Monday, December 31, 2012

Corbett National Park

Nature hikes, fires, ashes, the river, talk of tigers and a full moon. 

River Resort

Resort Lights

Nature Guide

River View


cricket game and boat ride

We watched a cricket game and rode a boat across the mountain lake in nainital, the evening call to prayer sounding across the lake.

Cricket

Orange Swan

the beauty parlor

maybe this title is self explanatory but maybe not? we spent way too much time in a beauty parlor, me taking pictures, laura getting her hair done and playing dress up.
Cutouts

Flowers

Salon Door

Curly wig
Wall Face 
Wigs




the lotus eaters...

...was always my favorite chapter in the odyssey. pangot is a destination for birdwatchers, and some people live there running the bird watching lodges. i wish i understood birdwatching, i'd like to. i thought about the lotus eaters while we were there and wished we had stayed a little longer. 
Bird Watching Lodges
Tiger Mug
Pine Cones
Mountain Lake




Nainital

Another visit to the post office in Nainital, a trip to the tailor to have our packages sewn together and a long walk getting lost through the small, cold streets in Nainital.

Purple

Monday, December 24, 2012

merry christmas!

today's drive from kausani to nainital from the mountains to the forest to the jungle to the town. foggy and cold.


Christmas Eve Day Fog

Taxi

Sunday, December 23, 2012

belief and technique

today we went to almora. i had a headache. we ate roasted peanuts and mysterious and delicious local sweets that vipin bought us. we talked to him about food from home, like fried chicken, barbecue sauce, cheesecake and cobbler. we went to a small zoo and vipin told us about how the leopard behind the cage had killed several people. sometimes i can't tell if he's joking but i think he was maybe serious this time. dogs go missing all the time in these areas from the leopards. this one kept licking his paws and trying to get as close as possible to the sunshine to take a nap.

i think all the time about jack kerouac's "belief and technique for modern prose". i read it in high school and the words sometimes out of no where, like a song, start running through my head. numbers 19 and 20 are my favorites right now. they've been repeating in there for days now.

"19. Accept loss forever 
20. Believe in the holy contour of life"

Newlyweds At the Zoo

Lightbulbs

Mount Heaven (Almora)

Boys


Friday, December 21, 2012

the world is still here and hotel uttarakhand

Pater Noster
-Jacques Prevert 
Our Father who art in heaven
Stay there
And we’ll stay here on earth
Which is sometimes so pretty
With its mysteries of New York
And its mysteries of Paris
At least as good as that of the Trinity
With its little canal at Ourcq
Its great wall of China
Its river at Morlaix
Its candy canes
With its Pacific Ocean
And its two basins in the Tuileries
With its good children and bad people
With all the wonders of the world
Which are here
Simply on the earth
Offered to everyone
Strewn about
Wondering at the wonder of themselves
And daring not avow it
As a naked pretty girl dares not show herself
With the world’s outrageous misfortunes
Which are legion
With legionaries
With torturers
With the masters of this world
The masters with their priests their traitors and their troops
With the seasons
With the years
With the pretty girls and with the old bastards
With the straw of misery rotting in the steel
of cannons.


Family (Hotel Uttarakhand)

Honeymooners (Hotel Uttarkhand)


Surveying


Stonewall

Bell

Water

Village

Lights

The Road



Wednesday, December 19, 2012

animal and plant life

kausani is wonderful. gandhi famously said that kausani was the switzerland of india because of its comparable landscape. our extremely nice hotel owner vipin loves photography and he says his camera is always hungry so he came with us today and took us on a long walk to see the mountains and take pictures.

bones, leaves falling, rotting animals, wool, sunshine, talk of panthers, burnt trees, and the peaks of trisul, nanda devi and panchchuli in the distance.
Animal

Bull horn

Fading Landscape

Vipin Lounging

Fish



Tuesday, December 18, 2012

kausani dusk

too tired to write anything but the internet is working so here are some photos!

Roadside Fire

Red Leaves

Hotel with Satellite 

Red Cords

Sunset

Saturday, December 15, 2012

happy valley

i've been here in india two months today... and so extremely grateful every single day that i'm here. i am keeping my faced pressed to the window. today i went to the happy valley buddhist temple and kempty falls. i fed a cheeto to a black kitten. i went to the top of the water fall and there was a photography explosion amongst strangers, everyone photographing everyone else.

Sun

Mother and daughter

Builders

Happy Valley

Friday, December 14, 2012

the dictionary of received ideas*

* flaubert

romantic geographies, yash chopra, wind chapped faces, scarves floating in the air. I am in Mussorrie now.

Woods

Khabie Khabie (film still, 1976 dir. Yash Chopra)

Stars

Monday, December 10, 2012

nalagarh

6 foot wide walls, 13 kinds of bougainvillea, empty water fountains, 600 year old property, an out of reach cement factory, a lonely fish tank, punjabi corporate discos, and new, ecofriendly gardens.

Dance Floor (video still)

Disco Lights

Hotel Lobby, Nalagarh Fort Resort

Fresh Towels