In 1972/73 I went on my Big Trip, overland from Amsterdam/Holland to India and Nepal, in a Landrover. My travel companion was Saskia … we took about a year there and back.
In Europe we spent some time in Greece, then it was through Tukeye and Persia (that was just before the revolution, now it’s called Iran) and on to Afghanistan.
Afghanistan was a tricky place to travel in, for two reasons: it was winter and we travelled through the North, from Herat to Kabul via Mazari Sharif. In hindsight, a very dangerous – if not stupid – thing to have done … at one stage apparently we had entered Russia!
Our experiences in Afghanistan were amazing – remember also , this was years before the country decended into decades of war and before the Taliban.
Then through Pakistan to India, with all its amazing visuals, not least the Taj Mahal. Now-a-days – I hear – you can’t take your own photos inside the Taj Mahal anymore … they need to sell their brochures and postcards so as to raise money to be able to keep the place clean and tidy and regularly rejuvenated; a lot of work, I’m sure.
The Taj Mahal is made entirely from marble, all the intricate designs you see are inlays of precious stones. It took about 30 years to build, from 1628 to 1658 employing some 20,000 artisans. The artistry is amazing, beyond words.
Frankly – I need to use a cliché – one needs to see it to believe it.
From India we went North, to Nepal. The first lot of pictures are impressions in Kathmandu. Next eight pictures of a religious ceremony, held in the light of butter lamps in and around the many temples, like the Boudhanath Buddhist temple (four photos) … to think that those magnificent temple buildings may have collapsed on to them in the 2015 earth quake.
From Kathmandu I drove west to Pokhara. The photos at the bottom are from a four week trek north into the mountains of the Annapurna range, which took me all the way to areas close to the Tibetan border.
