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Tam Thanh Mural Village

Posted by Annette Johnson on May 14, 2019
Posted in: Socialist Republic of Vietnam. 2 Comments

April 2019 I stayed in Danang and had heard about this wonderful Art decorated Village with it’s famous murals. One of several Art villages to be seen in Vietnam. I nearly didn’t get here because it is about an hours drive from Danang on the road to Hoi An .

As luck would have it, i got a good price and went and don’t regret it for a minute, I was rewarded with some of the most talented street art/Murals I have seen and very friendly people.

As I did this trip independently I was not crowded by the “our buses ” that come in from Hoi An around lunchtime, so had the whole place practically to myself. This gave me time to explore every nook and soi(tiny alleys) and get some of the not so frequently seen murals.

Tam Than is a fishing village still and there are still fishermen , there boats lined up on the unbroken shoreline. A wonderful place to go….Tell me which is your favourite in the comments below!

Cao Dai Temple Danang

Posted by Annette Johnson on May 3, 2019
Posted in: Socialist Republic of Vietnam. Leave a comment

Cao Dai Temple Danang

From my recent visit to this Cao dai Temple in downtown Danang in Vietnam, a great place to find sanctuary for the hustle and bustle of the City around it.

Here you will find the concept of a “One World Religion” and I really liked that and the layout and un-fussiness of the whole building.

Founded in Vietnam in the early 1920s, Cao Dai is based on the main religions of the East and West and takes as its saints characters from different cultures, such as Joan of Arc, Victor Hugo, Shakespeare and Lenin. Today the religion has approximately 1.5 million followers. The temple in Da Nang, the second largest in the country, houses representations of the Divine Eye, the emblem of the doctrine, as well as the founders of Islam, Christianity, Taoism, Confucianism and Buddhism.

Caodaists believe that all religions are ultimately the same and seek to promote tolerance throughout the world.

Worshippers at the Cao Dai Temple strive for world peace and harmony with beliefs steeped in a number of world religions. Followers must obey the five virtues of Confucianism – humanity, obligation, civility, knowledge and reliability and have belief in the Buddhist principles of rebirth and karma.

Watching Caodaists pray is one of the major highlights when visiting the temple as they dress in long flowing robes of white for lay followers, yellow, blue or red for priests whilst bishops have the Divine Eye embroidered on their headpieces. During worship, men are seated on the right and women on the left with all devotees seated in orderly rows. The building is a combination of Neo-Gothic, Baroque and Oriental design and is very ornately decorated including dragon wrapped pillars, seven-headed cobras and ceilings of sky blue.

Vietnamese Heroic Mother Nguyen Thi Thu

Posted by Annette Johnson on May 1, 2019
Posted in: vietnam. Tagged: . Leave a comment

The Largest statue I have seen to any mother anywhere in my travels.
I arrived here at about 12 noon so the sun was right on top of me, it was unbearably hot, but I wanted to do this woman justice with the light and the one colour granite that she is carved from.

A great monument not just to this hero mother of the communist regime in Vietnam, but to all Mothers of the World, being here gave me a great sense of being a “Mother” and the size and grandeur is fitting to us all. Interestingly inaugurated on March 24th 2015, being my birthday day!

I found it a very calm and restful place to be, huge gardens covering some 15 hectares in Cam Mountain, sadly it was so hot when I visited that I could only manage a small part of this great monument.

Costing a little over VND 410 billion (US$19 million) contributed by local authorities and beneficiaries from inside and outside the country. Inside the actual sculpture is housed a museum honouring the lives and contributions of 50,000 Vietnamese heroic mothers nationwide.

As you approach it from the massive roadside car drop off, you will be met first by it eight pillars sculpted with images of heroic mothers from across Vietnam as well as young volunteers who fought and died in the Truong Son Mountains. houses inside a museum honouring the lives and contributions of 50,000 Vietnamese heroic mothers nationwide. This is followed by four plateaus of steps, with a smooth path running alongside for those unable to manage the very easy steps

 

“Comparing Apples”

Posted by Annette Johnson on April 27, 2019
Posted in: Artists and Photographers, Uncategorized. Leave a comment

It is so wonderful when an artist chooses your work to reference their creations, and today this great piece of Art is from my friends at Artists and Photographers on Face Book.

 

Ros Beck, I am honoured you chose my “Multi Coloured Apples” for your project. I also love the way you saw something different in the message it gives to the viewer.

Today’s stunning piece of work titled “”Comparing Apples”, comes from Ros Beck who is an artist in Christchurch, New Zealand. Her images are predominantly Horses and dogs, but here she shows her talent to diversify into other subjects with this piece.

When Roz posted this image in the group one of her comments about the piece, saying “.I love still life… this started as a piece to be donated to the families of a recent mass shooting here in chch, but I ran out of time and sent a 3 horse pour instead, but this says a lot about the human race, we are all just people no matter our colour or beliefs!!”

You can see Roz and her work at;  https://www.facebook.com/Ros-Beck-Art-936226009772475/

 

Làng Bích họa Đà Nẵng Da Nang Fresco Village 2019

Posted by Annette Johnson on April 25, 2019
Posted in: vietnam. Tagged: . Leave a comment

I have just come back from Danang in Vietnam this April 2019, One of the things I look for as a photographer is the unusual and artistic areas of anywhere I am visiting.

Here in the heart of Danang is a community project to combine sustainable tourism and turn degraded houses into desirable homes for the local people.

The project has commissioned more than 30 mural paintings, with the theme being; Culture, beauty and nature and the people of Danang.

The project was started in early 2018 and is expected to expand to other localities across the country by 2019.

Tan Thanh fishing village being the other better known project, which i also visited and will be posting the video of shortly!

If I was asked which was my favourite, i would be hard to choose, but I think the butterflies and the simple images of children playing traditional games that are painting on the school wall.

Please if you like what you see , subscribe to my channel here;

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCM6F5tRsao7N2FRyv4n2CZQ? and have a look at my other interesting videos, thank you.

Kydymadjar Gorge

Posted by Annette Johnson on March 21, 2019
Posted in: Kyrgyzstan. Tagged: . Leave a comment

 

 

In the Issykul area of Kyrgyzstan there are many many beautiful canyons; Skazka Canyon

Grigorevskoye Canyon, etc. One of the lesser known but still interesting to visit is the Kydymadjar Gorge, much smaller than any of the other rock formations we visited.

 

We visited this one en route to Skazka Canyon

stopping for about half an hour off the main road to explore it

 

 

Shor-Kol (Tuz-Kol) – Salt Lake and Mud Baths

Posted by Annette Johnson on March 21, 2019
Posted in: Kyrgyzstan. Tagged: . Leave a comment

So while we were in the Issykul area we took a trip to the salt lake, famed for healing mud and dead sea like floating possibilities, we hired a car and driver to take us there.

After a full day of walking around in the heat and climbing over rocks in the Skazka Canyon, this was a welcome relief, well we thought it would be if our drivers car had not developed a puncture on the way to the salt lake!

 

Thankfully he managed to “phone a friend” who brought another tyre out for him, and after spending an hour in the shade of the nearby trees, we were back on our way to the Lake. As you can see from the first image it was a long and dry ,dusty road to the lake.

 

Salt Lake (also Dead Lake, Tuz-Köl, Kara-Köl) is a small lake on the southern shore of Lake Issyk-Kul, notable for its high concentration of salt in the water, as well as healing mud on the banks and bottom of the lake.

 

The shore of the lake is covered with curative clay of different colors, as well as with sharp crystals of salt, which are formed from the drying out of water. The size of the lake is very small: the length of the coastline is 1.5 km, and the depth is 11m.

Despite its very small size, because of its salinity, it does not freeze even in winter.
Paradoxically, but very popular now, this lake was almost unknown until the 2000s, and more or less only started being visited by tourists in 2010.

 

 

Fairytale canyon “Skazka” Каньон “Сказка”

Posted by Annette Johnson on March 21, 2019
Posted in: Kyrgyzstan. Tagged: . 2 Comments

During my two month visit to Kyrgyzstan, a good amount of my time was spent in the beautiful Lake Issi Kul area.

Moving along the south coast of Issyk-Kul lake from Karakol town, before you reach the small village named Kadji-Sai, you have an opportunity to get into the most beautiful mountain landscapes.

The canyon was named because of its bizarre rocky landscape, which for many years has been transformed by erosion into amazing sculptures and formations.

 

Some formations look like The Great Wall of China and you can also find other formations that look like snakes, dragons, sleeping giants and even whole castles. From the canyon you can see a majestic panorama of Lake Issyk-Kul and snow caped mountains.

Fairytale canyon “Skazka” Каньон “Сказка”

Posted by Annette Johnson on March 18, 2019
Posted in: Uncategorized. Leave a comment

During my two month visit to Kyrgyzstan, a good amount of my time was spent in the beautiful Lake Issi Kul area.

Moving along the south coast of Issyk-Kul lake from Karakol town, before you reach the small village named Kadji-Sai, you have an opportunity to get into the most beautiful mountain landscapes.

The canyon was named because of its bizarre rocky landscape, which for many years has been transformed by erosion into amazing sculptures and formations. Some formations look like The Great Wall of China and you can also find other formations that look like snakes, dragons, sleeping giants and even whole castles. From the canyon you can see a majestic panorama of Lake Issyk-Kul and snow caped mountains.

Dedicated to my dear Photographer Compatriot; Natalia Arentseva!
This would make a great place for a photo shoot!

You can see Natalia’s work here ; https://www.facebook.com/photographynataliaarantseva/

Bishkek Stretch Limos

Posted by Annette Johnson on March 18, 2019
Posted in: Uncategorized. Leave a comment

Bishkek stretched Limos, Why? I hear you ask? well Bishkek is a popular place for the Kyrgz people to get married and no where is more popular than the Wedding Palace.

A restored Soviet throwback (1987) which now serves as a very kich registry office, no religion here! Primarily because of the soviet ban on religious ceremonies. Instead they agreed to a multi faith building.

A cross between a church, a castle and a Temple on the outside its brutal architectural lines belie the interior “fairytale palace” sadly on the day we visited it was closed as October is the popular month for weddings!

On wedding weekends, (rented) luxury vehicles abound: decorated stretch limos and Mercedes lead the honking wedding convoys.

During the quiet season(when we were there) we were able to walk round and see some of the stretched limos waiting for their bookings, a bit like a Limo car park. Again there are some others besides the Hummers/ Lexus/GMC/ etc that are to be seen, there is even reports of a fairytale carriage style car(which, sadly we did not see).

Bishkek is an eclectic mix of cars many from the Soviet era, and they certainly like restoring and cutting and shunting some of the modern ones.

Temple of Heaven- Beijing 2015

Posted by Annette Johnson on March 12, 2019
Posted in: People's Republic of China. Leave a comment

What to do with a 15 hr stop over in Beijing?

In 2015 I had a wonderful trip to Myanmar(just after the sanctions had been lifted). The flip side was we flew via Beijing .

The plus side was we had a 15hr stop over in Beijing on the way home, what does one do for 15hrs in Beijing? one asks, well we went and visited the amazing Temple of Heaven!

Much colder in March/April than Myanmar we found the 13 degrees a touch chilly, not withstanding the fact that most of our clothes were for a warmer climate.

That didn’t stop us, and donned with socks and sandals (to keep our poor feet warm) we had, what I can only describe as the best stopover of any flight ever!

Of course it’s not only popular with foreign tourists, but many Chinese tourists, and my images reflect not only the numbers but their pastimes.

For example, the Temple was established by Emperor Yongle of the Ming Dynasty, the annual Worship of Heaven ceremony by the emperor took place here. The ceremony was subject to special regulations for its preparation, place, time, procedures, music and dance. So during the walk to the entrance you saw people playing traditional instruments and in the surrounding park area (which is vast and apparently bigger than the forbidden city), there were groups of people , formation dancing, and one young girl I caught ribbon dancing, along with people playing games and fully participating in the cultural experience.

I think it was one of the most enjoyable experiences I had, hope you enjoy it too, you will not be disappointed!

KodaiKanal The Coolest Hill Station Ever!

Posted by Annette Johnson on March 7, 2019
Posted in: Indian Subcontinent. Leave a comment

In 2015 I had the pleasure of stopping (well convalescing) in Kodai Kanal, I had got quite ill and need to get somewhere cool and calm, the nearest hill station was Kodai.

After a couple of days I could see why this was such a popular place with the British, beautifully cool and wonderfully Landscaped I took advantage of my four day stop in Kodai and this slide show is a taster of what you can see there.

Often referred to as the ‘Princess of Hill stations’, Kodai is one of the popular places to visit in summer . It is situated at an altitude of about 7000 feet (2133 m) on the southern tip of upper Palani hills. It has several scenic natural attractions which are enjoyed by its visitors and make it a popular romantic destination. Coaker’s Walk, Silver Cascade and Kodai Lake are among the must include places in your visit.

The earliest residents of Kodaikanal were the Palaiyar tribal people. Modern Kodaikanal was established by American Christian missionaries and British bureaucrats in 1845, as a refuge from the high temperatures and tropical diseases of the plains. In the 20th century a few elite Indians started relocating to this enchanting hill station and it started becoming popular among nature lovers.

Kodaikanal is not extensively commercialized like Ooty and it offers a pleasant experience to tourists with relatively less crowd.