OK this is the second time that my favorite #2 sate bowl at TK has been disappointing. I'm not sure if these guys changed their recipe, but either way, I'm starting to realize the difference between TK proper and Luu New Tung Kee. The latter provides the critical garnishes of basil and cucumber in their #2 bowl, whereas the former - based on today's experience - just isn't exciting anymore. I think we'll need to make a visit to Luu New Tung Kee soon to validate this hypothesis.

In a new series on Matador Network's Notebook which features periodic interviews with professional photographers, MatadorU faculty and travel photographer Lola Akinmade caught up with me to discuss my perspectives on travel photography, and my insights on the industry as well as on my photo~expeditions. You can also leave your comments if you wish.

Read the interview, in which I confide that

"it was almost like having two personalities; one being a “starched” banker during workdays, and a more relaxed personality befitting that of a travel photographer during the weekends."

I have a bunch of other interviews, which are listed under My Other Websites on the right.

It's nearly time for the amazing phenomenon of the solstice at Newgrange, Co. Meath. When the tomb was constructed over 5,000 years ago it was built in such a way that sunlight could enter the chamber through a roofbox at dawn on the shortest days of the year.

The entrance to Newgrange passage tomb, the lightbox is the small opening at the top of this image

The light travels through the lightbox, and snakes its way along the passageway before dramatically illuminating the chamber. It is an extraordinary testament to the engineering skills of those who constructed this site over 500 years before the Great Pyramid at Giza was constructed and over a thousand years before Stonehenge.


If you are lucky you can witness this incredible event next Winter by taking part in the annual Newgrange lottery or you can view the event live by Webcast from about 8:30am on the 21st of December.

For a more detailed discussion about this phenomenon I recommend this excellent post by IrishArchaeology.ie

Photo © Henri Cartier-Bresson-All Rights Reserved
The Museum of Modern Art in New York City is showing Henri Cartier-Bresson: The Modern Century" this coming Sunday April 11, 2010, and the exhibition's website is truly a delight.

Henri Cartier-Bresson began traveling in 1930, at the age of twenty-two. For nearly half a century he was on the road most of the time, and the geographical range of his work is notoriously wide. Photographs of Asia (many of which are of China), North America, Japan, Africa, Europe, USSR, Middle East are shown arranged in themes, or chronology.

The New York Times has a review of the exhibition by Holland Cotter who, in the article titled A Photographer Whose Beat Was the World, writes this rather flowery sentence:

"The third and crucial constant in his career was, of course, a camera: in Cartier-Bresson’s case, a hand-held Leica, as neat and sleek as a pistol. Whether he was traveling as a journalistic eye for hire or sauntering through Paris of an afternoon, the camera went too."

I find it impossible to decide which is my favorite Henri Cartier-Bresson's photograph, but the one above of these Indian women in Srinagar (Kashmir) photographed in 1948 has always impressed me. Is it because none of their faces are visible, or is it because one of them appears as if she's holding a couple of clouds in her outstretched hands? It's described as Muslim women on the slopes of Hari Parbat hill as they pray while the sun rises behind the Himalayas, and was taken during a period of terrible violence in Srinagar. Magnificent.

Update: The New Yorker Magazine has an article/review on the retrospective at the MoMA.

From the article/review, I learned that the French title of HCB's best-known book, “The Decisive Moment, was “Images à la Sauvette”, which means “images on the fly". The French title implies something done somewhat furtively, and has much less gravitas than the English title.

In a clear sign that I'm still not back to my regular schedule, I completely missed this a few days ago. The Tibet 2007 Teaser Video is now available over at The Rest of Everest.

Fans of the video podcast know that Jon, the Director/Photographer/Producer/Jack-of-All-Trades of The Rest of Everest, returned to Nepal and Tibet to meet with some new teams and visit Everest Base Camp on the North side. The trip will provide future episodes of the show with new content and a fresh look at life on Everest and in Tibet as well. Judging from this great teaser, which runs more than 33 minutes in length, we're in for some excellent future episodes. Even better, if you've donated to the show you get an amazing HD version of the teaser that will really have your mouth watering. I need to go buy an AppleTV so I can watch it again on my HDTV.

By the way, if you missed all the great podcasts, dispatches, and updates from Jon while he was in Tibet, you can get caught up on the Tibet 2007 page. I'm looking forward to seeing the 2007 episodes eventually as well, but first we'll get a return to the current Rest of Everest podcasts.

On Tuesday night, I watched the harrowing Frontline: The Dancing Boys of Afghanistan which exposed an ancient practice know as as "bacha bazi" which, literally translated, means 'boys' play'.

This illegal practice exploits orphans and street boys, and has been revived by powerful warlords, businessmen and military commanders in Afghanistan. These men dress the boys in women's clothes, who are trained to sing and dance for their enjoyment. The dancing boys are also used sexually by these men.

This is outstanding journalism by Afghan journalist Najibullah Quraishi, and my hat's off to PBS and to the Frontline producers for doing such an admirable job. I was particularly impressed by Quraishi and his producers' attempts to arrange the rescue of one of the dancing boys profiled in the film, an 11-year-old boy bought from an impoverished rural family.

In contrast with other productions (see my post of yesterday, for instance) the 11-year boy's face was blurred throughout the film to preserve his anonymity and self-respect.

Homosexuality is forbidden in Islam, and yet pederasty and boy concubinage has had a long history in the Persian cultural world which includes much of Afghanistan.

MountEverest.net has all the latest news from the mountain where there weather remains very good, and summits continue today.

The Alpine Ascents Team reached the summit this morning and according to their website all the members are down safely. The SummitClimb Team put five climbers on top as well, as did the French Jomolangma team.

We're still waiting more information about the Nepalese woman that the IMG Team rescued yesterday beneath The Balcony, but now we have word of another rescue, this time on the North Side. The Seven Summits Club rescued a fallen Italian Climber, identified only as "Marco", who apparently lay in the snow unconscious for two days outside of camp at 8300m. Turns out, he was still alive, and Abramov's team had to get him down safely, which they did.

The word is that Gavin Bates is lucky to be alive after giving up on his summit attempt and traverse. After having problems with his oxygen mask high up the mountain, he was forced to turn back as pulmonary edema set in. He made it back to Camp 3, where doctors were shocked that he was still standing, let alone came off the mountain. Apparently his lungs were quite full with liquid. Hope you're feeling better soon Gavin.

And finally, sad news to report from Lhotse where Pemba Doma Sherpa, a two time Everest summiter, has fallen to her death following a successful summit bid. There are also unconfirmed reports of two other Sherpas dying as well.

The Sherpas are the backbone of any Himalaya climb, and they always put their heart in soul into helping the teams they are hired to support. When one of their own perishes, especially someone as well known as Pemba Doma, it hits the whole community hard. So while we're keeping all the western climbers who have died, in our thoughts and prayers, lets not forget about the brave Sherpas who make all this possible.

Update: The Adventurist has posted an more information on the death of Pemba Doma. Jason has some contacts in Nepal, and is attempting to get more details at this time. Hopefully we'll know more about the incident, and the condition of the other Sherpas on the climb soon.

Tintern Abbey was said to have been founded in 1200 when the powerful Norman knight William Marshal set out to pay his first visit to Ireland after his inheritance as Lord of Leinster. However his ship was struck by a storm off the east coast and was close to foundering. He vowed to God that if he safely reached the shore he would found an abbey wherever he landed. He managed to get ashore at Bannow Bay in County Wexford, and Marshal kept his vow, granting 3500 hectares to the Cistercian order to establish an abbey. Hence why Tintern was occasionally called 'Tintern de Voto' or 'Tintern of the Vow'. As the Earl of Pembroke, William Marshall was also the patron of Tintern Abbey in Monmouthshire in Wales, he brought monks from the Tintern in Monmouthshire to settle in his new foundation in Wexford, which they also named Tintern in honour of their original home.

Tintern was a wealthy and powerful Cistercian foundation, thought to be the third wealthiest Cistercian abbey after Mellifont and St. Mary’s in Dublin. Tintern would have followed the standard format for all Cistercian Abbeys in Ireland based on the ‘Mother House’ of Mellifont. The cloisters were positioned at the south, and were surrounded by a range of domestic and spiritual buildings, with a cruciform shaped church to the North. Excavations have revealed a number of these features, including the discovery of a thirteenth-century sewer. Although a little unpalatable to some (ahh the glamorous life of an archaeologist), this stone lined drain produced real insights into thirteenth century life, and particularly the diet of the monks. They ate cereals, apples, figs, raspberries, sloe berries, hazelnuts, beef, mutton, pork and goat. They also had seafood with evidence being discovered for mussels, oysters, cockles, and whelks. This shows they had a rich and varied diet that was probably far above what the general population would have enjoyed in the thirteenth century. 

I'm particularly fond of the unusual sandstone gargoyle heads that run along the northern side of the chancel wall of the church (facing the carpark). I'm sure one or two of them look familiar from a night out in Coppers!

Close up of the decorative heads

Like most other Irish monastic sites Tintern became private property after the Dissolution of the Monasteries in the 1540s during King Henry VIII’s reign. The lands were granted to Anthony Colclough, an army officer and he and his descendants made extensive changes and modifications to the Abbey to change it from a Cistercian place of worship into a fashionable but fortified home.

One of the most identifiable features of Tintern is the lovely castellated bridge over the head of a stream and tidal inlet. It dates to the eighteenth century. Nearby is the remains of a large limekiln which shows some of the more industrious activities needed on a large estate of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

Tintern is a lovely place to visit. It is free to enter and is under the auspices of the Office of Public Works. Please see here for more information on opening times http://www.heritageireland.ie/en/tinternabbey/. You’ll find Tintern roughly 16km south of New Ross off the R734, or 29km from Wexford off the Wexford to Ballyhack road R733.

I hope you enjoy our blog posts. Ireland has such a wealth of great heritage sites to visit and I hope to cover more around the country. Next week I’ll be visiting sites in Ulster, particularly in Counties Derry, Donegal, Antrim and Fermanagh so if anyone has any suggestions for places to visit I’d love to hear them. Please leave a comment below or find us on Twitter, Facebook or Google+.

If you’d like to consider supporting us you can do so by downloading one of our audioguides. They are narrated by professional actors, and have original music by talented musician Enda Seery to help immerse you in the story. They generally run for around 45mins and can be downloaded from our website at www.abartaaudioguides.com. A number are available free of charge and others cost just €1.99, so if you’d like to hear the story of Glendalough, or what life in Dublin was like when it was a Viking Longphort please do try our guides.

Photo © Chris Blade-All Rights Reserved
Yes, I know. I'm being repetitively Omo Valley-centric this week...but I recently discovered a handful of photographers who produced lovely work from this area, and decided to string Omo Valley galleries one after the other. Once again, tea leaves readers (ie followers of my photo~expeditions) should not see anything in this.

Today, I feature the work of Chris Blade from Omo Valley, although his website also has galleries of the beautiful Ethiopian Simien Mountains, Lalibela and Gondar, and Axum.

Christopher Blade is a graduate from the Royal College of Art in London, and has advanced degrees in glass making and design. He manages the National Glass Centre in Sunderland. He designs and makes bespoke art glass often inspired from his extensive travels as a travel photographer. His travels have taken him to Ethiopia, Israel, Africa (he was invited by a British adventure travel company to photograph from Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe & through Botswana & the Okavango Delta, Mozambique, Swaziland, Lesotho to Cape Town), China, Nepal, Tibet, Mongolia and others. I'm glad he included a gallery titled Palestine...as it ought to be.

I liked his horizontal images on the Ethiopian galleries I've visited (some very nice ones of Lalibela, including interiors).

Our local team took us here for lunch today in between meetings, and it was only now when I looked it up did I realize that this was that rival of Din Tai Fung that I had marked down sometime ago as a place to check out. We didn't get any xiao long bao, but I certainly liked most of the other stuff that we had, be it those sheng jian bao above, a xuecai bianjian baiye tofu strip thing, or a nice and savory white-ish chicken soup. It was also only now that I realized that that they opened eight years before Din Tai Fung.

Here's another feature from the recent Kumbh Mela which was held earlier this year in Haridwar, North India.

This body of work by photographer Mark Thomas is titled Kumbh Mela 2010, and is mainly of portraits he made during that religious event.

Mark Thomas is a photojournalist and a multimedia expert, whose work appeared in various publications, including The Boston Globe and National Geographic News. He professes a deep passion for documenting and photographing India.

His Kumbh Mela 2010 gallery consists of portraits of naga babas, the ash-covered sadhus who belong to the Shaivite sect, as well as pilgrims.

Mark's website has other Indian-centric galleries such as Faces of Kashi, Visions of Kashi and Child Labor.

A worthwhile website to bookmark for Indiaphiles.

If you’d like to keep up with daily images and information about Ireland’s fantastic heritage sites please consider following Abarta Audioguides on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

Creevykeel is one of Ireland’s finest examples of a ‘court tomb’, a type of megalithic funerary monument that dates to the Neolithic period, the tomb is approximately 5,500 years old. Court tombs are thought to be the earliest type of megalithic tomb to have been built in Ireland.

As their name implies, they usually feature a large courtyard area that was in front of a covered gallery that contained human remains, often in two or more chambers. The galleries or chambers were originally covered with a large cairn of small stones or earth.

Creevykeel was excavated in 1935 by the Havard Archaeological Expedition. They discovered four groups of cremated human remains, two in each of the chambers at the front of the tomb, but no human remains were discovered in the chambers at the back of the tomb. They also found fragments of pottery, polished stone axeheads, stone tools like a large flint knife, scrapers and flint arrowheads and four quartz crystals.

Unfortunately due the stone walls that enclose the site, it is difficult for the visitor today to get a true sense of how the monument was positioned to sit within the landscape.

Creevykeel was reused for different purposes throughout history. Artefacts and evidence of early medieval activity were discovered, and you can still see the outline of a cereal-drying kiln that was placed in the side of the stone cairn.

Creevykeel is quite easy to find. Simply travel north around 23km from Sligo on the N15 towards Lifford. You’ll see the site signposted with a small carpark on the right-hand shoulder of the N15, just approximately 1.5km north of the village of Cliffony. You'll find it at co-ordinates: 54.438806, -8.433885.

I really hope you enjoy our blog. If you'd like to discover more stories about Irish history, archaeology and culture and if you'd like to support us you can download audioguides from my website abartaheritage.ie, where we have 25 guides that tell the story of Irish heritage and the majority are absolutely free to download. If you’d like to keep up with daily images and information about Ireland’s fantastic heritage sites please consider following Abarta Audioguides on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

ThePoles.com has a fresh Polar Update for us today as we head into the weekend. The first, big news, is that Conrad and Hilary Dickinson have successfully completed their Lake Baikal Expedition resulting in them becoming the first people to ever cross that enormous lake in the Winter. Their website was updated with news that they had reached their destination, and that more details would soon follow.

Meanwhile, Rosie Stancer-Mars continues her solo expedition to the North Pole. She ran into a scary moment when she came across an area of thin ice about the size of two olympic swimming pools and decided that rather than trying to go around, she would swim across it, in her dry suit. The whole way she had to break open the ice, that was too thin to support her weight, but thick enough to cause issues. About halfway through her swim, the hood on her dry suit opened up, and water began to get in. You can imagine her relief upon reaching the other side!! All I have to say is brrrrrrr!!!

And finally, what are the children of polar guides to do when they go off to seek a little adventure? Why kite across Greenland of course! That's just what Sarah and Eric McNair-Landry intend to do as they set out for "kiter's paradise" with their friend Curtis Jones. Sounds like a good time for all involved!

Located in south County Kildare, Castledermot is a village with two excellent historical sites to visit. The first we will look at is Castledermot Round Tower and Crosses. Originally this site was a hermitage founded by St. Diarmaid in 812 AD. Unlike the more usual hermitages like Skellig Michael, St. Diarmaid's positioning of his hermitage at Castledermot is an unusual one. This area was well populated at the time, being located in the rich fertile landscape of the Barrow Valley. So why build a hermitage away from isolation? Diarmaid was a key figure in the new monastic Céile Dé or Culdee movement, rather than solitary hermits they wanted their pious, ascetic and abstemious life to be witnessed by the general population so that people might begin to reflect on their materialistic ways.

From small beginnings his hermitage grew into a monastic settlement known as Diseart Diarmada. It was twice raided by the Vikings in 841 and 867 AD, and the annals report it being the scene of violence and raids throughout the eleventh century as various Irish rulers vied for power in this region.

This site is a must-see for any fans of history, archaeology and those who love to explore old graveyards. A number of outstanding features make it one of the most rewarding places to visit in the region. The two high crosses are some of the finest examples of their type. Carved from granite and dating to around the 9th Century, the South Cross (pictured above) is unusual in having biblical scenes on its western face (the side visible in this photograph) and geometric designs on the eastern side. If you look to the left of the cross in the top picture you can also see an early medieval millstone embedded into the ground.

The North Cross pictured to the right, features a number of biblical depictions. Adam and Eve are at the centre of the cross, with a wonderful image of David sitting and playing the harp on the left arm. The right arm of the cross illustrates Abraham and the sacrifice of Isaac. The shaft shows Daniel in the lions den at the top, then two more depictions below, I am afraid I'm not quite sure what they are! The base is covered with beautiful curving spirals.  

As well as being striking markers of Christianity on the landscape, High Crosses were also a method of telling the stories of the bible visually to the largely illiterate population at the time.

The Round Tower at the site (pictured to the left) is quite a small example of an Irish Round Tower, standing at only 20 metres high. The masonry of the tower is constructed of rough uncoursed granite.

One of the more unusual features at Castledermot can be found just in front of the South Cross. This is known as a 'hogback' grave (see picture below), and is the only hogback grave in Ireland. This type of burial marker is generally more commonly found in areas like Northumberland. It is associated with the Vikings, particularly around the time of transition between traditional Viking paganism and Christianity between 800–1000 AD. That this typically Viking grave marker is here at Castledermot is something of an enigma, the Vikings wouldn't have been overly popular here as Castledermot was twice raided by the Vikings in 841 and 867 AD. Perhaps the grave marks the burial place of a wealthy Viking trader, a Hiberno–Norse Lord or noble, or even perhaps an Irish noble who was enamoured with the Viking culture.





The grave itself is interesting in that it has typical Norse carvings on it (very difficult to make out today unfortunately, but if you look carefully you can just see faint outlines of large diamond shapes under the white lichen) some of these designs have their roots in Norse paganism, but it is buried in a Christian burial ground. Whoever was buried here was certainly hedging their bets for the afterlife!





The second site at Castledermot is Castledermot Friary and it too is a fantastic place to visit, and like Castledermot Round Tower and Crosses, and in fact all the places we feature on this blog, it is free to enter. We will feature the Friary in a blog post next week.

We hope you are enjoying this blog and that it is helping you to discover some of the superb heritage sites to visit that are a little off the beaten track. Please feel free to leave comments and suggestions, is there a particular site or place that you think we should feature? Do you have any tips about great heritage trails? We'd love to hear them. Leave a comment below or send us a mail at info@abartaaudioguides.com

If you would like to know more about Irish history then try out our audioguides available for just €1.99 from our website www.abartaaudioguides.com  packed with original music and sound effects they are a fun and interesting way of immersing yourself in the sensational story of Ireland.

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Beltany Stone Circle is positioned high on a hilltop in County Donegal with stunning views. It is made up of 64 stones of various sizes enclosing a low earth mound; originally it is thought that there could have been up to 80 stones. The diameter of the circle is around 45m, making it one of the largest stone circles in Ireland. The interior of the site has a number of loose stones strewn around, evidence of disturbance in the past, as noted by archaeologist Oliver Davies in the 1930s. This disturbance probably dates to the nineteenth century or even earlier, as according to the OS Memoir (1836), there had been a cairn or 'vast heap of stones' within the circle, but it had been removed to form fences in the vicinity. Thomas Fagan, who saw the monument in 1846, observed that both the interior and the enclosing circle of stones were 'much disfigured'. He was informed that 'the interior was raised with earth and stones covering and encircling sepulchral graves' and that decayed bones were unearthed here (information from the National Monuments Service, www.archaeology.ie).

So it is certainly possible that this low mound in the centre is the remains of a cairn or large earth mound, and that the stone circle represents the remains of kerbing. It has been suggested that there may have been a megalithic chamber within the circle and that the site is the remains of a passage tomb, though this has not yet been conclusively proven.

Some believe that the stone circle has astronomical alignments, and that it is associated with the pre-Christian festival of Bealtaine (roughly equivalent to May Day). At this festival, it is believed that people gathered together on hilltops to light fires to mark the changing of the seasons. Bealtaine was one of the four major festivals of ancient Ireland and marked the beginning of summer, the other festivals were: Lugnasadh, which was celebrated at the start of August and marked the beginning of Autumn); Samhain (the origin of today’s Halloween) marked the beginning of Winter; and Imbolc which was normally celebrated in early February and marked the beginning of Spring. The name Beltany is clearly derived from Bealtaine and suggests that the site was an important place of congregation and celebration at this important festival.  

A stone head (pictured left) was discovered near the site, though it’s exact provenance is uncertain. It may be prehistoric and its eyes and mouth remind me of those enigmatic figures at Boa Island in County Fermanagh, and like those sculptures it is believed to date to the Iron Age. 


Beltany Stone Circle is pretty easy to find and is well signposted, it is located in Tops Townland, roughly around a 5 minute drive from Raphoe (around 3 miles south) and about 25 minutes or so from Letterkenny. You’ll find a small carpark at the base of the hill, and a good path leading upwards. I advise wearing decent boots as the site is in a field and ground conditions can be a little rough.

If you have a suggestion for a site I’d love to hear it, please let us know by dropping us a line at info@abartaaudioguides.com or on Facebook, Twitter or Google+, where you can keep up with daily pictures and information about wonderful heritage sites in Ireland.
 
If you’d like to support us please consider downloading an audioguide from my website www.abartaaudioguides.com. They are designed to be fun and informative whether you are at the site or from the comfort of your own home. Try our audioguide to Viking and Medieval Dublin, available for just €1.99 from www.abartaaudioguides.com

The path up the hill to Beltany Stone Circle