Happy Birthday to MJ and Fun with Photoshop

Our friend MJ in Yorkshire had a party last night to celebrate her birthday - no prizes for guessing which birthday was being celebrated! Anyway, the evening was excellent and when the time came to bring out Sarah's home baked delicious birthday cake (complete withe "Secret Strawberries"!), I thought I'd get the camera out and take a pop.

This is where things went wrong as I'm not an excellent photographer and its only a teeny tiny Sony camera and the lighting was all wrong and the cake was too white and everything else was too dark (how many more excuses can I find...). So the originial picture (see small photo on the right) needed a LOT of improvement. So having learned how to banish the blue seawater from my underwater pictures using photoshop, I decided to have a play with this photo of MJ and the cake...

First I improved the exposure and the gamma setting to lighten the picture and improve the contrast to get this result but as you can see, the close up of Conroy's face and nose and the fact that the 40 on the cake is back to front, does not make for the most convincing portrait.

In the end, I decided to crop the picture down, thus focusing on the birthday girl herself (and her mad friend K8 who is clearly has a cake fantasy!) and then to rotate the picture about a vertical axis to reveal the 40 in the candles the correct way round.

Having a tendency to fiddle with things a bit too much, I then thought that a special effect might make the photo even more interesting and this is where photoshop goes absolutely wild! There are dozens of Filters and Effects that produce mysterious results. In the end, and having tried plenty of them, I opted for one in the menu:

Filter -> Filter Gallery -> Stylize -> Glowing Edges

You can judge for yourself as this is the picture at the top of the blog.

But the lesson I've learned is that providing you've got the time, you can take the simplest photo and turn it into a work of art ready for exhibiting in the Tate!

The photos and possibly one or 2 more can be found in my Flickr account

Another sunset in Sale, Manchester

Another sunset in Sale, Manchester
Originally uploaded by richardinsale

OK this might not be quite as exciting as zooming on a boat between Siem Reap and Phnom Penh in Cambodia, but believe me, the view is just as exceptional.

The window from my desk looks out over the southwest view in the Sale suburb of Manchester, so at this time of the year, that means excellent sunsets. Have a look at some of the others on my photo site in Flickr. The range of clouds on view is quite something and makes me smile - in Laos or Cambodia, with a view like this, there would be a queue of people taking pictures with their digital cameras. In Manchester, hardly anyone even notices (most people don't look up) let alone get their camera out...

Lessons learned indeed.

Pink corals near Ko Lipe Thailand

Pink coral
Originally uploaded by richardinsale

Now that I have had the chance to play around with Adobe's Photoshop CS3, I've managed to start to correct the snorkelling and diving photos. There are lots more on Flickr, but I thought the one I would blog would have to be the soft corals.

These pink corals are generally found in the Tarutao region of Thailand especially near the stronger currents of the open ocean. They really are bright pink exactly as seen in the picture. Quite surreal!

So its not southeast asia but it is just as amazing!

Kinder Scout from Cown Edge near Manchester, England

Getting back to the UK in the middle of February was a bit of a shock. The contrast in temperature between Bangkok (about 33C) and England (ca. 4C) is quite something, but I think it is the lack of light that is the most significant factor.
We have actually been very lucky - as you can see in this picture, the weather has been quite beautiful since we returned and it has allowed us to get our for some decent walks. This view is a panorama that I created from several individual pictures using Adobe's Photoshop CS3. We were about mid-way through a walk from a village called Charlesworth that is about 15km east of Manchester (less than 30 minutes drive from our house in Sale).
We had walked up to a series of crags called "Coombes Edge" and thought we would wander over the ridge to see what was on the other side. To be honest, we didn't really know what to expect and were greeted by this immense view of Kinder Scout.
Kinder Scout is about the highest thing near Manchester and its not easy to miss especially as not only is it high, but it is high over a vast area. At this time of the year, it looks very majestic as the Pennine moorland looks so brown and there's a lovely contrast in colour between this and the blue sky.
Kinder has quite a history with one of the most important events being the famous "mass trespass" by ramblers in their quest to gain more access to open moorland in England. The trespass took place on 24 April, 1932 when several hundred ramblers trespassed onto the privately owned summit. More can be found at http://kindertresspass.com
In addition to adding photos from recent days, I am going back through the 1000s of pictures we took on holiday (yes I took about 5,000!) and will be uploading some of the best to Flickr - there are also quite a few more panorama shots to build using Photoshop. Last but not least, I've been uploading various little videos to Youtube. So in many respects the events of our holiday carry on and I'll be updating this blog regularly so please check in whenever you can!

For our last night

Dancer at the Salathip Restaurant
Originally uploaded by richardinsale

we went to our favourite restaurant - The Salathip at the Shangri La Hotel. The restaurant is in the hotel gardens and is in a series of teak houses right down by the river. We always pick a table next to the river so we can see the city's skyline and illuminated boats on the river itself. You most definitely know that you're in the orient when you look out at Bangkok's river and see the boats with their gold and funny little oriental roofs (see the pictures of the Wats in Luang Prabang for an idea of what the roofs of the boats look like!). But just in case you are in any doubt, there are beautiful dancers and a live orchestra (local wooden xylaphone and metal tingaling drums) all evening. Magical.
So this was our last evening of the holiday , in fact, 3 hours after this photo was taken, we were on our way to the airport in a taxi.
We got home safely and strangely enough, the weather has been quite sunny (not the same bright sun of the far east or its radiant warmth) although cold. The coldest temperature we had experienced since we went away was about 18C in the mountains at Vang Vieng, but here in Manchester, it was about 5C on arrival!
The warmest temperature we experienced was probably around 40C for much of our stay in Cambodia and Vietnam - phew!

Thanks for reading - I'll add a further entry as a retrospective in a few days once the dust has settled, but just to let you know that we are well, haven't run out of money and the house is fine. Many thanks to our wonderful neighbours (Diana and Mike) and to Charlie's sister (Jenny) for looking after the home in our absence!

Rules for crossing the road in Bangkok

Skytrain above, then Pedestrians, then Cars
Originally uploaded by richardinsale

Use a bridge! The roads are enormous and there are bridges everywhere - in fact in whole parts of the downtown area, as a pedestrian, you simply walk everywhere on elevated walkways. The skytrain track is above the pedestrian walkway.

Model of Angkor Wat in the Royal Palace

Model of Angkor Wat in the Royal Palace
Originally uploaded by richardinsale

So here we are again in Bangkok, a city we have visited several times on previous holidays. Almost a home from home!
We arrived from Laos both nursing dodgy tummies which isn't very surprising consider how poor the country is. Fortunately, Bangkok has lots of branches of Boots the Chemist (identical to the ones in England) and as you don't need a prescription for anything, that was the first place we headed to in Bangkok!
Bangkok really is quite an amazing city. Every time we come, there are new skyscrapers and there is lots of evidence of construction for the new extensions to the wonderful Skytrain. Yet despite all this very stylish ultra-modernity, Bangkok is still very much an ancient city with the Thai Court and Chinese Trade at its heart.
Everywhere you go, there are shrines (no skyscraper would be built without consecrating a shrine first and then maintaining for the full life of the building) and you are never far away from the heady scents of incense and flower gardlands.
Rather poignant for our trip is this intricately carved model of Angkor Wat in the Grand Palace (Wat Phra Kaew). As a model, its enormous and is at least 7m x 7m and about 3m high. So having been to the real thing - how well does it match up? Well it is very big even as a model and strangely enough, you do feel that the model dwarfs you which is another similarity with the real thing. But, if the model of Angkor were to truly convey the size of the real thing, including Angkor Thom and the other temples such as Ta Prohm and so on, the model would have to be expanded to cover the entire city centre of Bangkok!

Rules for crossing the road in Luang Prabang!

Silent procession returning from collecting food
Originally uploaded by richardinsale

Not much traffic of the vehicular variety here in Luang Prabang, but if you are out and about at 6am, the streets fill up with monks all collecting their daily alms in the form of food and rice from the townspeople. So the only rule we could think of for crossing the road here is to try and not run straight into a monk! The townsfolk prepare food the day before - we were a bit puzzled why we kept seeing 1000 tortillas and ten times that number of rice patties drying out in the sun, but now we know. Anyway, from what we could see, the monks definitely won't starve.
Luang Prabang is quite a smart place with lots of stylish French and international restaurants. But we prefer to find the cheap cafes and eat the local Lao food which on the whole is absolutely delicious.
There are so many Wats in this ancient town and each has loads of monks. Barely a minute goes by without seeing an orange robe floating by - it is all rather surreal and very photogenic.
Of course we are enjoying ourselves and despite the midnight curfew that applies to everyone in the country, we have staggered back later once or twice!
As always, lots more interesting shots on Flickr, especially interestign to fanatics of Wats and bridges!

Northern Laos Leaves us SPEECHLESS

We are left speechless by the extraordinary beauty of Lao which makes it somewhat difficult to write the blog! So, I'll let most of the story unfold through the pictures I have uploaded to www.flickr.com/r1ch and instead, I'll focus on trying to complete the picture for you.

We headed north from Vientiane to Vang Vieng which is about 5 hours by bus. Leaving the Mekong plains, it soon became apparent that Lao is actually a very mountainous country and that the landscape around Vientiane (basically flat) is the unusual one. The journey is only about 200km, which ought to be about 2 hours, but then you understand that the road is narrow and you head over several mountain passes. There were many times when the bus was only able to travel at 2mph.

We stayed in a great hotel with a lovely infinity swimming pool that you can see in the picture. The view from our balcony, and indeed from the pool itself is one to die for with amazingly vertiginous pinnacle'y (new word!) peaks rising directly from the rice paddies.

The river here is spanned by these strange looking footbridges which bounce ominously as you traverse them all the more aware that the bridges only operate in the dry season and I would guess they're dismantled as soon as the raining season starts. I say footbridges, because they're only just wide enough for a person to walk and passing other people is interesting as the bamboo handrails aren't exactly near and they're definitely not strong enough to support you if you were to lean on them! But the amazing thing is that the locals nip across on bicycles and motorbikes - suicide if you ask me, especially as the planks on which you walk aren't even complete!

We did a long walk over the river to engage more deeply with the scenery which also involved a spot of climbing and caving. As we had both brought our lovely expensive Petzl headtorches, the caving was planned to be great and we were feeling adventurous. Well when we got to the caves, despite a thorough search of the rucsack, there were no headtorches - BUM! So we had to rely on the local flickering nightmares! But, the caves were interesting and because they were quite a climb and scramble up the cliffs, the view was worth it too.

We walked in the heat for a few km and eventually found a very rickety cafe and stopped for a nice lunch and a cold drink. An amazing day indeed.

But just when we thought that Vang Vieng was the most amazing place in the universe, we had to leave as we had only booked 2 nights and our hotel in Luang Prabang was awaiting our arrival. We both blame the Lonely Planet guide that says that Vang Vieng is basically rubbish - how wrong were they - we're coming back!

On the plus side, the 7 hour bus journey to Luang Prabang was absolutely stunning. We went over several mountain passes all reminiscent of some of the largest alpine ones. I reckon the country here is more mountainous that Switzerland and the mountains themselves are even more beautiful. All throughout the journey, strange shaped mountains loomed over us - what a day yesterday was! We really are the luckiest guys to see all this before it gets too touristed.

Oh and one last piece of spice... the Lonely Planet guide also says that there have been many shootings along the route we were travelling along! Fortunately, the only shootings were from me pointing the camera out the window! Take a look at Flickr!

Rules for crossing the street in Vientiane, Laos

Typical street in the capital of Lao PDR
Originally uploaded by richardinsale

Yes this is one of the 2 main streets in Vientiane which is the capital of LAO.

So far we haven't discovered any rules as there appear to be almost no cars, lorries, bicycles or motos here.

We've just launched ourselves from the pavement every time we've wanted to cross the street!

Sunset over the Mekong in Vientiane

Sunset over the Mekong
Originally uploaded by richardinsale

Vientiane is the capital of the Lao PDR (People's Democratic Republic) and it is situated on the Mekong in the northern part of the country. This time of year (January) is very much the dry season, so the landscape is a bit like a desert and there is certainly plenty of red dust which makes for the most amazing sunsets.

This picture was taken from the riverfront where there are hundreds of cafes selling excellent fresh food and very cheap beer. In fact, everything in Lao is cheap. Last night we got fairly drunk on Beer Lao which is the excellent local brew (I actually prefer it to almost any other beer I've tasted!). We sat in a cafe the whole evening (not the one in the photo but in the town as we were worried about mosquitos) and we paid USD13 for all our food (starters/mains) and loads of giant bottles of Beer Lao - how cheap is that!

Vientiane is VERY quiet and we were staggering back to our hotel well before 10pm slightly sozzled as you might have guessed.

And of course, we were blissfully happy, especially as we're staying in the most expensive and exclusive hotel in the entire country - The Settha Palace Hotel. More about this hotel when I've had the chance to take a few pics.

Time to move on to the next "Ko"

"Sweet 2" at the Varin Resort on Ko Lipe
Originally uploaded by richardinsale

Having finished the kayak tour of the islands surrounding Ko Lipe in the Tarutao National Park of Thailand, we explored the island itself. It really is very basic and it turns out that we are probably staying in the nicest set of bungalows in the Varin Resort. So nice in fact, that they even have "Sweets" to stay in!

We discovered over new year when we sent the text messages to all our friends that one of them, Robin (who we haven't seen for over 2 years!) was coming to Thailand in January for a kayak tour. And, would you believe it, he was actually coming to Ko Lipe on January 17th!!!! So we decided to stick around to see him and catch up. What a coincidence and it turned out to be a real pleasure to see Robin.

Anyway over 2 weeks is probably a bit long to spend on Ko Lipe - the island is only about 3 km wide and less than 1 km across. It really is very small. The water supply is a bit basic - its all pumped from the ground probably not far from where the septic tanks deposit the you know what. So, if you get sick, then you'll probably end up staying that way for quite a while. Of course we don't drink the water (everyone drinks bottled water throughout Thailand), but it is difficult to avoid using it for showering and brushing teeth and so on. Charlie got a tummy bug (normally this is what happens to me, but so far this holiday I have been blessed!), poor chap and while he was quite OK, it just refused to go.

So we had the choice after 2 weeks of where do we go next? Should we like our friend in Amsterdam, Jansje, suggested, move on to the "next ko", or should we do something completely different? What a challenge while you're sitting on a tropical beach to work that one out (I can think of harder problems to solve!).

We decided that the "next ko" would actually be Laos (or rather Lao as everyone seems to use over here). The thing that tipped the balance in favour of Lao was the availability of an easy direct boat back to Langkawi followed by a GBP30 flight (fare is for both of us) back to Kuala Lumpur with an onward flight the next morning to Vientiane at GBP80 (fare again is for both of us) all made possible via Air Asia. And with 2 further plusses, the main one being that we actually got to eat again in our favourite restaurant in Langkawi (Matahari) and a cheapie nice hotel at KL airport.

So that sealed the deal and off we went. After a hair raising ride in a speedboat which leapt from wave to wave and soaked the people on the port side (yes - cleverclogs here realised that the port side would get wet as this was where the wind was coming from, so we sat on the starboard side!), we made it to Langkawi. After a mad dash for me to get further passport photos for the Lao visa which was made so easy via the generosity of the Immigration Officer to use his driver and car to go to Kuah, we landed for dinner at Matahari. And yes it was wonderful and yes the staff all remembered us with smiles and welcoming hugs!

The evening was made more perfect by the fact that we flew on the Air Asia plane which was specially painted in Manchester United's livery and was 30 minutes early into KL and our bags came off first!

What a perfect day!

Balanced granite boulder

Balanced granite boulder
Originally uploaded by richardinsale

On our last day kayaking round the Tarutao National Park in Thailand we went all the way to the outermost islands and saw this granite boulder balanced as in the picture.

Again, it was a lovely day kayaking and snorkelling. We stayed around the outer islands which meant that the current was very strong for snorkelling and to be honest, thankfully we're good swimmers otherwise we'd have been swept away! Lots of stunning fish and coral as per usual. Photos on Flickr as you know by now.

Anyway, that was yesterday and today, Charlie and I had our first chance to explore the island on which we've been living for the last week - Ko Lipe. Its not very large and within 30 minutes you can cross from one side to the other. There are no roads (hence no cars) but there is a network of sandy paths that are mostly unsignposted. Hence its very easy to get lost.

We did walk to all the beaches and found the easiest way to navigate was listening out for the electricity generators that power each of the resorts (there being no electricity supply otherwise)! And the beaches are lovely. Unfortunately my camera batter ran out, so wasn't able to take pics of the best bits, but will save that for another day.

Starting to feel like its not long until we come home and that is a very scary prospect!

Love to you all, but especially to our dear friend Lara in Edinburgh.

Richard & Charlie x

Not sea slugs, but Giant Clams!

Giant clams
Originally uploaded by richardinsale

These strange looking things are actually the live edges of giant clams and yes the colours really are as dramatic as they look.

You can see the clams open and close gently, but of course its impossible to catch on a photo. However, go to www.flickr.com/r1ch and you'll see other snorkelling photos.

When we're not snorkelling, we're kayaking and when we're not doing that, we're lounging around on our own private beaches with emerald clear water and white talcum powder sand...

Ahhhhhhhhhh!

Paradise on a deserted beach near Ko Lipe in Thailand

Paradise on a deserted beach
Originally uploaded by richardinsale

After a bit of a tortuous journey from Langkawi via a ferry to the Thai mainland, a hair raising 80 mph taxi ride up the Thai coast to Pak Bara an awful night in Pak Bara (which is a bit of a dump) and another ferry for 4 hours out to Ko Lipe, we have finally arrived in new age heaven, emerald seas and white sand beaches. Ahhhhhhh factor = 10/10.

But, why so many ferries, taxis and strange nights in Pak Bara when we can see Langkawi from here? Well, that is a very good question. We discovered that there is a direct ferry from Langkawi that only takes 1 hour... oh well next time. At least we were able to visit banks in Thailand to get some baht as there are no banks or ATMs out on these islands.

Its likely that we're spending a couple of weeks here it is so beautiful. Very new age and relaxed. And so are we. Apart from this week when we have booked a 6 day private kayak tour around the local islands. So far we have only been to Ko Adang which is where this lovely photo was taken.

The boat belongs to Kabu our boat driver, our guide shows us how to kayak and Kabu follows with the boat (or he goes on ahead to wait for us on a deserted beach a few km further on).

So we are kayaking and when we're not kayaking we are snorkelling and when we're not doing that, we simply lounging around on our own private beaches!

Did I say Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh?!

Langkawi - Lovely but time to move on

It has been a lovely 16 nights in Langkawi and we have been lucky enough to stay in a really lovely resort, eat lots of delicious food and have Charlie's mum and sister join us for the time. But we are now getting itchy feet and our week's kayak trip in Tarutao National Park across the border in Thailand calls. So tomorrow we are taking the ferry from Langkawi to Satun in Thailand and lucky us, we gain an hour of time as well as Thailand is only 7 hours ahead of GMT whereas Malaysia is 8 hours ahead.

We rented a car for a day and did our own tour of the island - to be honest there is not really that much to see, but we did go to the capital to see the giant sculpture of a sea eagle at the quayside. Lang means Eagle and Kawi means Rock, so Langkawi is Eagle Rock in Malay. And yes, we have seen many sea eagles, quite extraordinary. I know that after I took this picture of the giant sculpture, Charlie was still taking pictures with his digital slr (rather better than my snappy thing but less portable), a sea eagle came and hovered right in front of Charlie and the sculpture and yes, he really did get a great picture. We'll upload it when we get the stick done.

Funny story on New Year's Eve... muggins here (Nay surely not I hear you all say!) was tasked with ordering the wine in advance for the gala dinner which I did. A lovely bottle of Yellow Tail ozzie Shiraz was the request, so I faithfully complied. When we got to the table, there was a big ice bucket and we know its hot here, but we thought that was a bit steep chilling the shiraz down that much. So, just before complaining, it appears that the hotel did get the wine right, it was a bottle of Chardonnay... and it was written on the ticket, both the hotel's and mine, so god only knows what planet I was on. It was nice wine anyway, but as the house wine and beer were on "free flow", it didn't really matter. We all drank far far too much, staggered to the beach to catch the fireworks (I think I just about noticed them in between drinks) and then crashed into bed before 2am.

Needless to say that we were all very quiet on New Year's Day! Lets all hope that 2008 will be a super year for us and for you. Take care, Richard and Charlie

PS - thank you Jennie and Pat for being such super companions for the last couple of weeks, we're going to miss you!