Wow… Landed @ 11:29AM… Arrived at gate 96… Next flight started boarding at 11:25AM at gate 138. I made it and am dripping sweat….
I was so nervous I fell asleep on the first flight and dreamed that I got arrested for running through the airport too fast… And they stopped me when I was riding my rolling suitcase down a hill in the airport like a skateboard…. Hmmm, new invention maybe?
Ahhhh feels very good to be sitting on this plane. Catch you in 6830 miles! 
I’m sitting at DFW waiting to catch a flight up to NYC to meet my former photo editor about our trip and thought I would upload some more content. Here’s a short little video clip showing the snow skiing experience in Dubai on an indoor ski slope built above a shopping mall. It was pretty mind blowing.
I haven’t even been able to look at any pictures since we returned back to the US on the 25th of November because I have been so tied up working on essays for my British Literature class. This entire semester I’ve been enrolled in the class but was unable to take my book on the trip (literally the biggest book I have ever had for a class.) Anyway – between our return to the US and today I’ve written around 40 pages of essays for the class.. today I took the final, my last final ever! I’ll graduate on December 20th. Yahoo!
Anyway – I will have a chance to look through more pictures soon and get them online but for now I wanted to share this video from Ethiopia. During dinner at a wonderful little restaurant in Addis Ababa we had some dancers from a tribe get up on the stage for entertainment… apparently this is the traditional dance for their tribe… it’s pretty wild, check it out.
Well — we have arrived at our last stop, Scotland. We are staying in a little hostel about 150 yards from the Castle of Edinburgh, and we have a great view of it from our window… will share pictures soon.
Prior to arriving in Dubai, I had heard the statistic that 85% of the construction cranes in the world are in Dubai… I thought that sounded a bit high, but now I definitely believe it. At any given point, we could easily count 20-30 cranes in sight.
I got to snow ski at Ski Dubai, an indoor ski slope built above a shopping mall. It was pretty wild… we have a bunch of pictures and stuff from that experience as well. Can’t wait to share them all!
For now, I just wanted to share that we have arrived in Scotland safely and can’t wait to get back the US in 5 days! Coming up fast…
At the head waters of the Nile River, the Blue Nile Falls. The Nile River consists of Blue Nile and the White Nile. The Blue Nile makes up for about 85% of the Nile and the White Nile the other 15%.
Well — sorry its been so long since an update. In Ethiopia, there is only one internet provider (ENC) and its completely controlled by the government. To get a semi-broadband connection there can be upwards of $4000 US…. Yea… insane! But we just got to Tanzania and its a bit better here. I don’t have many images together but just wanted to share this one. After I waded across the Nile, I shot this one at the Blue Nile Falls in Ethiopia.
More to come soon… thanks for reading!
Wow. We have done so much in these last few days. Surya, our local guide, has been awesome. He has spent almost every minute of every day with us and has taught us much about Nepal that we would have never known.
We spent our first day and a half here in Kathmandu and then went to Pokhara, about 200km away. Of course, that doesn’t sound so bad, that’s only about 120 miles…well it took almost six hours! Traffic is pretty rough and the roads even rougher. Fortunately, driving through the Himalayas is a bit more intriguing than a drive through Kansas so it wasn’t so bad. It’s really breathtaking. We are so thankful for the opportunity to visit this paradise, such a powerful place to experience the immensity, magnificence and beauty of our Creator. No photos can do it justice but I’m pretty happy with the images we came up with.
Outside Kathmandu, Nepal 2008
We were in Pokhara a couple of days and we made a climb up to the Sarangkot, a great place to view and photograph the Annapurna Mountain Range at sunrise. It was an intense hike, and we didn’t know how intense it was going to be. We wore our jackets which made it even warmer and my pack when fully loaded we figured is about 55 lbs so it can be quite the workout.
I haven’t assembled all the panoramic shots yet but below are a couple of the images that came from that viewpoint Sarangkot. If you click the image, it will take you to a full screen slide show displaying these images and many others…
Pokhara, Nepal 2008
Pokhara, Nepal 2008
Dad and I at Sarangkot outside of Pokhara, Nepal.
We also decided that while were in the Himalayas, we might as well go paragliding! So we set up a cross-country flight and took off at about 2PM on afternoon from Sarangkot. It was cloudy so we couldn’t see the Annapurna range too well but still incredibly beautiful. We each flew tandem, one passenger with a trained pilot (phew!) My pilot was a guy who instructs paragliding in France.
Me and my pilot, Alexis, in flight over the Himalayas.
If you look closely on the mid-right, you can see Dad and his parachute. This is probably right about when he was almost throwing up.
After we leave Pokhara, we came back to Kathmandu and the following morning (today) we took a flight over Everest and photographed it. An awesome experience and a beautiful mountain range. Shooting through the airplane windows was quite challenging because they were tinted and severely distorted. We each got some cockpit time as well… not thinking that would happen in the States…
Everest can be seen in the distance, the left of the twin peaks.
Note the height of the clouds towards the bottom... many of these peaks are well above 20K feet.
We returned to Kathmandu after our early morning flight kind of chilled around the hotel, catching up one some rest. I went up to the roof and experimented with some of my equipment and shot this miniature of Kathmandu:
Shot with Canon 24mm Tilt/Shift from the roof of our hotel in Kathmandu.
And later in the evening we had a power outage so I went outside to photograph the car lights on the street illuminating the buildings, only to find that there was a lightning storm outside, making it even better!
During a daily power outage in Kathmandu, I set up the tripod to capture the car lights illuminating the buildings and as a bonus noticed there was a lightning storm in the distance... very nice!
Tomorrow we leave Kathmandu and fly to Delhi to catch a flight to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Finally, Africa! We can’t wait to get there. We will be meeting up with a friend that I met on my first trip to Africa in 2006. He was in Tanzania then and is now working with Samaratan’s Purse in Addis Ababa.
Thanks for all your comments. These photos are just a handful of about 30 that you can see from Nepal on the slideshow that can be viewed by clicking any of the images.
I don’t know what our internet access will be like when we arrive in Ethiopia but we will try to stay updated as possible. We appreciate your prayers and are thankful for all of you!
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