Denmark

Here are some pictures i have taken in Denmark

About the pics:
The "Winter afternoon" pics were taken with a Canon 350D with a Sigma 28-70 mm 2.8 lens and are not manipulated in any way, except for the resizing.
This lens is actually not good for landscape photography because the focus plane is very narrow and often renders vital parts of the picture blurry (even with high aperture values), but since i am not rich i will have to do with it.

The "Copenhagen in april" pics were taken with first the stock lens and later in the month also the Sigma lens which i bought because of it's better aperture values. They are the first pictures i took with a DSLR.


Comments refer to the picture below the text.

A winter afternoon December 2007

Copenhagen in April 2006

My daughter Ella - born 17.11.08

Business trip to Bali

Here are some pictures i have taken During a short trip to Bali in June 2008

I stayed in a suburb to Ubud and spent much of my time in an office selecting the silver jewellery i had come to buy.
However, i still found time to do some long walks in the countryside that surrounds Ubud and was also invited to a cremation ceremony in the north of Bali, so there is a little bit of variety in the pics even though it was primarily a business trip.
I never got down to the beach, except for a dinner at Jimbaran where the seafood is excellent.
I do have to add that most balinese food is excellent, but some of it is just more excellent than the rest.

Bali is as beautiful as it ever was, only development is running rampant and in 20 years you will probably have to look hard to find the idyllic bits that are still prevalent on most of the island at this point in time.


About the pics:
The pics were taken with a Canon 350D with the kit lens (because that was lighter and smaller to carry) and are not manipulated in any way, except for the resizing.




Comments refer to the picture below the text.

Bali Summer 08

Our trip to Indonesia

These are the pictures i took while traveling Java and Bali with my daughter in July/August 2007.

This was my daughters "non"firmation present - a three week trip to the central part of Indonesia.
We arrived in Jakarta, and promptly went to the west coast of Java to acclimatize. After that we traveled towards Mt. Bromo by bus, train and minibus stopping over in Bandung and Yogjakarta on the way. After seeing the famous sunrise at Mt. Bromo from the vantage point above Mt. Bromo (Gunung Penunjakan) we bussed on to Bali.
We stayed a bit in Kuta (which in the last ten years really has turned into a shithole) then went on to Padangbai where we stayed for some more days, before we returned to Java to catch our flight home from Jakarta. We almost missed that flight due to traffic jams.

Indonesia as a whole is still as nice as i remember it from ten years ago - the food is great, the people friendly and the landscapes stunning.
There is more traffic on the roads, however, and also islam is more visible in everyday life on Java as opposed to when i last visited. It seems that every second building site is a new Mosque, and also more females seem to wear headscarves (not burkas or veils) than previously. Still, Islam here is not (yet?) of the middle eastern variety and apart from the occasional prayer call from a mosque you definitely feel that you are in South East Asia.
Indonesia is a very cheap country to travel in, largely due to the fact that labour costs next to nothing. An english speaking clerk at a bus travel agency told me that her monthly wage was 800.000 rupees.
That amounts to appr. 80 USD...

Enough social commentary - on to the pics:
I have included some pics that are blurry and quite a few with wrong exposures. I felt that these pics could still show something, even though they are not technically perfect.

Pics within the individual folders are in chronological order.


Comments refer to the picture below the text.

175 DSLR pics from Java

34 Pocket camera pics from Java

56 DSLR pics from Bali

55 Pocket camera pics from Bali

Our trip to Mexico

These are the pictures i took while traveling with my girlfriend in the last weeks of June 2007.

We flew into Mexico City and immediately took a Bus to Puebla where we spent the first night. Then we traveled on to Oaxaca, stayed a few days, continued to the coast at Mazunte where we stayed a few days too and from there went to San Cristobal (de las casas) where we also stayed a dew days.
Then we crossed the mountains to Palenque and returned to Mexico City via Villahermosa and Orizaba.
All of the traveling was done in first class buses, so it wasn't really too hard. But it made the trip a bit more expensive than we had thought. Hotels were not cheap either. But the food was. Yummy!

Interestingly enough Mexico left me feeling a bit indifferent - although there are some spectacular landscapes i somehow felt as if i holidayed in a poorer version of Spain with a native varnish. I realize that i have not at all touched the depth of mexican culture (which i gather there must be) but i didn't really feel a need to. Sorry.
That said, it was a wonderful holiday and we had no problems at all except for a bit of tourist stomach at the beach. Shouldn't have had that fruit juice...
People were very helpful but reserved.
On to the pics:
The pics were all taken with a (fairly) bad Nikon "Coolpix" which is your quintessential point-and-shoot camera with no real possibility to adjust anything and slow shooting on top of that. I did not feel like bringing my DSLR for fear of attracting the wrong sort of attention. (I might add, that after reading the guidebook we fully expected to be victims of at least one highway robbery and several muggings. Absolutely nothing of the sort happened.)

I have included some pics that are blurry and quite a few with wrong exposures. I felt that these pics could still show something, even though they are not technically perfect.


Comments refer to the picture below the text.

The first set of 168 pictures.


Yup, you guessed it: The second set starting at Palenque. 89 pictures.

My trip to Sri Lanka
Here are most of the pictures i took on a 16 day vacation on this lovely island in the autumn of 2006.


Great food, great seawater, wild traffic and lots of my favourite trees: Coconut palms.
Nice people too...

I spent my two first nights in a not-so-nice place called Negombo which is close to the airport. Then i traveled south by train and found my tropical paradise in a small village called Mirissa. I stayed there and relaxed, doing absolutely nothing but a few long walks for another 8 or 9 days.
From there i took a bus to Ella in the mountains, stayed one night and then took a train to Candy where i spent three nights before returning to Negombo for the evening waiting for my return flight.

Note to fellow travelers: Avoid Heathrow airport at any cost - the security queues will make you miss your connecting flights and make you want to bite your fingers off out of frustration (or the security personnels fingers, if you are smart).
They are ridiculous. 2 X-ray machines for many thousand people to share...

This time around i had a better camera with me (a Canon EOS 350D with a Sigma 28-70 mm 2.8 lens) and you get pretty much all the photos i took - even some blurry ones.

Pictures are presented in strictly chronological order.


Comments refer to the picture below the text

153 pictures in the first series

141 pictures in the second series

144 pictures in the third series

140 pictures in the fourth series

My trip to Peru
I absolutely loved that country!

These are the pictures i took while traveling the southern part of Peru in January 2005.

NOTE: Better resolution jpg's have been uploaded 17.10.07 because i finally have some server space.

Note however, that you will not find any glossy idyllic coffeetable-book shots, but just a bunch of pics that give an impression of what i saw.
Partly because i am not really a good enough photographer, and partly because i believe in "the camera as a neutral observer", and i believe that you get to see some pics of Peru that you wouldn't see otherwise.
The pics were taken with a cheap camera, and often out of bus windows, and are not sorted for "artistic merit" - of which there would be none anyway...

Have fun :-)



Comments refer to the picture below the text

176 pictures in the first series.

157 pictures in the second series.

How did i do it?:
I booked a flight with Iberia (CPH>MADRID>LIMA return fare ~1250 US$) and then travelled around by local means of transport (mostly bus, and the occasional shared taxi).
Cheap hotels (avg. 10 US$ for a single with bathroom) can be found upon arrival in most cities, and restaurants are everywhere and serve extremely good food.
Some roads are unpaved and make for long trips even to cover just a few hundred kilometers, but generally transport was efficient and up to fair standards for a developing country.
Plus that the landscapes make up for the long time in the buses :D

Obviously the music on this page is my own and copyright belongs to me.

Copyright Mai L K & grumphh.