0 for iPod touch (2nd generation) and later Impact: Malicious code running as the user may gain system privileges Description: An integer overflow exists in the handling of IOSurface properties, which may allow malicious code running as the user to gain system privileges. This issue is addressed through improved bounds checking.
An excerpt from a chat I had with a friend yesterday:
Me: Hey Wassup! How’s things going?
RT: Check my Facebook status.
Me: huh?
<silence followed>
So much for good ol’ conversations….I definitely need to quit chasing mice and building farms and cut down on Facebook!
Prologue
A 4 hour long packing session followed a verbal threat from a friend that went “You wear a t-shirt for my wedding and I’ll skin you alive and throw you into the sea”. It’s finally here..two of my best buddies are getting married and I managed to schedule my holidays just right to be there for both. This blog however, is about the first and the second probably would have to wait for the next entry.
Now you ask me why is 4 hours considered long? Well it is the first time ever that I had actually went beyond picking a bunch of clothes and toilleteries and dumping them into my bag, sitting on the bag while I struggled with the zipper to ensure it stayed put and not puke itself out of the excess clothing that hung out in disarray. Painful I tell you!!
Strangely my life has become uneventful, I no longer get on the wrong buses and forget to collect change for a 100rs note when my fare was just 4rs…oh no that can’t be possible…something is definitely wrong here!
After the 4.5 hour long flight featuring Dilbert, Psych and Chuck I finally got down to Mumbai and was happy to see the empty immigration counter. In your face Delhi!! Oh well the happiness was short lived, my airline and the airport apparently had some weird argument over which belt they’d deliver baggage. This never got sorted so the airport announced the baggage claim belt to be belt 5 while the bags magically appeared in a belt miles away (or rather two belts away) at Belt 7. Strangely they continued to announce that the baggage is in Belt 5….sigh the argument never ended apparently. A short sleep which involved me banging my phone down when it woke me up at 4am (my hatred towards stupid timezones has now increased tenfold) and some depressing news on TV later it was flying time again
The Domestic Airport at Mumbai always surprises me…the first time I transitted this airport, it was a teenie airport with more people than space. It also featured porters wearing shirts that screamed out “No Tips Please” and yet would have their palms wide open expecting a 50rs note with a smile that evolved into a growl and amazing words that had then baffled me. My second trip there however was shocking, the airport had gone futuristic even with the post flood mess the city was in and my then fav coffee store had set up shop…CCD express…aah bliss…this time around, well the crowd was back, along with confused passengers who ran into the wrong bus and let’s not forget the almost useless “self” check-in kiosks which almost always betrays me by not showing up with my reservation details. CCD however did not fail to impress…cocktails and buffets added to their great selection of coffee…slurp…hmmm that reminds me, I need to get a new weighing machine.
Rumana’s Mehendi
A later afternoon arrival in Calicut was welcomed with a half an hour wait in a tiny room with two baggage carrousels that seemed to have more bags than space on the conveyors. Apparently three flights had just arrived from different parts of the country and all the bags were being stuffed into the same carrousel :( so much for a quick walk out of the airport. A 500 bucks taxi ride and directions given by Vicky finally got me in front of my hotel which featured a confused receptionist. After the initial hello, I couldn’t be bothered with any more conversations about my hometown and life history and sped to the elevator and punched in the floor number and walked straight in to find Vicky and Shaheen sitting in there watching an old hindi movie on a …. gulp 12″ screen they called the TV for the room…
Shocking news followed, another friend of mine who was supposed to have arrived with his camera gear to take pics of the bride and groom for the most special moments had apparently missed his flight. Anand, intelligent and smart that he is, arrived at Abu Dhabi International Airport 2 hrs before departure only to find a queue that had him waiting in vain in front of the airport for a whole hour. As he got to the counter, poof, Etihad airways decided that he was not worthy of entry and was told that he was late by 2 minutes. Yep, the old 2 minutes has been haunting more people of late and Anand was now the victim. An hour long argument resulted in nothing and he was still stuck in Abu Dhabi hoping to fly out of the on the Mumbai Local of the sky, Air India Express, the next day. Anand’s story obviously didn’t end there, and tidbits will follow as the story unfolds…
The big event in the evening was Rumana’s Mehendi, an event open only to the ladies of the family and Anand and I were given special entry passes thanks to our cameras….but now, with Anand out of the picture, I was in the midst of a dilemma. Keralite muslim weddings with only woman around can result in me getting extremely embarrassed and uncomfortable. My good friends (with all due sarcasm) stuffed me in the hall and disappeared before the blink of the eye…..strange smiles and weirdness followed….the brain finally kicked into gear and directed my hands to pick out the camera and click away. The good buddy that Rumana was, she was being extra helpful with my shots and I managed a couple of good ones before calling my emergency “Get out of Embarrassment” number.
20 mins later, my ride arrived and I made a quick exit. The evening apparently didn’t end and all the guys (vicky, vishal, shaheen and suhail) had popped up at one of the rooms in the hotel for a long night of conversations and friendly liquids. Topics involved included my various stupidities in good ol’ Abu Dhabi, Vicky’s eating habits, Hazaim’s urge to burn the world around him and how we all met up. Shaheen’s bro added on topics from historical wars in Abu Dhabi that were fought between Islahi School and our very own ADIS. 1am struck and the sane ones were off home or deep in slumber. Vicky however, was not done with the friendly liquids and as always, he needed someone to keep him company…..victim – ME! The night didn’t end (although it partially disappeared in visions for a few seconds in between but was immediately brought back to life with a lighter near my head….yep good ol’ vicky managed to get a stupid lighter and had threatened to burn what remained of my hair if I let Sandman get the better of me…4 hours later, it was finally sleep time…
Shaheen’s Mehendi
8am…there’s a knock on my door. grrrrr if it’s room service, someone’s gonna die!!! A strange dude, almost my height with a goatie stands in front….hmmm…who’s this fello now??
Me: Yes?
Stranger: Hi, is Anand staying here?
Me: Not really, he’s supposed to but he hasn’t arrived. He should arrive this evening I guess.
Stranger: Oh okay, I’m Antony, I’m Anand’s friend.
Me: Oh okay, he should be here in the evening. I’m Shanim
Stranger: Okay, thanks….<walks back slowly in fear>
Me (thinking): hmmm…that was strange…
Bangs door shut…jumps straight into bed…world around me silent
10:30am….bloody sun burning right on my face…oh well it was time for b’fast anyways. A quick bath later I was back in room 201 at vicky’s room and there a stranger was sitting along with him having tea…uhm…wait…i saw this fellow in the morning…what was his name again??
Vicky: Dude, this is Anand’s friend,…uhm…
Stranger: Hi I’m Antony, we met in the morning
Me: Yep yep, yeah vicky we met in the morning, I’m Shanim
Vicky: Anto, what did you do all morning?
And voila….one of the most hilarious story followed!
As you may recall, Vicky and I had slept off in the wee hours of the morning. Antony was traveling down to Calicut on the night bus (seated in a very uncomfortable seat) from Bangalore and arrived in Calicut at around 7 in the morning. He called up Vikas for directions and in his trance-like state, he responded with the directions giving Anto the exact room number. Antony finally arrived in the hotel at around 6:30am only to find that the door was locked and nobody responding to the door bell. Anto decided it was best to go out and have a look around the place. Armed with a Canon 70-200mm 2.8F L lens and no real scenery, he clicked a few shots of the nearby dump like canal where a few birds had come in for their morning bath.
A long walk later, he decided to try again. A few minutes of ringing the door bell followed and a long wait later, Vicky in awoke (not remembering a thing about the phone call sometime earlier) and opened the door. A confused exchanged of looks followed and Vicky noticed a big ass lens and a camera <ding!>
Vicky (in thoughts): Hmmm..Anand did say a friend of his who is a photographer would be coming for the wedding from Bangalore….this must be the fellow.
Vicky: Heyyy!, Anand said you’d be coming..come in, Anand hasn’t reached yet he’d probably be in arriving in the evening. If you want to freshen up, there is a toilet in there or you could use the second room that we’ve booked, 205.
Antony: Oh okay..Hi..
Door closes, vicky jumps into bed and is back in deep slumber…Now do note, there are two people in this particular room (Vishal and Vikas) which implied there wasn’t any space left in the bed. A separate room obviously sounded better, and Anto headed down to the reception to get the key.
Antony: What do you mean there’s someone in the room. The room was booked for the wedding..give me the key
Receptionist: Sir, there’s someone in the room already.
Antony: Let me go check then.Door bell goes buzzz…a tall half sleepy huge guy opens the door
Strange huge dude: Yes?
Antony (thinking): Oh Crap! that bugger gave me the wrong room number!! I’m screwed
Antony: Hi, is Anand staying here?
Strange huge dude: Not really, he’s supposed to but he hasn’t arrived. He should arrive this evening I guess.
Antony: Oh okay, I’m Antony, I’m Anand’s friend.
Strange huge dude: Oh okay, he should be here in the evening. I’m Shanim
Antony: Okay, thanks….
Antony (thinking): sigh….not a good day…not a good day…After this particular episode, Antony decides to head back to room 201. After a while sitting on the edge of the bed trying to relax, Vicky eventually woke up and headed to the washroom. Vishal on the other hand was still sound asleep…..atleast for a while. He woke up eventually with his eyes popping out of the socket staring at Antony.
Antony: relaaaaaax….he’s in there (pointing to the toilet)
A shivering vishal picked up the nearest pack of cigarettes and fired one up. The fear apparently was evident in the way he was puffing away while Antony sat there wondering how the whole situation was just getting weirder. Vicky finally re-entered and asked the most important question of the day. “Did you have breakfast yet?” A pot of tea and some sandwiches were ordered and finally the question popped up
Vicky: Hey I didn’t get your name, I’m Vikas.
Antony: I’m Antony Pratap
Vikas: aaah so YOU are the guy who replies to Anand’s buzz updates!
Antony: The same
Enter “Strange huge dude”
A long and fun conversation followed and finally Anto and I stepped out to get lunch from the nearby ChickKing (Kerala’s equivalent of KFC). When we returned, Rakhesh had arrived from Trivandrum and Shaheen was in the room as well. Updates followed – It was now mandatory for everyone to wear white in the evening (something I thought I could bypass) as it was the theme and this meant white shirt, white pants/mundu (the traditional keralite sarong that men wear/pyjama). Vicky, Vishal and I finally decided that we needed to continue our hunt for a nice white shirt and (ugh) white pants. 3hrs of shopping followed. We were scrambling around in a crowded market in SM Street which involved Vishal (the hindi speaking dude from Delhi) getting lost and a lot of bargaining and the final “kaching” when Vicky and I bought white shirts, white mundu and vishal’s white jeans and shoes. When we finally got back to the hotel, we found a taxi with a funny looking guy with two massive bags, a goggles on his forehead, staring into his wallet searching for bank notes while the taxi driver looked at his watch in fear. Anand had finally arrived from Cochin in a cab that took him around 7 hours to get here. The smart dude that he is, didn’t get a cellphone along with him and was hence out of reach for the 7 hours that he was on transit. The cabbie fled as soon as the transaction was complete and we were rushing to get to Shaheen’s place in time. We were late (the first of many)!
We finally arrived at Shaheen’s place with him giving us the death stare for being late. The professional photographers rushed to take our pics and well since we were there to take pics as well….Shaheen asked us to start that off. I picked out my camera and lens. The photographer stared as a picked out a modest Canon 450D with a dream 24-70mm 2.8F L lens. A short few seconds of shock later he continued taking pics. Anand and Antony then disappeared to gear up their camera bodies with the insanely awesome 70-200mm L and the 50mm prime and later the 11-16mm Tamron lens. And this is when we saw the photographer’s jaw drop and stare at his own camera and almost prepare to leave. A few minutes later he regained composure and continued clicking, while we clicked away ourselves. The evening was very eventful and well we had pics to prove it
The day ended quite late with everyone getting back to the hotel room as Antony’s story was repeated and Anand’s amazing adventure was unveiled. More on that to come in the next part of this blog entry
Photography Vacations by .
After some real research and loads of saving up, I’ve finally got my first L lens from Canon New albums and more pics to follow soon…
Images are available for viewing here
It’s funny how I’ve always cribbed and laughed till my tear glands cried for mercy looking at sign boards back in Delhi….and then its Malaysia’s turn. While I was driving down Federal highway this morning, a 3-laned highway connecting Klang to KL, I see this sign….oh well it’s not just us after all!
Something’s missing….hmmm…oh right…he ain’t smiling!
After a lot of thought….yes the process still does exist although it has been a bit of a rare phenomenon of late…I’ve been thinking of moving my blog from blogger to WP.
Uncategorized by .
Another hot and wet winter in Malaysia and I’m still here….it’s been a whole year and a half since I got here and well….I apparently haven’t stopped cribbing. So let me begin with some questions that have been puzzling me since I got here:
1. What’s the deal with 90kmph and 110kmph speed limits? Is it just to confuse all humans who have their speedometers with readings that are in multiples of 20?
2. 90kmph speed limit ends here……1km later, 60kmph speed limit begins here….what about the grey zone? Are we legally allowed to confuse the cop who catches us speeding at 160 in that stretch?
3. Where are all the cows in the country?
4. Correction to question 3, where is all the fresh milk in this country?
5. Why is a steamboat called a steamboat when it is not steamed food but boiled food?
6. Why Touch N Go?
7. Why don’t Touch N Go cards work?
7.5. Why don’t Touch N Go cards work on the Smart Tag lane with an expensive 110RM Smart Tag?
8. Why do people refer to Ringgit as Dollars?
9. Why do women coming the wrong way of a One Way road sneer at a person driving the right way?
10. Is it okay to look into your bag while driving into a wall?
11. Can malay food be made without oil?
12. Am I African?
13. Am I Tamil?
14. Am I Arab?
15. Am I Malay?
16. Why are all the big holes on Malaysian roads always on the fast lane?
17. Why lah?
18. Why meh?
19. How do you define lah?
20. What are the funny devices with numbers inside a cab used for?
21. Why do you have a Police Booth in Bukit Bintang when you can’t lodge complaints there?
22. Are all Indians Tamil Hindus who don’t eat beef?
23. Why is the English language murdered in Malaysia?
24. Why does KTM have a tiny door for entry and exit?
25. Where are the trains on the KTM line? Do they go missing just before the KL Sentral station and appear just after?
26. Why does the LRT slow down at a station and speed off just as it sees you standing there?
27. Is parking on the main road legal between 12pm and 2pm on a Friday?
28. Why are all signboards immediately after an exit?
29. Why do all signboards say KLCC although it goes halfway around the city before it actually gets you there?
30. Why do people use Shell and Petronas fuel pumps as landmarks?
More questions to come…
PS: Facebook and Twitter has made me lazy
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