Road Trip!!

We had heard horror stories about the freeway to the Taj Mahal, what the tour company generously described as "one of India's finest freeways".  So I guess you can say we expected what followed on our first road trip.  Imagine a 3 lane highway... now imagine 5 lanes of cars smashed into 3 lanes without regard for those silly dotted lines, people casually strolling across the freeway with their children in tow, bicycles pedaling alongside huge trucks, tractors pulling carts full of hay and other large objects, camel-drawn carts, extra wide auto-rickshaws full of Indian men and women bursting at the seams (at least 20 crammed inside with limbs protruding from every possible opening), trucks blaring their melodic horns, blinding headlights coming in the wrong direction toward us, and one truck frame on wheels (missing a body).

To be honest, I had imagined it would be worse, but Tim and my dad said that I slept through the worst part of it.  I guess ignorance is bliss.  Of course the most exciting moments happened after dark when the camera was put away, but here are a few pictures from our first road trip experience.  We traveled from Delhi to Agra (Taj Mahal) to Jaipur and back to Delhi over 4 days!

Traffic is at a standstill leaving New Delhi

We saw so many people riding on the back of trucks, bicycles, auto-rickshaws, tractors.

First glimpse of the truck frame on wheels.

Is this vehicle legal?

The driver - I hope he's wearing a seat belt.

Auto-rickshaw packed with Indians.  There were at least 10-15 people crammed inside most of these vehicles.

Crowded streets of Agra.  Pedestrians, cars, motorbikes, bicycles, and cows all share the same space.

Camel parade on the way to Jaipur.  I caught this pic moving at least 100 km/h.

Sick of Being Sick

Our medicine drawer at home.  It's much bigger than it looks.

This past Sunday, I chose to take a break from the Great Circular Indian Railway Challenge and fly back to Delhi due to a worsening stomach issue that had been nagging me for over a week.   My thought was to kick the stomach bug with a few days of rest and then join back with the GCIRC group when it steamed through Delhi today.  Well, there's good news and bad news.

Good news - My stomach doesn't slightly, mildly or severely ache for the first time in over 11 days! 

Bad news - I want to keep it that way.  It feels liberating.  I'm so sick of being sick.  Riding this high unfortunately means not joining back with the GCIRC.   Building up intestinal flora does not happen on shaky trains and with sketchy Indian food! 

I feel silly talking about my stomach problems as Karen was worse off than me when I arrived home!  She was, as she said, "on death's doorstep" while I was on my trip - missing 3 days of school which then carried through the weekend. Mind you, I am not even mentioning the 3 weeks prior!

I don't know what's going on with us, but we hope our stomachs are almost acclimated to India.  Our first 3 months were virtually sick free.  The past 2 months have been hell!  Although Karen and I consider ourselves extremely hygienic, we plan to make better food choices and wash our hands while singing the ENTIRE happy birthday song!

Tonight, we will raise our probiotic vials and toast to our health!!

If Sally Struthers can do it, so can I !!

Do I need to get all Sally Struthers on you?

Two more days until the start the Great Circular Indian Railway Challenge!  If you don't know what I'm talking about, please click HERE to read my post about it.  There have been new developments in the past few weeks.  The most interesting being:

- The Times of India will be doing a story about the GCIRC and possibly a follow up story.  This paper has the largest circulation among all English-language newspapers in the world.  Over 3 million are printed every day!

- We have a 4, maybe, 5 piece band scheduled to play for us during the hour leading up to our departure.  If they aren't booted off the platform by the time our train leaves, it will be a hell of a departure!!

- We may or may not be able to get on the train in the far eastern state of Assam due to Maoist activity.  Conductors have been kidnapped or threatened in the past few months which has shut down the train all together for now.  It might be back up by the time we reach that part of our journey!

- Most importantly, participants of the GCIRC have now helped raise over £3000 to help support Railway Children!  That's just shy of of $5000 USD.

An important reason why I am doing this trip is to raise awareness of the millions of street/railway children around the world.  As you know, the numbers are ridiculous!  GCIRC is helping to raise money for the UK based charity, Railway Children. They work with homeless street/railway children in all parts of the world, not just India.

I will be meeting and photographing many railway children during the 2 week trip.  Many of the other GCIRC travelers will be taking video clips and interviewing the children to show the current state of affairs along the tracks.  My goal is to share a glimpse of their life with you and raise awareness.

Thanks to Aunt Betty for getting my fund raising ball rolling when I first stretched out my hand a few months ago!  Unfortunately, the ball stopped there!  As little as $5.00 goes a long way!  If every one of my facebook friends donated $5, we'd raise another $695!

If you enjoy reading this blog, please show some love!  I will be updating this blog every day of the journey (well, just the days I have an internet connection)!  I guarantee it will be entertaining!

Each and every person who donates will get a very special surprise prize mailed to them when Karen and I fly back home for summer!  It won't be a stupid prize either!

Below are three ways to make a donation.  If you think of another way, let me know.

1.  Mail a check to:  

Tim Steadman

4281 Express Ln
Ste L2345
Sarasota, FL 34238

This is my mail forwarding address.  Please email me at tim@timsteadman.com if you are sending a check so I can keep an eye out for it.

2. Click on the link on the top, right side of this blog.  If you are one of the many people that do not like PayPal, consider the check option!

3. I can take a donation in person!

The tour dates and locations of the GCIRC!  My birthday will be in Ghum!  If you don't care about the kids, you can gather up $5 and send it to me...all while pretending you are buying me a birthday drink!

The Train to Ranthambore National Park

Last weekend, Karen, her Dad, and I went to Ranthambore National Park, located approximately 300 km south of Delhi.  "Incredible India" dealt us a few hiccups on the morning of our departure (a 4-hour train delay and Karen suffering from an extreme case of Delhi Belly) but we finally boarded the Golden Temple Mail train #12904 and started our 5 hour journey south.
Laying on our bottom 2AC sleeper seats, Karen and I watched much of what passed by our window.  So many lives are exposed along India's train tracks.  As we sped by, every few seconds brought a new landscape along with a new set of characters.  In the mind of a day dreamer, these landscapes and characters help create many interesting stories.
To help my fellow day dreamers, I decided to break out my camera and capture a few of these scenes.  Shooting through dirty, double pained, sun glared glass (all while traveling 60+ mph) I hoped for the best when it came to picture quality.  One thing I needed to make sure of was that the pictures turned out sharp.  Here comes some camera talk.  Since we were traveling in a speeding train, I had to bump up my camera's shutter speed to at least 1/4000th of a second to get still shots.  To compensate for such a high shutter speed, I had no choice but to open up my aperture as far as I could (F/2.8) and boost my ISO to 1600(not helping image quality either, but hey, at least they are sharp).
Below are some images I shot while waiting for our delayed train and some of the many pictures I shot through our dirty window.

Track #2 , Hazrat Nizamuddin Railway Station, New Delhi at 7:40am.  Our train was supposed to pick us up here! No luck as it was 4 hours late....well, at first it was 1.5 hours late...then 2.5 hours...then 3.5 hours and then it arrived on the 4th late hour.   Karen was so sick that we went back home for an hour during one of the delays so she could rest.  Her Dad and I were very proud that she battled through the sickness in NASTY conditions (the train station bathrooms) and finally felt better by the time the train left the station.

The morning sun hitting the morning fog....a.k.a. pollution.

Bags of potatoes wait to be loaded onto the next train.

This happy conductor smiles for me.  I use hand gestures and expressions to ask if I can take people's pictures if they are far away from me.  I've done this about 4 times now and each time, I get the initial impression that the people say no.  Then they smile and I can see they mean yes, I think.  So I take their picture.  I think I will solve this communication issue by the time my 2 week train marathon is over!

These cool cats wanted to get their picture "clicked."  So many people ask me to "click" their picture!  If you are looking for willing models that are good at posing, India is the place.  I ended up shooting the guy on the left in some tough guy Bollywood poses that were kind of ridiculous.  All of this certainly entertained the masses waiting on the track.

These guys were  framed up nicely by the open doors of this train.  It took me 10 rail cars to find them,

Karen, her dad, and some random guy waiting in the waiting room!

Happy to finally be on the train!!  My seat was supposed to be in another compartment, but I sat in a vacant seat in the same compartment.  Each compartment is comprised of 2 bunk bed style seats...totaling 4 seats.  No one challenged me, saying that I was laying in their seat, so that was a blessing.  We had the whole compartment to ourselves!

This scene photographed through the train window was at the beginning of our journey.  So much life is exposed to passing trains.  I like this shot because it's a cross section of a building, exposing what's going on inside...kind of like how trains cut through India, allowing us to witness the lives of many people.

A few seconds after the previous shot, there is this.  Many beautiful cranes mingle with buffalo on the edge of town.

You see guys like this walking quite often along the tracks.  I wonder where this guys is going with his bag on a stick?  You can't wonder for too long as there is always another interesting scene that takes over your window!

The train wasn't going too fast for this one.  It was stopped actually at a station about 3 hours south of Delhi.  The windows of our section of train have tint and reflection so that people outside can't see inside.  This lady and her friend were certainly interested in something further down platform.  I wouldn't want to mess with these two!

As we pull away from the same station, I photographed this fairly common scene.  Again, so much life is exposed to the passer by.  What is this guy's story?  The curtain of the window accidentally got in the way for this shot (on the left).  It adds something to the picture though.  Maybe the viewer is peaking past a curtain because he's afraid of what he's going to see?

Yes, this picture is blurry, but it is also pretty cool.  Our train was traveling at top speed while this train was traveling just as fast in the opposite direction. As I shot this, all I could see was the blur of a passing train.  I quickly snapped this before the train fully zipped past.  I captured this moment of time that no human eye could see without the help of a speedy camera shutter!  Next time I will try 1/8000th of a second to possibly get a sharp result!

The further south we got, the prettier the landscape!

What is their story?  I think they are just relaxing in a shady spot!....or were they "abondoned" like the building says?

I found this one kind of haunting.  I know that's not a wedding dress, but that's the first thing I thought of.  Notice how a lot of the subjects in these pictures are to the left.  It took an extra split second for my brain to see what was going on in my camera frame and react by pressing the shutter.  I'd reccommend shooting from a high speed train to any photographer.  It is GREAT for developing reaction time!

Nothing really exciting happening here.  It just shows a glimpse of village life along the tracks.

A glimpse of small town life along the tracks.  Maybe the fact that I enjoy gossip makes me want to know what these two are talking about.

This is my favorite "hope for the best" high speed shot from a moving train image.  There were so many mustard fields along the route to Ranthambore!

Out of this Universe!

Ximena Navarrete - 2010 Miss Universe

In case you didn't pay attention to the 2010 Miss Universe pageant, Earthling and native of Mexico, Ximena Navarrete,  prevailed by a slight margin over Planet Zetox native, The Great Gazett.  Popularly known throughout the Universe as the great grand daughter of The Great Gazoo (of The Flintstone's fame), The Great Gazett took her rocket ship back to Zetox while Ximena flew to New Delhi to promote her cause.

This past Wednesday, February 2nd, Ximena visited The Convent of Jesus and Mary School, an all girls school,  to promote designer Sanjana Jon's "Celebrate The Girl Child" Campaign.  I photographed this event.  When I arrived at 9:45 am (15 minutes early), I was told she would be arriving at 12:15 (2.5 hours after I was told the previous day).  To kill time and with the schools permission, I walked around the campus and snapped pictures.  Here are just a few images from that day.

Convent of Jesus and Mary School

Time in between classes.

View of St. Peter's Church from the school.

A student walks away from the school office.

Happy girls during tea break.  They were afraid to get their pictures taken at first, but they very quickly got into it!  It took them a while to figure out what I wanted them to do for this picture.  I laid on my back and told them to make a circle around me.  The group got larger and larger after this picture...I had to put my camera down and get up before they all fell on me and broke my camera!

Later, I chose to take pictures from a higher angle!

They all have water bottles with shoulder straps to go along with their book bags!

The students I talked to at this school spoke English very well.  One girl asked me if I liked my president O'bama.  Another one asked where I was from.  I told her "North Carolina" in my strongest Albemarle (don't take this the wrong way) accent and they all laughed.  One said she's been to North Carolina!

Miss Universe arrives with her entourage!

Miss Universe walking to the stage to speak to the girls!  There was a loud roar and a lot of clapping when she walked up!  The students were very excited!

Watching the show the students and faculty put together.

Ximena waving good bye to the auditorium full of girls.

Ximena's view of what she was waving goodbye to!  There were children everywhere!

Ximena did her best to connect personally with the children, but the bombardment takes its toll.  Notice the stern Indian woman telling the children to back away.  It was interesting for me, being a "western" person, to photograph a fellow westerner in India.  I might not be Mister Universe, but I know what she's going through.  Karen and I have had our share of bombardment...not at this scale, but 20 people still feels like 200!  She kept a smile on her face the whole time!

The Not So Elusive Canis Via

"Snickers," the alpha male Canis Via of Northeast Golf Links

In less than one week, Karen, her father and I will be stalking jackals, leopards, tigers, sambhar, and gazelles while on safari in Ranthambore National Park.  Five weeks after that, I will be doing the same with my parents in Jim Corbett National Park.  Being the prepared photographer, I decided to develop and polish my wildlife photography skills by going on safari in Golf Links, my neighborhood.  Over the past few weeks, I've been photographing the non-elusive Canis Via.  Otherwise known as street dog, the Canis Via roam in abundance throughout the numerous parks, sidewalks, alleyways, and trash piles of Golf Links.  Below are some photographs I've taken while on safari.

This Mom and her pup lived in the park in front of our apartment for a couple weeks.  I have not seen them for about a week.

This looks like the Mom is about to kill her pup, but they were just play fighting one Saturday afternoon in the park.

This time the Pup was in control of the fight!

I would not like to get on her bad side!

These dogs are awesome!

After 10 minutes of play fighting, Mom needed her moment to Zen.  She takes a deep breath while her son eats a leaf.  I've seen this look on my Mom's face before!!!

The little guy decides to go off and play while Mom relaxes.

He enjoyed stalking me from the bushes.  He'd keep his eye on me and charge at me!  I had tiny wet paw prints all over my jacket!

Snickers, the only dog we've named, lives on the corner sidewalk in front of our apartment.  This dog is the Tony Soprano of street dogs.  He doesn't take crap from anyone,  doesn't move out of the way for anything, leads a pack of dogs, walks with a small limp on cold days, has crazy patches of hair from past fights, barks at speeding taxis, and always, always walks with his tail raised high.  What a tail!

Snickers showing his sweet side one Sunday morning.

This guys lives a few parks down from our park in Golf Links.  Here he lays in the middle of the street during sunset one day in November.

This guy lives by the park across the street in North East Golf Links.   Here, he heard a friend barking and came running through this hole in a brick wall.  Some street dogs have collars?

These two took a while to warm up to the camera.  When I walked into their park, they immediately stopped playing and came over to see who I was and what I was doing.

After a couple of minutes, they lost interest in me and started playing again.  I think this might be another Mother and son.

This guy perked his ears up when I walked by

This big rascal lives in southeast Golf Links.  The guards provide him with a winter jacket.  He walks like a walrus and is so sweet!

I was in awe when I saw this dog in center Golf Links.  I've never seen a dog with such cool eyes!

Snickers hanging out with the pup and his best friend in the doggy sweater.  Snickers' friend is really old and walks very gingerly.  He has a very low, coarse bark.   The two of them like to sleep next to each other on the sunny patches of the sidewalk.

There are many people who like to sit and eat in the parks around Golf Links.  This guy is eating some Roti that was thrown his way.  The street dogs are taken care of for the most part.  There are bowls around the neighborhood that people fill with water and food.

The small print on the sign says "friends of all security guards of Golf Links."  I think this is because the guards sleep at night.  If there is any suspicious activity around the neighborhood, the dogs bark and wake them up!

This guy doesn't live in our neighborhood, but we see him every time we walk to Khan Market.  He is resting in the median one busy afternoon.  One night in December, he was nestled in a pile of warm trash.  This dog is very sweet.  Many dogs become street dogs when their foreign owners abandon them.  According to this article in The Telegraph, Brits are the biggest culprits mainly because of their laws.

This little guy was outside of our hotel in Kasauli.