Serenity Now!

I feel like I've used that title before, but I don't care.  When I look at this picture, I hear those little chimes used in yoga classes to bring you out of Shavasana.  Serenity now, indeed.

Rollercoaster of Love...

...or untimely death.  Or love with a meth addict.

That said, this is an ostensibly functional amusement ride for children at the Kathmandu Zoo, Nepal.

Full disclosure: I totally desaturated all the colors but red to maximize the horrorshow-vibe.  I couldn't help myself.

The Golden Hour

A proprietor keeping an eye on his wares, the Durbar night market, Kathmandu, Nepal.

Aural Tableau

A private music lesson in the park surrounding the Temple of Heaven, in Beijing.  This was a really beautiful and inspiring public space- full of music, games, and group exercise.

Path Less Travelled

Bon voyage.  I'll miss ya.

Living Color

The brother escaping an inscrutable installation; Hamburger Bahnhof, Berlin.

Rainbow Road

Porters & yaks crossing the prayer flag-festooned bridge to Namche Bazaar, high above the Dudh Kosi river, on a brilliantly sunny afternoon.

Down to the River (via elevator)

Trolley cars on the elevator to load a pile of tourists (us!) into Yangtze river cruise boats in Chongqing.  Visibility is maybe half a mile- enough to take in one of the many new construction projects expanding this already gargantuan city, going up on the other side.

Ruins on the Mountain

Looking down the Khumbu valley towards the inexorable, inevitable evening clouds rising over Ama Dablam.  These ruins are on the east side of the river, across from the "village" of Duhgla.  We...should not have been on that side of the river as the sun set!

Magic Market

The night market.  Yangshuo, southern China.

Hobbit Hole

An idyllic(ly dilapidated) Sherpa farmer's hut just inside the gates of Sagarmatha National Park, on the road to Namche & Everest.  Right out of the Shire.

Monolith

Cue the monkeys.

View on a Hindu Funeral, Three

Pashupatinath and the Bagmati river.  The crowd has dispersed, but the pyres will continue to burn for hours.

View on a Hindu Funeral, Two

There were two funerals that day.  The first was a military funeral, replete with honor guard, brass band, and attendance by a a politician/entourage with enough celebrity to draw quite a crowd of locals.  I do not know who he was, I only know he was not this man, Prachanda, former Maoist guerrilla leader and former Prime Minister, the only Nepali political figure I could hope to recognize on sight.  The crowd, mourners, politicians and soldiers, and together with the idle watchers, dispersed shortly after the pyre was lit.  I admit I was surprised that the time of observance would be so short, but then remembered that in western funerals, too, most memorializing and remembrance of the deceased comes before the burial.

In this image, the second man is prepared for his funeral rites as smoke from the first pyre fills the sky.  In the foreground, in the river, can be seen the remains of a previous cremation.

View on a Hindu Funeral, One

While visiting Pashupatinath, a holy area on the Bagmati River in Kathmandu, Nepal, we passed a series of stone pylons covered by corrugated metal.  Could not figure out their purpose until a group of soldiers filed in, bearing a body wrapped in white and orange, wreathed in chains of marigolds....

Studious let me sit

...and hold high converse with the mighty dead. (Thomson, The Seasons)

Buddhist pilgrims study texts before the wall of the Bodhinath stupa, Kathmandu, Nepal.

Sacrifice

Looking from the winding stairs to the facade of the Sagrada Familia, Barcelona.

Bonsai

Trees in the sea of clouds.  Mt. Huangshan, China.

Vignette

Two monks at the base of the Swayambhunath hill, Kathmandu, Nepal.

(Not really very) Bokehlicious

Yes, it's a very shallow depth of field, but it ain't bokeh to write home about.

Daintily-etched characters on a sandstone wall, in southern China.