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It's a UNESCO World Heritage site in a formerly war torn land.
Can you name the city? The country? The answer is below.
And a good weekend to all from Common Sense and Whiskey and EarthPhotos.com.
Continue reading "Friday Photo Quiz #140 - Where in the World?" »
People seem to like Vietnam food HDRs. Two of the top five viewer-voted most popular photos on EarthPhotos.com are from the Hoi An, Vietnam morning market.
Check out all these goodies in the meat section of a huge market in Hanoi.
There are 353 more HDRs here , and 384 more photos in the Vietnam Gallery at EarthPhotos.com.
Shot with a Nikon D-700, made HDR in Photomatix, finished with Nik plug-ins and CS5.
My wife Mirja and I traveled to Finland last month. Here's the last in a series.
And so we’ve come to Saariselkä, Finnish Lapland, and we see that it’s possible to live inside the Arctic Circle. It takes a little more work, bundling up and all, and you need a plan before you go outside. There’s no idle standing around out there.
But there are even a few advantages. Dragging your groceries behind you over the ice on a little plastic sled called a pulkka is easier than carrying them. There’s a word for the way you walk: köpöttää. It means to walk with tiny steps, like you do to keep your balance on the icy sidewalk.
Plus, other humans live here, too, and they seem to get along just fine. Infrastructure’s good, all the transport is in big, heavy, late model SUVs. There isn’t the choice of goods you might like, but we have that problem in our little town of 600 in Appalachia, too.
Once I would have thought “selling time shares in Lapland” was a punch line, but now we have a friend who does just that. And much to my surprise, a completely full 757 flew us back down to Helsinki (and a full Airbus flew us up) and they were doing three planes from Saariselkä to Helsinki the day we flew back.
In fact, the local folk of Finnish Lapland are entirely swallowed up by the tourist onslaught they’ve created. There are 13,500 hotel, lodge, igloo and rental apartment beds around Saariselkä. And the goal is 4.5 times the number of visitors by 2020.
Kuukkeli was the only grocery in walking distance. It’s part of a chain, and a bit of a dry goods and souvenir store, too. You could buy the usual Finnish dark breads and sausages and ready to eat heat-and-serve paistos, casseroles made of beets or mushrooms or potatoes and ham. And tins of moose, bear, elk and reindeer.
A word of advice: Just capitulate on the reindeer thing. Do not try to resist.
The big blast from the sun on Thursday, known scientifically as a coronal mass ejection, may bring some excitement for skywatchers today and tomorrow. Having stalked the aurora last month in Lapland, I can testify that it's a thrilling, thrilling moment when you spot the beginning of a display.
Just on the off chance that you can't travel to the far north tonight, here are a couple of web resources: AuroraMAX, from the Canadian Space Agency, has a live, 180 degree view of the sky over Yellowknife, Northwest Territories. And I learned something in Lapland - use Spaceweather.com. Here's its aurora gallery for this month.
Croatians vote today in a referendum on the government's plan to join the E.U. If they vote yes, does Croatia get bread with a little butter crown?
That is so thoughtful.
Hmmm... Okay, so it's a big city... it's got boats like that, and somehow that doesn't look like an American boat. Or a European boat....
Can you name the city? The country? The answer is below.
And a good weekend to all from Common Sense and Whiskey and EarthPhotos.com.
Continue reading "Friday Photo Quiz #139 - Where in the World?" »
My wife Mirja and I have a cabin on her family's land in the Northern Savonia region of Eastern Finland. We visited for Christmas. We continue our series.
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Tonight it’s grown colder. Not by much but you can tell. We’ve spent the afternoon in Finnish tradition, lighting candles at ancestors’ graves. We visited four cemeteries, in Leppävirta, Saahkarlahti, Luttila and near here, at Koönönpelta. We’ve seen the patriarchs, men who fought in the war of independence, fathers and grandfathers and great uncles.
Shops were locked tight, so the cemeteries were the most populated places in Finland. So many candles at so many graves that it made you think Finns born around here stay around here.
Such a majority of graves were lit that 1. There must be an entire industry supplying the candles (They look like they all come from the same factory. They’re sheltered by a particular casing to keep snow from putting them out), and 2. Peer pressure must turn people out so that Uncle Hari’s isn’t the only unlit grave.
My wife Mirja and I have a cabin on her family's land in the Northern Savonia region of Eastern Finland. We visited for Christmas. Here's a little about our trip, part 2.
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Oh my, are we full. We hit our little town of Varkaus at 5:30 in the afternoon, not so fresh from the U.S. and firmly in darkness. Up at the farmhouse there were plates and plates of Christmas food, rossoli, ham and sinappi, Finnish mustard.
Pirrika (a kind of potato bread staple) and egg butter. Karelian stew (the pan gravy is just outstanding). Sieni salatti, which is a salty mushroom salad picked in the late fall, pickled in a brine with onion, finely chopped and mixed with a touch of cream. Pickles homegrown and homemade by Risto. Potato and bacon casserole.
Risto has taken a cooking class and much of the food is his, wielded with flourishes of the chef, like whole peppercorns. Tomorrow holds the promise of pancakes (whole milk, not 2%) and homegrown berries. And it’s not even Christmas.
•••••
The ride up from the airport at Helsinki can be done in 3-1/2 hours in summer in the sunshine, but it took over four this time. Mirja’s brother Markku did us the honors, whisking us away from the arrivals hall.
Down at the very south of Finland there was snow in the (dark) fields, but not much. The top of the grass poked through. Roads were dry and clear and it was effectively dark at 3:45, so it was hard to feel like it was mid-afternoon.
Markku was patient with Radio Suomi (Sumoi is Finnish for Finland), but a song with the lyrics, literally, “dee dee dum” in call and response, finally did it. On another channel YLE, the Finnish government broadcaster, has an English newscast now and then. When they say it, it sounds like “Wily English news.”
Road signs indicated things like “beware of moose, next 14 kilometers.” The particular type of halogen they use on roadsides combined with the low clouds to cast orange patches of light just off the highway, just far enough away so you couldn’t see why they were there. The orange color somehow felt warming.
We stopped halfway so Markku could have coffee and a pastry. I didn’t envy him. It was dark and he’d already driven all the way down earlier in the day. And I’m afraid I wasn’t the champion companion, either. Mirja did that duty. They sat up front and caught up in Finnish, and I lay down in the back (as much as you can in a Kia) and slept.
Finns have a well-developed roadhouse culture. Maybe it’s because the highways are monotonous tunnels of darkness. At intervals, oases of services perch by the exit, all together in one complex. There will be fast food and sit-down cafeteria-style grills, newsstands, groceries and ABC stores, toilets and gasoline.
This rest stop had a grocery called Ako, so we went to get odds and ends, things like the licorice flavored candy called salmiakki that Mirja loves. It was disorienting here under halogen in the dark in the snow in the middle of nowhere, seeing everybody so busy - people of all ages, the parking lot and the store and the restaurant all full, families with children sharing a meal, young men smoking and hurrying by, people coming and going. It seemed like the middle of the night, but it was the middle of the afternoon.
See photos in EarthPhotos.com's Finland and Lapland galleries.
And see previous posts in this series: 1
I don't know, I just thought Vatican was a pretty funny name for a café bar nightclub. This was three bracketed handheld shots with a Nikon D-700, combined in Photomatix & finished in CS5 with Nik tools.
There are 352 more HDRs here at EarthPhotos.com.
My wife Mirja and I have a cabin on her family's land in the Northern Savonia region of Eastern Finland. We visited for Christmas. Here are a few thoughts, in six parts.
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There’s an expansive view across the lake from the cabin, and more lights on the far shore every time we visit. It’s just about the ideal temperature for winter, hovering a little below zero Celsius, with just an ankle-high cover of snow.
Mirja’s father Risto is a tree farmer. He has outfitted the old farmhouse up on the road with a particular Siberian variety of Christmas tree. There’s a Finnish pine from here on the farm in the cabin.
Mirja is deep into something she does every first night in Finland. She builds a big birchwood fire, parks by the fireplace and immerses herself in Finnish TV. It doesn’t really matter what’s on. Tonight being the 23rd of December, it’s mostly about Joulopukki (Santa Claus – literally the “Christmas goat”). Well-loved Finnish entertainers are sitting for interviews and performing for Christmas. And Mirja’s enjoying her native language.
There’s a half hour of news: Pictures of destruction in Syria. Extended coverage of tributes to Vaclav Havel, Czech audio with Finnish subtitles. Dispensation not to worry about calories over the holiday and quick lists of ingredients for traditional holiday dishes. And not a single report from a mall.
I sit outside to survey the lake. It’s much less frozen than last time. The ice is only firm very near the shore. On our last December visit we rode horses and a sleigh across the lake. This time you wouldn’t even walk along the edge.
Northern people will know this, but it’s novel to me. Here near the shore, where unfrozen water runs by the ice, there’s a constant chatter, like maybe mice rooting around inside a wall, except sharper. When a big wind blows from one side of the lake to the other the semi-frozen surface farther out sends up a big, more profound rustle.
See photos in EarthPhotos.com's Finland and Lapland galleries.
Here is Chapter Ten of Common Sense and Whiskey, the book. We're publishing each chapter here on the blog (Track down previous chapters here). You can order the entire book at Amazon.com, at BN.com, or direct from EarthPhotos Publishing. Here's the Kindle version (just $6.99). Click these photos to make them bigger. More photos and additional commentary are available at A Common Sense and Whiskey Companion. And here's the Madagascar Gallery at EarthPhotos.com.
10 MADAGASCAR
Weeks-long rains had very nearly drowned the capital of Madagascar. Water filled the fields around Antananarivo, locally known as Tana, and giant sea birds crowded Lake Anosy.
At the airport, Mr. Andriamanohy Rantoanison, Manou, showed us a laminated card with the prix fixée: 44000 FMG.
It was essential to speak some French here, and Manou the Malagasy (pronounce that “Malagash”) Francophone, Mirja and I did it well together, less from skill than from good will, patience and good humor.
Manou brought us to the Mad Hilton, where they served raisin juice for a welcome drink. You see the same picture of Tana in all of the few guidebooks. Now we saw it too. Your intrepid backpacking-guide author stayed at the Hilton.
Antananarivo, Madagascar.
Tana sprawled across several hilltops and the Hilton was set back from the town opposite Lake Anosy. In the middle of the lake stood a monument in commemoration of Le Premiere Guerre Mondiale, and along the shore floated leaves that couldn't have been more green. They fairly glowed. Glew?
The sun dropped behind clouds before sunset. New in town, we stayed in our room a few floors up, attacked the minibar and warily eyed the busy, dusking-up streets around the lake.
The Malagasy are not brewers. I spat out a Madagascar-brewed Golden-something. Spat it out. Golden left a wicked curl in your tongue and a sour aftertaste.
•••••
Zoma means Friday and it’s also the name for the positively teeming Friday market in Tana.
It's strange to prepare for theft, but that’s what they admonish. Fix your bag to minimize what they get if they slash it open. The Bradt Guide to Madagascar: "The Zoma is notorious for thieves. It is safest to bring only a small amount of money in a money belt or neck pouch. Enticingly bulging pockets will be slashed."
From a hill above Independence Avenue, a sea of white umbrellas washed out ahead in every direction, swallowing up the main square, flowing into busy little eddies beside stairways, up the hills as far as the eyes could see. Up one hill, down the next.
We paused. This was big, sprawling, daunting and dramatic. We clasped hands and dove in.
Continue reading "Common Sense and Whiskey, the Book - Madagascar, Chapter Ten" »
Under the title, Goodbye darkness - sun rises at Utsjoki, the broadcaster YLE writes, "Polar night is drawing to a close in the Finnish far north. The sun rose above the horizon in Utsjoki for about an hour on Tuesday, from 11:57am to 12:47pm." Utsjoki is Finland's northernmost town, up on the Norwegian border about 60 kilometers from the Arctic Sea.
Here's what the midday twilight looked like when we visited Lapland last month:
Some original travel writing this week, about two very different places: Tomorrow we'll publish chapter ten of Common Sense and Whiskey, The Book (Amazon) (Kindle) (BN). Chapter ten is from Madagascar, one of your more exotic places on the planet. Then Wednesday we'll start a few short takes on our Christmas trip up to Finland and the Arctic Circle. They'll come daily in short, serial form, over the following several days. Hope you enjoy them.
Meanwhile, follow along with my friend Laurence Mitchell, who's in Southeast Asia this week.
Common Sense and Whiskey is the companion to EarthPhotos.com, where you can see and buy professional photo prints from 105 countries and territories around the world, and the blog for Common Sense and Whiskey - the book. It's Intelligent discussion about the world out there.
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