upon returning to athens we had a late lunch. we repacked our bags, had a shower and got ready. we walked through town but everything was shut so we gave up, grabbed our bags and headed to the train station to wait for our train to sofia. the train departed on time and we slept on the train.

day 422 – we crossed the border in the morning and arrived in sofia. we found a hotel, had coffee, and walked into town. we discovered a farmer’s market which is open every day. the market was really cheap and lots of fun to wander around. the funniest part was the vendors selling fruit wouldn’t let you touch it. you told them what you wanted and they’d pick it for you. we didn’t know and a few vendors got shitty with us for groping their wares! lol

we had a late beer in the city, but it was getting quite cold and we quickly went back to the hotel where we watched a movie on the computer and slept.

day 423 – breakfast was small, so when we went into town i was still hungry. i had a huge slice of pizza and looked at the city map we’d got from the sheraton hotel. we decided what we’d see and went first to the archaeological museum which wasn’t very good. after that we went to the aleksander nevski church and st sofia. we also watched the changing of the guard outside the presidential offices.

while wandering, we stumbled upon a junk market which we looked at briefly and then returned to the farmer’s market where we ate fish and chicken for lunch with some local beer. we also bought a bottle of cheap wine (which turned out to be shit).

we went to the bus station and bought tickets to skopje, then returned to the hotel. i was doing some research about visas and thought that we would have problems entering macedonia. but it turns out that there’s no problem (that we could find) and figured we’d take the risk.

day 424 – after breakfast we packed and checked out. the bus station is close to the hotel so we walked and got our bus to skopje. during the obligatory “border control” rubbish, we got talking to a spanish guy called ‘ham’ with whom we hung out in skopje. after arriving, the three of us walked to the hotel and checked in.

christina and i were incredibly hungry, so we walked into the old city to find some food and an atm. we wandered around for a bit, stumbled upon the old city main streets and found a restaurant with souvlaki. we ate and then walked back through the old city again. after returning to the hotel i bought some beer and in the evening we watched the champions league final on tv. the portugese travelers were cheering for inter because their manager is from portugal, so i was cheering for barcelona and we all had fun.

after the game we sat and talked with the portugese guys. we drank more beer and i headed to bed at around 2am.

day 425 – after breakfast we said goodbye to ham and walked to the bus station. we got straight on a bus which took us to pristina. kosovo is small and easy to get around. we got a hotel for two nights and walked down town for a look around.

we found a bookstore where i bought ‘crime and punishment’ by fedor dostoyevski (for me) and ‘peter pan’ by jm barrie (for christina). we returned to the hotel and relaxed. the liverpool game was on tv and i watched that before going to bed.

whilst wave is still being developed some of the features aren’t yet working. but it’s good to get in at the ground floor and see where it goes.

i don’t yet have the ability to invite others, but when i do, i’ll be throwing a few at friends and giving the others away randomly.

special thanks to the facebook google wave invite group, which is where i scored my invite.

i walked down to darling harbour and was disappointed to find that the wildlife centre was shut. i found an employee and he told me that the breakfast idea had not been popular and they’d stopped offering it. damn! so i headed back down to circular quay and the opera house for another look around.

i went back to the hotel, checked out, and decided to see if i could get a bus to canberra. four hours later i was wandering the streets of our nation’s capital looking for the local yha. i bought a yha membership, which gets me a 10% discount on yha globally, checked in, had a late lunch and spent the afternoon wandering around london circuit (canberra, not england, lol) and checking email.

day 222 – i wanted to make a big day of it today, so that i could try and get more done. i jumped on a bus after breakfast and headed straight for the new parliament house. the federal politicians weren’t there, so i wandered around for a while. parilament house is really nice and it was fun to look around.

i saw ‘blue poles’ by jackson pollock (the biggest and most expensive piece of crap in the world) and looked at all the portraits of former prime ministers. i couldn’t find john howard’s portrait, which is a good thing, cause i might have torn it down and pissed on it … which would have got me into trouble (maybe not, nobody likes john howard).

i walked around the outside of parliament house and down to the lodge (where the prime minister lives). i had a look at the outside but couldn’t go in (obviously). i had also considered going down to the federal mint, but i didn’t know exactly where it was, i didn’t want to spend $20 on a cab fare and it was too far to walk. so i went back to parliament house and had to wait nearly an hour for a bus back towards town.

then it was off to the national library for a spot of lunch and a cruise around the nick cave exhibition. i actually liked the nick cave gallery. there were some great photos and diaries cave used to write his song. on the walls were boxes with ‘open me’ written on them. i opened one and nick cave’s voice bellowed out at me, explaining some aspect of his career. it scared the absolute crap out of me.

the afternoon was getting late and i was starting to think of heading back to sydney. i had spent a lot of money and didn’t want to spend too much more. i wandered around the mall, looking for buses, trains and flights back to brisbane. most were too expensive, so i came up with a plan to wing it and pick up a last minute ticket on the train. i returned to the hotel, had dinner and spent the evening on the internet.

day 223 – i went to bed at 2am, which was probably a very stupid thing to do … considering i had to get up at 5.30am to go to the train station. surprisingly, i woke up at 5.30 (without an alarm), grabbed my gear (quietly so as not to wake the other people in the dorm) and headed to the train station. it was a fast run to the station and i was a little bit panicky, not knowing exactly whether the train was leaving at the right time and not knowing whether i could actually get a ticket.

it turns out that i had 30 minutes to spare and there were plenty of tickets. the train ran through to sydney where i had already bought a connecting train to brisbane. while on the train to sydney i was so hapy i celebrated with a pie and a coffee for breakfast.

the trip to sydney was only a few hours and i had a lot of time to kill before the train to brisbane. i realised that i’d forgotten to take matilda to see the opera house, so i checked my bag and headed back into town again. this time i walked across the harbour bridge to kirabili. i had some fish and chips for lunch and while i was eating it started belting down rain.

i braved the rain and walked to luna park to take some photos. then i jumped on a ferry which took me back to circular quay. the rain had started to ease up and i managed to get back to the train station. i got some coffee and listened to music while i waited for the train.

the trip back to brisbane was fairly unadventurous. i had a conversation with the carriage guards who were interested in my camera and angry at the people who were secretly smoking in the toilets.

since i had the whole seat to myself, i curled up and managed to get some sleep.

day 224 – i arrived in brisbane early and caught the train to craig’s house. i caught up on my sleep and lazed around the house for the day. in the evening, four of us went to the norman hotel where i ate a whopping 600 gram steak. despite the size, i polished off the steak, and the vegetables, and two beers. hehehe … it was a huge meal.

day 225 - after all the recent adventures, i needed a break. i stayed at craig’s house and caught up with web stuff.

day 16 - in the morning i woke up because the guy on the bottom bunk was talking so loudly. it turns out that he does everything loudly, when i got up an decided to read my book, he went back to sleep – snoring and farting louder than the train. seriously, i’ve never heard anyone snore as loudly in my life.

i ignored it and read my book. 

after arriving i checked into the hotel hill view hotel (with no view of any thing, let alone a hill), dropped my gear and walked into town. there’s not much to do in siliguri, especially on a sunday when most stuff is shut (including the huge market in town). so i headed up to a really nice restaraunt called sartaj. i felt like a treat, so i ate fish and chips (pretty good), had a fosters beer (it was the only half decent beer on the menu) and i followed it up with vanilla ice cream and hot chocolate sauce (excellent). the entire time i was there i watched australia doing a poor job of chasing south africa in the cricket.

after that i went back to the hotel, it was late in the afternoon, and had a shower. that night two football games were on tv; hull vs wigan and liverpool vs aston villa. the liverpool game was awesome (5-shit, thanks for coming) and after that i went to bed.

day 17 – i checked out of the hill with no view hotel and jumped on a bus to kalimpong. the bus was crowded (this is india, after all) but i had a good trip. my pack was on the roof, which worried me a bit, but it arrived safely.

the trip was long and winding through the mountains. we ended up at kalimpong, which is 1250 meters above sea level. the small town is built across a valley and the streets run along the hill like terraces. i checked into a nice little hotel called deki lodge. it’s run by a three generation tibetan family. they’re very friendly and the owner gave me a photocopied map and some tips for looking around town.

i headed out, up the street to look at two gompas. the first was tharpa choling gompa. although it’s being renovated, the main temple is very beautiful with frescos painted over every wall. it has three buddhas and it’s a very important temple. the temple also has a controversial little room called the dorje shugden. it’s where the bad spirits are locked up. the room’s controversial because the dalai lama doesn’t recognise those spirits, which has caused a huge rift in the buddhist community … it’s a complicated story, so i won’t go into it too much now. however, i did manage to get inside (the door is always locked) and the young monk showed me around the room. there are demon statues along one wall and painted at the tops of the walls are the flayed bodies of many animals. a flayed human is across the roof. the room itself is quite macabre.

after that i went searching for the thongsa gompa. it’s not too far from my hotel, but i couldn’t find it. i’m going to go again tomorrow morning and ask around.

so, instead of wandering too far in the late afternoon, i walked up and down the long main street. i bought a tshirt and took photos of a few different things. then i headed back to my hotel for the night.

***

on the topic of photography, i admit that until now, i hadn’t taken many good pictures. before siliguri, i have probably only taken 3-4 good photos. the rest have been just touristy stuff for memory. i attribute my lack of interest to the difficulties i was having getting used to india. when i was out and about, i spent so much time unhappy due to the begging and hawking, that i didn’t feel like shooting.

however, today i noticed that i’m really starting to get into my groove again. while i was walking in the main street, i only had my 35mm f2 lens … nothing else. when i found an interesting spot, i sat for a while and watched people move around me. i’d point my camera at a few things and take some pictures … i think i got more good photos today than i have so far in my whole time in india.

so i’m going to make more of a conscious effort to look for shots. of course, i’ll continue to shoot the places i visit … so that i have lots of memories of my travels. but i’m more seriously looking for photos which will be artistic or creative, photos which i will be proud of.

… and to those of you waiting to see pix i’ve taken so far, sorry to disappoint. i’m trying to keep off computers as much as i can, so aside from travel updates, i’m not doing too much. for the moment, i’m storing images on my portable drive. i probably won’t get to updating until i reach either myanmar or thailand (from ryan’s house).

here’s my diary entry for march 15th.

it was strange seeing a dead body. they burned the bodies on wood. the skin melted off the head, revealing a clean white skull. then the skull cracked and blistered with the heat. at one point, they used a long stick to move the skeleton to help it burn faster. my first ever dead body.

that night i had made plans to have dinner with the germans whom i’d met on the platform in agra. i ran into them (as well as kevin and casper) the previous night down near the burning ghats. they arrived at my hotel at 8pm and we had dinner and some beer in the rooftop restaurant. quite a few people ended up joining us, randomly, including a guy who’d just bought a guitar. we took turns playing it. 

a chinese girl was sitting by herself at another table. i invited her over and she joined our party. another girl at the table (i think she was french) drank a ‘special’ lassi. she got really high and was starting to freak out and get all paranoid. we were laughing at her as she asked the asian girl to walk her back to her room. we had a bunch of fun.

day 11 – the chinese girl (i think her name was ashong) and i took the dawn boat ride along the ganges. the boat was packed and we were quite cramped. the ride was a little mundane but i got some good sunrise photos across the river. the funniest moment was at the end of the ride. half the people on the boat stood up at the same time to get off, severely swaying the boat. everyone panicked and sat down, then got off the boat in a very calm and orderly fashion.

after that i had breakfast and checked out of my hotel. i booked my ticket to bodhgaya and took a rickshaw ride to a small nearby town called sarnath. sarnath is famous for being the location of the buddha’s first sermon to a group of devout disciples. i checked into the tibetan monastery (which was a small, simple room full of mosquitoes). the monastery itself was quite beautiful though.

i walked around the small town, seeing mulgandha kuti vihar (the site of the buddha’s first sermon) and a bodhi tree planted there.  i went to the deer park and looked around, saw dhanekh stupa, had lunch, and went back to the hotel to rest (it was a really hot day).

that afternoon, during one of sarnath’s many power outages, i met another girl staying at the temple. she was a british girl called ella. we talked for a little bit, then she began packing to leave the next morning. i read my guide book and lazed around my room. that night i had a late tibetan dinner at the small restaurant across the street. however, i didn’t get much sleep afterwards, thanks to the mosquitoes. i applied repelant twice … i’m going to try and buy a mosquito net from somewhere.

day 12 – i checked out of the tibetan temple and visited the small korean temple. the korean temple was really just a house, and being 1km out of town, i was really disappointed. so i got a rickshaw and headed back to varanasi to wait for my train. 

i planned to spend the afternoon online, just to kill time before my train, but i couldn’t find an internet cafe. so i ended up sitting at the train station for six hours. i slept and listened to music … i really need to buy a book (other than lonely planet) to give me something to read. i tried listening to an audiobook, but something is wrong with my mp3 player. it’s working normally, but when i put the card in with audiobooks, it won’t register. so i can only listen to the mixed music stored on the main drive. that’s going to piss me off in the long run. if i can’t get it working, i’ll end up biting the bullet and get myself an ipod touch in calcutta. 

the train was late, of course, and my seat was crowded full of young indian guys who wanted to find somewhere to sit and chat. they were only on the train for an hour, but they pissed me off to no end. the seats are 3 berth, but there were 4 of them sitting on my side and two on the other. i was about to say something when i realised they were leaving … so i let it go.  here’s my angry rant:

fucking indians have no idea about social etiquette. on a six berth seat, there have been 8 people sitting: me, an old man, and six raucus young men who just want to sit together and talk. frankly, the sights of india are great … but the people piss me off. don’t even get me started on the fucking beggars … and rickshaw drivers …

however, my anger soon passed and i was happy to have the whole seat to myself. i jumped off the train at a later stop and bought vegetable briyani (rice) which was spicy and delicious. i wrapped up under the covers and slept as much as i could … actually, that’s one thing i really like about indian trains. if you’re in the higher classes (sleeper), they actually come and wake you up when your station is arriving.

once i got off the train, the craziness began. the train arrived in gaya which is about 10km north of bodhgaya. so i had to get a rickshaw. it was late and the train was late. so i didn’t arrive until nearly 11.30. i met a french guy called oscar and we decided to go to bodhgaya together. bihar (the state) is not known for being safe, so we were reluctant to travel alone. we haggled with a driver and were preparing to leave when another driver came up, with two foreigners on board, and asked if we wanted to join them. oscar and i thought “four is better than two” so we jumped in. the rickshaw drivers got into a fight over the whole thing and one rickshaw driver (who was just a bystander) said “oh, you’re a cheater!” … i thought he was talking to me, so i fired back “it’s ok, all rickshaw drivers are cheaters”. that shut him up, but oscar told me later that it’s common for rickshaw drivers to call each other cheaters, and that it wasn’t aimed at me. 

so, at midnight we made the mad rickshaw dash to bodhgaya. we found a hotel and, to save money, oscar and i got a room together. 

day 13 – oscar left early to find another hotel and i slept a little longer. i met up with him again in a small tent cafe for lunch. after that i checked out too and checked into the bhutanese monastery on the main temple street. the monastary is really big and very nice. the room has two beds and hot water. there were a few mosquitoes in the room, but the beds have good nets over them, so i’m not too worried.

a cycle rickshaw driver, who was supposed to take me and my pack across to the monastery, got lost twice and had to ask for directions (he knew where he was going, but didn’t speak much english). so when it came time to pay, he tried to jack up the price for all the extra pedalling he did. me, being a prick, said ‘no’ and refused to pay the amount he’d asked. i paid him less (but still a good price) and headed into the monastery. he hung around there all afternoon in the hope that he could convince me to give him more … even at one point begging, saying he needed it for food. 

at the monastery i did some washing, drew a map of bodhgaya (so that i don’t have to carry a fat lonely planet) and had a rest. then, in mid afternoon, i headed back into town for a look around.

bodhgaya is pretty cool. the town is famous for being where the buddha became enlightened. there are a dozen temples here from different countries as well as a massive stupa in the centre of town. some parts of town, as in all of india, are shitty and dirty. but the main part of town around the stupa is quite nice.

i walked around to the japanese, thai, chinese, and a few other temples. then i went to the main street and booked my train ticket that will take me up to darjeeling on saturday (very excited about that).

tonight i plan to buy a book, relax at the monastery, then get some dinner and an early night.

as a result, i can locate the exact position i was standing when i took the photo, which is very cool. the device arrived from the taiwan distributor last week. i had it on my camera thursday when i went to work and tested the gps tracker out. i took a few photos and also used the gps tracker on friday when i went to seoul forest.

here’s a photo i took on thursday (exif data is available in the photo’s properties):

once i downloaded the photo to my computer, i edited it and uploaded the photo to flickr.com. flickr has an automatic mapping service thanks to their owners at yahoo. i pulled up the map and got this result:

that’s very cool. the longitude and latitude points are very precise. i recognise the area and it’s exactly where i was standing when i took the photo. the pink dot represents where i stood. the arrow is pointing in the direction of the world trade centre.

the gps unit is great, although it does take about a minute to lock its position when i first turn the device on. however, that’s not a major problem. it doesn’t seem to use much battery life, so i can leave it on while i’m walking around and it constantly updates my position.

i definitely plan on taking the tracker with me during my travels … and i’ve promised the geometr company that i’d write a review of the gps device, which will probably appear in the next week or so.

kooky!

Geotagging is, simply, the ability to add latitudinal and longitudinal data to a photograph. This data is usually captured through some kind of GPS device and can be added to the photo’s EXIF data.

For those who don’t know, EXIF data is a summary of the camera’s information for each photo. The EXIF data is stored when the photo is taken. If you view the EXIF data on your computer, you can learn many things about your photograph, including shutter speed, aperture, focal length, metering mode and a lot more. EXIF data also remembers your camera’s make and model, as well as if you’ve edited the photo and what settings you used in camera to adjust the photo (such as sharpening or extra saturation).

So, geotagging has become the latest craze in digital photography. Not only can you geotag your photo, but when you add your images to photo sharing sites like flickr.com, the site reads the geotagged information. The cool thing about this feature is that your photo is now able to be searched via its location, not just from keywords. Your photo can also be added to galleries or maps and compared to photographs taken at similar sites.

Currently, the best way to geotag photos is to carry a small GPS device with you. It requires that, later on the computer, you add the data to photos manually, or via simple software designed to port such data into photographs.

Sites like flickr’s organizr already allow you to add geotagging data to photos as you upload them.

However geotagging has become so popular that many manufacturers are creating geotagging devices for cameras. Some devices are designed to be carried in your pocket, but sync with the time stamp on your camera to update the GPS info through support software. Other devices connect straight to your camera and add the GPS data to each photo as its taken.

The future of geotagging will definitely come through manufacturers including GPS capabilities directly into the camera. Some high end cameras already incorporate this data, but soon it’ll become a standard in digital photography.

It’s definitely worth learning to use geotagging and add GPS data to your photos. Not only will that allow you to sort your pictures based on where you took them, but it will also enable your photos to be categorized, searched, grouped and compared online, since many popular sites already have geotagging features.

Before you know it, you’ll be using sites like Google Earth to search for photos of interesting places. Although geotagging won’t improve your photography, I think it does improve the photography ‘experience’. Not only can you show people where you’ve been, but if you see a fantastic photograph, you can take note of its GPS data and go hunt for the exact same spot.

Geotagging could also be a lot of fun in other ways. It can be a great educational tool, teaching children geography skills. It could also become a great new sport, like a kind of scavenger hunt. You can challenge people to get to certain places, take a photo from a set of precise coordinates, and return with photographic evidence of each place. It could be done on a limited scale (a city) or on a wider scale (nationally or even globally).

Geotagging is definitely something to get involved in, especially while the technology is still developing.

Happy shooting!

David Smeaton

the day’s are long and tiring. however, i’m managing it all and also finding some time to relax. this weekend is a three day break, thanks to memorial day, so i plan on making the most of it. friday i have a dental appointment (checkup and clean), saturday i’m going to cheunmuro and getting my film developed. while i’m there i have a few things on the shopping list. the biggest item is a filter system for my camera. i’ve got my eye on a few smaller things, but mostly just accessories which won’t take up too much room and will be handy during my trip.

i did something crazy on sunday. i fired an email to an organization which has an arrangment to send teachers to north korea. they wrote back straight away with the contact details of the lady directly in charge of the program. they told me that the jobs in north korea don’t come up often, but i’m welcome to try. i sent an email to the woman who runs things and i’m waiting to hear back from her … i have no idea what i’ll do if they tell me i can actually get a job in DPRK. lol

the jobs are all plodding along. i’m dividing my time between my school and two offices. i also have a private ‘one on one’ lesson (authorised by my school). the school job is really annoying. my boss is a bean counter and tries to screw the teachers out of every possible cent. i’ve no doubt that i’ll have a run in with him before too long. however, i have passed the 5 month mark. so in another 4 weeks i’ll have completed half of my contract. that will leave me 6 more months and probably an extra 2 months to take me through to march 1st when i’ll leave korea.

speaking of which, i’m having fun planning my travels but i have two major quandries. the first problem is trying to work the 2010 world cup into my plans. the world cup starts in june and i don’t realistically think i’ll have made it to cuba by then. the most likely option is that i’ll just cut the travel wherever i am, fly to africa for the world cup, tour the rest of the continent, then fly back to where i left off. it’s not ideal, and hopefully i can work it so that i’m in the region at the right time … but if worst comes to worst i can at list wrangle things together enough to make it work.

i also tried making a travel calendar … but that went horribly awry. it’s almost impossible to calculate how long it’s going to take me. travel times between countries, the number of cities, how long in each place, are all really hard to guestimate. so i have given up on trying to make a calendar. instead, i’ll plan a comprehensive travel route and not worry about sticking to a time schedule.

and i’m pissed off that bhutan is going to be so damned expensive to visit … i’ve got the famous ‘tigers nest monastary’ on my list of things to see, but unless i can work out how to get around without spending $300 a day, then i’ll be forced to skip the entire country.