For a small landlocked country in Central Asia, Kyrgyzstan is surprisingly visually rich and beautiful. Its tall snow-covered mountains reach to the sky, standing majestically amidst undulating landscapes. Its hills are home to gently wavering grasslands inhabited by semi-nomadic shepherds. These grasslands are dotted with yurts, the mobile homes of shepherds where a traveller encounters the generous hospitality of every proud Kyrgyz. Graceful Central Asian horses canter in these heavenly gardens, adding a sense of spiritual upliftment to the entire landscape.

Surreal images of Kyrgyzstan

Join me on a photography tour to Kyrgyzstan. It’s an enthralling experience with incredible photography opportunities!

For a visitor with a camera, every corner of Kyrgyzstan is an extravagantly picturesque affair. Here is a collection of every reason that makes Kyrgyzstan a photographer’s delight.

Kyrgyzstan: The amazing game of Kok Boru — superb action on horseback

A game of Kok Boru in progress in the grasslands of Kyrgyzstan

Kok Boru is a Central Asian game akin to polo, played with a sheep carcass instead of a ball. It’s a score when a team drops the carcass into a basket located in the opponent’s court. It’s played with certain degree of aggression as riders chase each other trying to grab the precious cargo, which makes a first-time visitor alarmed by what seems like a potentially dangerous enterprise. But the players are superbly adept on horseback, know what they are doing and respect the rules of the game. The action packed game, often played in mountainous location is a treat for your camera!

Kyrgyzstan: Eagle Hunters and their powerful eagles with huge wingspan

An eagle hunter with his eagle in the mountains of Kyrgyzstan

Prevalent in parts of Kyrgyzstan is the practice of using eagles to hunt small game. Employing Golden Eagles with massive wingspans and strong talons, these falconers hunt small game, such as foxes. The eagle is rewarded with the meat after a successful hunt, while the falconer keeps the fur. These eagles are usually taken away just-born from the nests and trained by the hunters, because of which they often form an intimate bond with each other.

Spectacular Landscapes

Beautiful landscapes of Tien Shan mountains, Kyrgyzstan

Nearly all of Kyrgyzstan is mountainous, with Pamirs dominating the southern landscape and Tien Shan ranges occupying the north. Several of these mountains are covered with snow for the entire year, with some of the peaks raising higher than 7,000m. In the valleys are gushing rivers and streams originating from the glaciers, which often end up in beautiful azure lakes. Higher regions are home to dramatic gorges with superb landscapes, while the lower regions host gently undulating grasslands.

Semi-nomadic lifestyle in the mountains of Kyrgyzstan, and life in the yurts

A yurt in the grasslands

At the beginning of every summer, a large number of Kyrgyz people leave their villages and head towards the mountains with their herd of sheep and horses. The summer pastures, which are spread across the lower mountains, are now full of lush grass that sustains a large population of domestic animals. The shepherds pitch their yurts and live there until the first snow of the winter signals the end of green grass in the slopes.

Beautiful blue lakes in the mountains

A brilliant emerald lake in the mountains of Kyrgyzstan

If a landscape is full of snow-peaks and glaciers, it is no wonder that you will see deep blue lakes in the valleys formed by them. Some of these lakes are so large that you can barely see the mountains in the faraway shore. Even when they all effuse the colour of the planet, each one is unique in its own way. Issyk Kul lake is known for its relatively warm waters and the beaches. Song Kul Valley is home to a large population of shepherds. Kol-Suu is trapped in a spectacular large. Ala-Kul is known for the difficulty in reaching it and the snowy mountains around it. The list goes on.

Graceful Central Asian Horses of Kyrgyzstan

A Central Asian horse grazing on the banks of Song Kul Lake

Watching the graceful Central Asia Horses trotting in the mountains is a spiritual experience. These tall elegant beasts serve as the primary means of transportation in the highlands.

Shepherds in the highlands

A Central Asian horse grazing on the banks of Song Kul Lake

In the grasslands, you will often see small white dots gathered together, usually standing still and occasionally moving together slowly. Look carefully and you will notice that they are sheep enjoying the fresh grass to their heart’s content. Once in a while, a herder on horseback appears and moves them from place to place. Up above, a blue sky with small clumps of clouds moves the shadows into and away from the herds. It feels like a piece of heaven descended on the slopes.

Friendly and hospitable people of Kyrgyzstan

A lady in her colourful yurt

Walk into a yurt and you will see women busy at work milking the horses, churning out cream from cow’s milk or cooking lunch in the kitchen-yurt. But they are never too busy to to say hello, and sometimes even invite you inside for a bowl of kumuz (mare’s milk, fermented) or a cup of hot tea. Insides of the yurt are very colourful as any Central Asia home tends to be.

Long drives on country roads

Country roads of Kyrgyzstan

As soon as you leave the towns and the highways to hit the mountains, you will be blessed with beautiful country roads. More often than not, you are driving all alone in the gently undulating landscapes. Occasional villages, streams flowing across, soft grass in the wind, herd of sheep and Central Asian horses appear and disappear along the way. It’s a soothing sensation being on these roads. It’s a time when you will feel that there is no better place to be!

As a photography enthusiast, you will find each of these places to be incredibly beautiful and reverberating with positive energy. Kyrgyzstan is the kind of place, which, once you enter, you do not ever feel like leaving!

Join me on a photography tour to Kyrgyzstan. It’s an enthralling experience with incredible photography opportunities!

I bought my first camera nearly 15 years ago. It was pretty much a flimsy box with a plasticky ultra-wide lens designed for widest possible angle of view and also put everything in focus. It was one of those one-time use cameras with pre-loaded film, something that pre-digital photographers might remember. I upgraded fast. My next purchase was an entry level film SLR. A professional then would have called it an ‘entry level’ toy, but it was all glass and glitter for a newbie like me. Those days, any SLR camera would turn heads and make a lot of people pause and look at you with starry eyes. Some would approach me with an evident admiration and ask if I was a professional. I wasn’t, then.

My equipment kept changing. I quickly moved to an entry-level digital SLR. In a few years when I evolved to call myself a professional photographer, I had a big clunky black box that helped me make images in most challenging situations.

Upgrade in photography equipment came easy. The more money I made, the better equipment I bought and used them to make technically superior images. But the search for images that said something new, images that spoke about something extraordinary, remained relentless.

Over the course of these 15 years, I have moved along with the trends in image making. At times, I have managed to break the trends and create images to my own appeal. I have won awards and acquired much admiration. I have added clients whose names could make others envious and have gained praises that have occasionally made me swell a little. A self-indulgent look at the history of my photography shows a long evolution, partly aided by my visual capabilities, partly by the technological progress and partly with influence from other photographers. Yet, there are many milestones that remain unachieved.

I have often asked myself questions about the purpose of my photography and the goals that my images should achieve. As I write this, a realization occurs to me that the goals themselves — those milestones and posts — aren’t fixed parameters. The post keeps shifting.

In my formative years of photography, I went in search of beautiful images that were an exemplary combination of great light and colours in the natural world. It could have been blooming flowers in the wild, mountain peaks bathed in morning sun, flow of water in a picturesque environment or a colourful pair of wings taking off from the trees. I found considerable satisfaction in photographing majestic landscapes and little success in freezing the avians. The former became a passion and obsession.

With time, I acquired equipment that made my images better. Complex filters allowed photography in extreme contrast and lighting that a camera wouldn’t handle well. Expensive glasses created better reproduction of the world that unfolded in front of me. The images found their way to magazines, books, catalogues, brochures and all sorts of places. They kept me going further in search of making more images, and sometimes working to create more salable images.

Through all those growth years, the primary questions continued to persist. Why am I making these images? What is the purpose of every single image that is produced by pressing this shutter? Is this one photograph I am about to make now going to be extraordinary enough to change something in this world?

The questions were not always about making a mark in the external world; they were also about an internal thought process. What satisfaction do I derive from making images? Will I be making photographs that I will keep looking back at, and feel good to see some kind of a fragrance exuding from them? What is compelling me into making images?

At first, answers to such questions seem to arrive quickly. All I wanted to do was to create something that looked beautiful. But the goal-post kept moving with time and the old answers were no-longer satisfying. In later days, I wanted to emulate the kind of images that I admired from other photographers. At some point in time, I wanted to create images that had a deep social impact and perhaps even changed the world. Some such goal-posts were reached with time, and some always remained distant.

But the primary questions were always constant: what images do I want to make next, and why do I want to make them?

Something dawned in me a year ago, when I was in the highlands of Ladakh, photographing its winter landscapes. These are rugged landscapes — high altitude desert with insufficient oxygen and extreme variation in temperature. Winter nights see -25C and lower. However, extraordinary things take shape only in extreme situations. In here were beautifully meandering streams frozen-still in the valleys flanked by snow-covered peaks. In here were frozen-solid lakes and occasional blocks of ice breaking off from their smooth skating-rink like surface. I watched with awe, the bubbles of air trapped in huge sheets of ice, forming extraordinary shapes. I loved the white-out landscape through which blades of brown grass stood out patiently waiting for summer days.

Related links:
Images of Ladakh in Winter
A photography tour to Ladakh in Winter

These landscapes were extraordinary. Sometimes I just stood there gawking with awe at the beauty of the minutest details in nature’s creation. Sometimes, I looked up at the magnificent mountains that dominated the landscape. I admired the extreme cold that defied the sunny weather. In those moments, the world seemed so charming that I would just want to embrace it and do little else.

On those days, it would be a long time before I eventually took out my camera and began documenting the unfolding magic. Once I had the camera in hand, I would begin with careful observation of the world outside, looking for beauty in everything small and large, looking to compare those opposing elements, and eventually searching for ways to make them all fit beautifully into a photograph. It was a constant quest, first searching outside, and then searching within myself for visuals that held my attention.

One afternoon, we were at a small hot-water springs that gushed out of earth in a wide open valley. It was amusing to watch boiling-hot water emerge from an earth that was surrounded by solidly frozen ice. The sprinkles of water carried away by the air landed in the spring’s neighbourhood and created curious minute decorations all around the fountain. Foot-long grass that grew in summers was now flat on the ground, brought down by small chunks of ice that was stuck to the blades. I watched the patterns in ice and the grass with great fascination. When I looked up, I saw the geyser’s water dazzle against the shining sun surrounded by beautiful deep blue sky.

The place had me hooked. I began photographing this wonder, first focusing my attention on the spring and then drifting slowly towards its surroundings. I moved around the neighbourhood, and eventually settled to photographing just the geyser and its vicinity in every conceivable angle. There, time kept ticking as I shifted my attention from one corner to another. I observed and photographed the patterns in ice for a very long time. I watched the smooth strands of grass with chunks of ice on them. I looked carefully at the way wind was making the fountain waver like a dancer. I gazed at the way sun made the ice sparkle like a diamond. I wondered about the strong rays that made the spring water shine like a blaze.

Before I knew it, a few hours had passed, and I had not moved beyond a few meters around the hot-spring. I was in a spell, which was finally broken when a setting sun ended the magic of light that enthralled me through the evening.

Later that evening, I went through the large collection of images I had produced at the hot-spring. Some images were to my satisfaction, some images were nothing special and many were somewhere in between. I went through them several times, searching for the perfect image that could help me relieve the trance-like experience of the evening.

As I revisited the evening’s images a few times over, something suddenly dawned in my mind. Those hours I had spent photographing the geyser was a time I was in complete focus, and perhaps in a feeling of bliss. They were moments of joy and fulfillment that had carried me through the evening and had lingered well into the night. The photographs from the evening were a reflection of the landscape, but what mattered most were not the photographs, but the moments themselves! The act of photographing the geyser was an act of careful observation, which translated into an almost meditative state that allowed me to forget everything else and remain immensely attentive to the scene unfolding in front of me. In those hours, I did not for a moment remember the world I had left behind, the tasks that may have been pending, the things that I had to take care of and everything else that fogs a mind through the waking hours.

I realized at that very moment that my Zen was not in the photographs produced, but the act of photography itself. I was able to forget myself in the act, which was more significant than the outcome.

This is perhaps why many of us yearn to pursue some passions. Whether it is in music, rock climbing, a sport or an art, when performed as an act of intense focus, it stills the mind and takes us to a new level of existence. Some of these acts may have tangible outcomes (like photographs in photography) and some of them may not (like rock climbing). But unaware to us, it’s often an involvement in the act that brings us to a sense of fulfillment than the outcome of the action.

That still leaves me with one more thing. Is this the final frontier of a photographer or an artist? Or is there something more to achieve than self-satisfaction and fulfillment? There is no easy way to be certain. In the past, I have seen my goal posts shifting further. They can move again!

Kyrgyzstan is a nation defined by its natural beauty. Joyously unspoilt mountainscapes, stark craggy ridges and rolling jailoos (summer pastures) are brought to life by semi-nomadic, yurt-dwelling shepherds— Lonely Planet Central Asia

An Eagle-Hunter in Kyrgyzstan

I was always fascinated about remote and unknown regions of Central Asia’s highlands. Even when there is not so much a thing called ‘unknown’ in today’s world of air travel and internet, the mountainous regions far north of the Himalayas seemed to be away from everywhere. The region always sounded exotic, with its fables of Silk-Route and of marching armies of Chengiz Khan and Timur Leng. Their nomadic settlements in the mountains and fascinating eagle-hunters on their Central-Asian horses were stuff that made for exotic stories.

Kyrgyzstan — Central Asian horses roaming in the landscapes of Song Kul Lake

In the past two years, I have spent several weeks travelling in Kyrgyzstan, immensely enjoying its natural beauty. I have spent nights in the yurts of shepherds of Tien-Shan mountains, enjoying their hospitality and watching them herd sheep through the jailoos. I have made friends with their fascinating eagle-hunters who train golden eagles and go hunting with them in the mountains. I have wandered among the snow-covered mountains and crisscrossed the fast-flowing rivers in the valleys. I have walked along its high-altitude lakes that seem to compete with each other trying to determine who has the most azure waters. Kyrgyzstan is a small piece of heaven that just happens to be on this earth!

Every year, I lead a mentored photography tour in Kyrgyzstan, which takes you through the brilliant landscapes and gets you up-close with semi-nomadic lifestyle of Central Asian shepherds. In the eleven days that we are on the road, we will be part of breathtaking mountain landscapes and be among brilliant blue lakes, have the privilege to interact closely with shepherds in the highlands, watch magnificent Central-Asian horses at play, see & photograph some amazing traditional games and witness everyday life of people in the summer-pastures. We will also have a chance to interact with traditional falconers / eagle-hunters who have kept centuries-old hunting traditions alive. This tour is full of incredible photography opportunities that few places and few itineraries anywhere in the world can offer within such duration in such a small region. The tour is a excellent window to the life and landscapes of Central Asia. The mentored photo-journey also equips you with a keen understanding of life in the country and takes you through the art of telling stories with your images. Discover what it takes to create unique images that stand apart from cliche, have your own unique signature and makes a strong visual impact. For more information and to be a part of this carefully curated unique photography tour, visit “Kyrgyzstan Photography Tour — The Best of Central Asia”.

Magnificent mountain landscapes of Kyrgyzstan

Kyrgyzstan Images — Central Asian Horses and Riders

It’s not so much of an exaggeration to say that a Kyrgyz child will learn to ride a horse before she learns to get on two feet. Horses are seen trotting everywhere in the mountains, sometimes used to herd sheep along the grasslands and sometimes for short-distance commute. These powerful animals roam the highlands of Central Asia with a grace that puts the glitziest ramps to shame. Herds often roam free, bringing alive the hills and the lake shores with an excitement that only a pack of Central Asian horses can infuse into the landscape.

Central Asian horses in the mountain landscapes of Kyrgyzstan

Just as horses are an integral part of lifestyle in the mountains, they are also part of Kyrgyzstan’s sports and games. Not surprisingly, many of these games are packed with action and requires excellent riding skills. In Kok-Boru — a form of polo played with a sheep carcass — horses from opposing teams forcefully push their way through, while the rider has to carry a 20+ kg cargo that needs to be placed in a basket at the end of the field. The speeds and aggression of their movement during the game can alarm a first time spectator, but the players are surprisingly adept on horseback.

A game of Kok-Boru in progress in Kyrgyzstan. The dog incidentally has no role in the game.

It’s even more pleasurable to watch these graceful horses wander around on their own, sometimes in a small team and some times on their own. As a photographer, I have relished watching them through the viewfinder as they run along the edge of a lake or stand still on the top of a ridge.

A colt dashes through the landscapes of Kyrgyzstan, at Song Kul Lake.

Kyrgyzstan Images — Brilliant Mountain Landscapes and High-Altitude Lakes

Much of Kyrgyzstan is mountainous. Venerable Pamir mountains have some of their tallest mountain in the country, with Peak Lenin raising well above 7,000m to the south, and Tien Shan mountains standing over 6,000m in the north. Spread along several locations of the country are high altitude lakes, most of them so blue and so large that they could be taken for seas. Often, I was amazed to see Kyrgyz nomads setting up their yurts high up in these mountains, faraway from roads and every form of connectivity, in places just below the snowline. While it is possible to assume that living here may be tough and the choice of such settlements are a necessity, it is intriguing to know that many of them have come here as a preferred way of life against finding employment in urban areas.

Magnificent landscapes of Kyrgyzstan — Tien Shan mountains. Would a yurt-life in such landscape appeal to you?

Landscapes of Kyrgyzstan

While higher mountain slopes in the country bear snow or remain barren, the mid-altitudes host jailoos, fertile summer pastures that are home to large grazing populations of horses and sheep. Some lower valleys, especially around Lake Issyk-Kul are surprisingly verdant and are known for their many beautiful gorges.

Kyrgyzstan Images — Life in the jailoo

The shepherds start setting up their yurts in the first days of summer when the grass is green and edelweiss start blooming on the mountain floor. The four months of yurt-life, until the first snowfall signals the end of summer, is spent busy herding the sheep, milking the mares and extracting cream from cow’s milk. The yurts are spacious comfortable dwellings with plenty of space and decorations inside. They appear dull-white from the outside — mostly of sheep skin, but the insides are often vibrant and cheerful.

Inside a colourful yurt in the jailoos of Song Kul, Kyrgyzstan

If you step into a yurt, expect to be welcomed from friendly faces who are happy to pause for conversations and feed you with some kumuz and boorsok (kumuz: fermented mare’s milk; boorsok: a form of fried dough, a snack generally served with any meal)

Kyrgyzstan Images — Amazing falconers / eagle-hunters

Kyrgyzstan’s shepherds in the jailoos

Perhaps the most fascinating of all things I have seen in Kyrgyzstan are the eagle-hunters, who train golden eagles to hunt small game.

An eagle hunter in Kyrgyzstan

They train eagles from the time they are very young, picking them up from the nests and caring for them until they are able to hunt on their own. They often develop an intimate bond, like a man and his pet-animal would. Its usually female birds that are engaged in hunting, as they are larger and powerful than the male counterparts. With a wing span as much as human hands stretched wide and talons longer and powerful than a man’s fingers, you will develop tremendous respect for them the moment you see them spread their wings. When they swoosh down on the hands of a trained hunter, the whisper of the wings and sudden currents generated from the flapping wings will alarm you and make you step back. These majestic birds, which may appear unexceptional from a distance, are of power and caliber that is only understood by standing in their vicinity.

An eagle hunter in Kyrgyzstan

Everywhere I go, everywhere I turn, I see something spectacular and extraordinary in Kyrgyzstan, be it in the way of life, in its people or in its mountainous landscapes. For a country of just six million that would take less than 90 minutes to fly end-to-end, it’s amazing how much beauty it possesses along its length and breadth.

Every year, I lead a mentored photography tour Kyrgyzstan, which takes you through the brilliant landscapes and gets you up-close with semi-nomadic lifestyle on Central Asian shepherds. In the eleven days that we are on the road, we will be part of breathtaking mountain landscapes and be among brilliant blue lakes, have the privilege to interact closely with shepherds in the highlands, watch magnificent Central-Asian horses at play, watch & photograph some amazing traditional games and witness everyday life of people in the summer-pastures. We will also have a chance to interact with traditional falconers / eagle-hunters who have kept centuries-old hunting traditions alive. This tour is full of incredible photography opportunities that few places and few itineraries anywhere in the world can offer within such duration in such a small region. The tour is a excellent window to the life and landscapes of Central Asia. The mentored photo-journey equips also you with a keen understanding of life and takes you through the art of telling stories with your images. Discover what it takes to create unique images that stand apart from cliche, have your own unique signature and makes a strong visual impact. For more information and to be a part of this carefully curated unique photography tour, visit “Kyrgyzstan Photography Tour — The Best of Central Asia”.

Images of Bhutan

Bhutan has been known for its focus on nurturing a happy society. With its idea of ‘Gross National Happiness’, a focus on nourishing its cultural roots and a policy towards sustainable economics, the country has attempted to tread a path of balance between embracing a modern way of life and traditional values.

I have been travelling to Bhutan for five years now, trying to understand its pulse and learning from its composure, while also enjoying the country’s beautiful mountainous landscapes.

Every year, I lead a week-long mentored photography tour Bhutan, which gives you an up-close glimpse and understanding of country’s rich culture and heritage. The tour is a excellent window to the life and landscapes of the Himalayan region. The mentored photo-journey equips you with a keen understanding of life and takes you through the art of telling stories with your images. Discover what it takes to create unique images that stand apart from cliche, have your own unique signature and makes a strong visual impact. To be a part of this unique photography tour, visit “Travel Photography Tour to Bhutan” to know more details and sign up.

In these years, I have photographed many aspects of Bhutan — the genial monks, smiling people working hard in the fields, ebullient children in the villages and monasteries, mountain slopes fluttering with prayer flags and beautiful stupas, fortresses glittering with flood-lights in the evening sky and dazzling snow-covered peaks in brilliant morning light.

Beautiful sunrise over the mountain landscapes at Dochula, Bhutan

I have immensely enjoyed freezing these facets of Bhutan. It’s a meditative experience observing the country’s pace of life that attempts to harmonize with material and spiritual wealth. These are images of everyday Bhutan, it’s beautiful people juxtaposed against the majestic Himalayas landscapes.

Images of Bhutan — rural life

A lady working in her farm in a village in Bhutan

In these journeys, I have had the joy of visiting many small villages in remote regions of Bhutan, gallivanting in paddy and vegetable fields, watching women tending to the soil or reaping the harvest. I had the pleasure to stop for many long conversations, understanding their crop cycles and appreciating the fact that most of the country’s produce is organic.

A village in Bhutan

Much of Bhutan is rural. Most valleys are settled by small hamlets with a few scores of houses surrounded by farms. Nearly all the houses and other buildings across Bhutan are built to confirm to traditional architecture highlighted by painted wooden windows. Old rural homes are usually two-storied mud structures, with animals and storage area taking up the ground-level and the family staying at the upper level.

Images of Bhutan — Buddhism, practices and religious sites

The dzong at Thimphu, Bhutan

The epitome of Bhutan’s traditional architecture are the dzongs, or fortresses. Dzongs are administrative and monastic centers located in each of the twenty districts of Bhutan. They are more often than not the largest structure in the district. They are usually built with a thick mud-wall strong enough to deter the invading Tibetan armies that once attacked the power-centers of the region. In the center of every dzong is a tall tower, which housed temples and monastic institution. They are built using traditional knowledge of masonry and roofing, often without a detailed blue-print, all coming together without using a single nail.

The 108 chortens (stupas) at Dochula Pass

Another common architectural feature in the landscape of Bhutan are the chortens, more widely known as stupas. They are normally found at the entry to the villages, near the temples and at strategic locations across the country. The Bhutanese stupa differ structurally from the ones seen in the neighbouring countries.

A lady turning the prayer wheels

Buddhist traditions and values are strongly integrated into everyday lives of people in Bhutan. As people get older, they dedicate considerably longer time of their day in Buddhist practices. In temples, monasteries and also in other places, it is not uncommon to see elderly people spending their entire day turning prayer wheels or indulged in other ritual practices.

Young monks play football at a small village in Bhutan

It’s also common to find monks everywhere in Bhutan. The education of a monk begins at a very young age. Families often send a child to monastic institutions. While the process of becoming monk is a rigorous one, these young ones will also get some time to let their hair down. I have had occasional joy of joining them on some games. Turns out, my football needs a lot of work!

a monk walks past prayer wheels inside a dzong

The dzongs serve as important religious and monastic centers, where monks live in large numbers. Located inside the dzongs are also temples where prayers and rituals are performed regularly. In Bhutan, the monastic body plays an important role in the way of life, and perhaps has a significant say in matters of administration. The fact that district administrations and monastic bodies share the space inside a dzong is an indication of how Buddhism is ingrained into all aspects of Bhutan.

Prao Taktsang, more widely known as Tiger’s Nest monastery

Perhaps the most iconic and well-known symbol of Buddhism in Bhutan is Paro Taktsang, better known to visitors as Tiger’s Nest monastery. This incredible structure is hanging on a ledge in the middle of a steep vertical cliff, located about 10,000 feet above sea-level. In the monastery is a cave, where Guru Padmasambhava is said to have flown in on a tiger and meditated for months. This is an important pilgrimage center for people of Bhutan, and in the recent years, has been a must-see location for visitors to Bhutan.

Mountainous landscapes of Bhutan

With its ingrained inclination to slow-paced life, with the nation’s commitment to happiness of its people and its people’s commitment to Buddhist values and traditions, Bhutan is an inspiration for rest of the world to follow. The country’s willingness to remain carbon negative as they open up to the rest of the world and their intent to preserve their pristine mountain landscapes is a lesson we all must learn from. At a personal level, it has such a strong influence on me that I find myself more content and joyful during the days I spend in Bhutan. And it’s a state of mind that lingers long after I leave the country!

Every year, I lead a week-long mentored photography tour Bhutan, which gives you an up-close glimpse and understanding of country’s rich culture and heritage. The tour is a excellent window to the life and landscapes of the Himalayan region. The mentored photo-journey equips you with a keen understanding of life and takes you through the art of telling stories with your images. Discover what it takes to create unique images that stand apart from cliche, have your own unique signature and makes a strong visual impact. To be a part of this unique photography tour, visit “Travel Photography Tour to Bhutan” to know more details and sign up.

Powdery snow on the mountains over a frozen Pangong Tso Lake, in Ladakh during winters.

I first visited Ladakh exactly ten years ago. This was well before the region became every motor-cyclist’s ultimate destination, part of every traveller’s tick-off list and every holidaymaker’s check-in dream. In those days, tourists were in smaller numbers and Leh had more homes than guesthouses and hotels.

Every winter, we conduct a photography tour to see and capture the glorious landscapes of Ladakh. This is perhaps India’s ultimate landscape photography experience. Travel to the highlands of Ladakh in winter, when Ladakh is at its pristine best — with its snow-clad mountain landscapes, frozen lakes, resilient nomads with their herds of sheep and yaks and endless fields of snow. Explore photography on the roof of India on this mentored photography tour in a season when the earth is covered in a carpet of snow. See details and sign up today: A Snow-filled Winter in Ladakh — Photography Tour

The story is all different now. Ever since a block-buster Indian movie featured the landscapes of Ladakh eight years ago, it has become the go-to destination of hundreds of thousands of people every year. The region has been transformed from a quite mountainous escape to a bustling tourist town of German bakeries, pizza joints and mall-roads!

But all that ends when the summer season makes way to a cold frigid winter in Ladakh. After September, as the temperatures start falling rapidly, shutters are downed on the souvenir shops. Most hotels close for winter and taxi drivers stay home for a few months. But this is also the time when mountains are transformed through the magic of falling snow.

Earth changes colour from barren brown to a dazzling white. For landscape photography enthusiasts, this is an amazing time to be in Ladakh. It’s when you find the rivers turning from a muddy-brown to a deep blue slither surrounded thick icy-foamy white on either sides. It’s when the high-altitude lakes freeze, reflecting the sun rays with a sparkle and highlighting the air bubbles trapped in a thick layer of ice.

Travelling the snowy landscapes of Ladakh in winter… driving past Pangong Lake

As a landscape photographer, this is my small peace of heaven that calls for an annual pilgrimage. I have come back here year after year, finding diversity in winter weather each year. Sometimes it is so covered in snow that some regions may become inaccessible, while in other times I have seen a relatively dry season. Each of them have its own charm. But more often than not, you can see all possible forms: dry ground to powdery snow to a blanket of snow that varies in proportion from place to place.

Sheep graze on small stubble of grass leftover from summer. In the highlands of Changthang during winters in Ladakh.

Up in the highlands of Changthang, where the altitudes can be 4,000m or higher, it’s normal to see the entire landscape covered in snow. The temperatures can fall to -25C or lower. It’s a wonder that the sheep and goats continue to live in this harsh climate, and survive by eating whatever little grass is left from the last summer. For these sheep and the shepherds, these winter days seem to be just normal times. Despite the cold, occasional blizzards and harsh weathers, they go out with the sheep day-after-day just like they would do on a balmy summer morning.

Changpa herders walking into the sunset… taking their herd back home on a winter evening in Ladakh.

On one winter when the precipitation was very little, the region still remained charming with its frozen lakes and streams. I witnessed a magical scene in the highlands of Changthang one evening. As our car slowly pulled across a curve, we saw dust kicking up in the horizon and immediately realized the magnitude of the force from the kicking hooves that pounded the earth a few thousand times in unison. Sun rays were scattered by the dust all over, obscuring the sun himself. As we slowly drove closer, we could now distinguish the individual figures of sheep from the blob of dust-cloud, and a shepherd or two directing the flock homewards. It was a magnificent display of a thousand energies working together in synchronicity to produce magic that can’t be created with a single entity.

I was hypnotized. We walked out of the car and swiftly walked behind the sheep and caught up with them in no time, and started following the spectacle as it moved. We must have walked a kilometer or two in the next ten minutes, utterly amazed in watching the unfolding play of light and the subsequent drama. At the time, I had forgotten all factors of environment that made our presence there difficult — the sub-zero winter weather of Ladakh that would make us yearn to be indoors and the rarefied air that keeps us slothful.

Driving along the valleys with small streams can be an exhilarating experience in the winters. Most of the streams are partially frozen, forming milky-foamy edges. The meandering streams often overflow into the valley floor, making interesting formations of alternating ice and grass in the landscape flanked by tall snow-peaks.

A nearly-frozen Pangong lake during winter in Ladakh.

In the highlands, the large lakes — Pangong Tso and Tso Moriri — are either frozen or in the process of freezing depending on how early do you visit. The frozen lakes sometimes form a layer of ice thick enough to drive cars. But on a not-so-cold winter, it may be risky to attempt a walk on the frozen lake surface.

Bubbles of air trapped in the thick freeze of Tso Moriri Lake.

The Tso Moriri lake is located in a colder place compared to Pangong Tso, and usually freezes faster. Often, the ice on the lake is as much as two feet thick and hard as concrete. The air-bubbles trapped in the this ice, and the broken ice-sheets often make interesting patterns.

Broken ice-blocks; Tso Moriri lake.

Broken ice-blocks make for interesting imagery in Tso Moriri. In the western-edge of the lake, which is a shallow-end, you often see broken ice-blocks that lift up when the temperatures start getting lower and lower. With the clear winter weather, the sun is always bursting in isolation surrounded by clear blue sky that always makes for a great spectacle.

A geyser gushes out of earth, surrounded by ice.

Also found along the grasslands in certain places are geysers, which take on a new life in the winter months. They often form a wall of ice around them, thanks to the cold weather that freezes the water instantly in the night. In other times, the sprinkle of water from the geyser creates interesting formations around them.

A beautiful winter sunset in Ladakh, when the mountains are covered with more snow than summer time.

For those who are willing to brave the cold, and especially if you are a landscape photography enthusiast, winter in Ladakh can be an exhilarating experience.

Every winter, we conduct a photography tour to see and capture the glorious landscapes of Ladakh. This is perhaps India’s ultimate landscape photography experience. Travel to the highlands of Ladakh in winter, when Ladakh is at its pristine best — with its snow-clad mountain landscapes, frozen lakes, resilient nomads with their herds of sheep and yaks and endless fields of snow. Explore photography on the roof of India on this mentored photography tour in a season when the earth is covered in a carpet of snow. See details and sign up today: A Snow-filled Winter in Ladakh — Photography Tour

Unusual political boundaries have isolated North-East India from rest of the world (and rest of India) for many years. This is perhaps one of the reasons that has allowed this region to retain and celebrate a good part of its indigenous culture without significant influence from outside.

Performances at the Hornbill Festival, Kohima.

The Hornbill Festival in the hill-state of Nagaland is perhaps the most eclectic and elaborate of all the cultural events in the region. It offers a glimpse of North-East India’s rich culture, even though it showcases life and rituals from just one of the seven states in the region. This is a celebration of customs, cultures and everyday life of the seventeen communities that inhabit the hills of Nagaland. For ten days every December, the slopes of Kisama Village reverberate with gentle murmur of folks songs alternating with cries of hunters displaying their skills in the arena.

Every December, we conduct a week long mentored photography tour that offers excellent opportunities to learn the nuances of photographing people and cultures. The tour also helps you experience the rich culture of North-East India from up-close. We travel with a cultural guide having an in-depth knowledge of North-East India, its history and culture. It’s an awesome journey that offers unparalleled photography opportunities and unique people encounters. To be a part of this tour, visit “Photography in North-East India and Hornbill Festival” and find out more details.

Naga people at a performance during Hornbill Festival.

What makes Hornbill Festival an endearing experience is in the way the festival is not limited to an on-stage ensemble that isolates itself and doesn’t connect with its audience beyond the performance. During the days of the festival, each of the seventeen communities setup their own corner at the festival venue that permits personal interactions between visitors and the performing artists.

Performers in their morung at the festival venue.

Morungs, roughly translated as dormitories, are places where a community’s performing members come to rest between performances and occasionally conduct small ritual activities. In Naga tradition, a morung is a community building in a village that serves as a dormitory and a place for schooling young men. A morung also doubles up as a place of gathering for the community, from where villagers conduct meetings or announce events in the village.

At the venue of hornbill festival, each community has built a faux-morung that serves as their retiring room between performances. These morungs make an excellent place to interact with performers and get to know about their traditions better. They are also places where you can witness some Naga rituals and performances up-close.

Drummers performing at a morung during hornbill festival.

Events in the village, such as death of a villager or warning about an enemy attack were announced by beating a large log drum in the morung. In some morungs at the festival, log drums installed offer a glimpse of how life may have been in the remote villages of Nagaland in the past.

Performers at the hornbill festival.

A performed at the hornbill festival with morungs in the background.

Performers at the festival are usually in their best traditional garb. Often, their headgear is of great attraction. Once upon a time people used bird feathers to decorate their headgear, which is no longer seen commonly today.

A visit to Hornbill Festival is also an opportunity to visit villages in the region. Most of Nagaland’s population is agrarian, and paddy is one of the most commonly cultivated crops. Being mountainous, fields are usually terraced and are located in a valley below the village.

Inside a Naga house.

A typical Naga village will have a few scores of houses and is often in the middle of wilderness. Although it’s common to see houses built with concrete these years, many of them are structures made with bamboo and other locally available materials.

A Naga village chief in his house.

Naga villages have a well established social order led by a village chief. This is a system that continues till date. In the past, new villages were established when an existing village outgrew its ability to feed the population, given the limited area available to grow paddy in the vicinity. This village chief (in the photograph above) left the village where he grew up, set out with a small group of people and established a new village by clearing the forests.

A Naga woman with her son.

A village priest who performs rituals of pre-christian religious practices

Much of Nagaland today follows Christianity. However, the indigenous religious practices persist in many places. It’s not uncommon to find priests in remote villages who perform rituals and practices before much of Nagaland embraced Christianity.

Majuli and its Vaishnava Monasteries

A stark contrast to Hornbill Festival’s exuberant and colourful atmosphere is a quiet and slow-paced Majuli Island in the plains of Assam. The island, formed by the waters of Brahmaputra River, is the largest river-formed island in the world. More than five hundred years ago, saint Sreemanta Sankardev established Satras, monastic institutions of Majuli that thrive even today.

Monks performing daily prayer at a monastery in Majuli.

Sankardev spread his teaching through a tradition of song and dances that continues to be practiced in Majuli today. Daily prayers in the monasteries are an elaborate ritual of singing that can last for more than an hour.

Inside a monastery in Majuli.

A prayer hall and a sanctum together form the heart of every monastery.

A dancer-monk from Majuli

Singing, dancing and performing in plays are integral to a monk’s life. On occasions, villages in Majuli organize festivals that involve singing-dancing celebrations that propagate the messages of Sankardev. Monks of Majuli often travel across the world and invite performers from elsewhere on residencies.

Young monks practicing yoga at a monastery in Majuli

Monks begin at an early age. Parents from across Assam bring their children and leave them at the care of monasteries.

Monks at a monastery in Majuli

The monks usually live in groups of 4–5 sharing a house in the premises of the monastery. Such collective can be loosely referred as monk families. A monk family may even have its own paddy fields in the vicinity of the monastery.

A monk family returning from work in the fields.

A lady works in a monastery’s fields in Majuli.

December is the harvesting season, when local families of Mising community come to work in paddy fields that belong to the monastery. Nearly all the work is done manually, starting from harvesting to carrying the crop and removing the grains.

Brahmaputra River at Majuli

Brahmaputra River surrounds Majuli in all directions and defines much of the life in Majuli. Access to the island is by an hour-long ferry ride across the river. Annual floods during the monsoon and retreats in the subsequent months are an important part of Majuli’s way of life.

Every December, we conduct a week long mentored photography tour that offers excellent opportunities to learn the nuances of photographing people and cultures. The tour also helps you experience the rich culture of North-East India from up-close. We travel with a cultural guide having an in-depth knowledge of North-East India, its history and culture. It’s an awesome journey that offers unparalleled photography opportunities and unique people encounters. To be a part of this tour, visit “Photography in North-East India and Hornbill Festival” and find out more details.

It was about seven years ago that I walked on the now well-known Chadar Trek–a fascinating walk on the ice-sheets of Zanskar in winter months. We walked for nearly two weeks, crossing over from Indus Valley to the habitations in Zanskar region. We walked over thick and thin ice and sometimes had to face climbing challenges where the ice-surface was completely broken.

In the year that we were there, we noticed no more than a handful of trekkers along the path and occasional Zanskar-locals trying to get to Leh on the ice-road. It was a near-empty path on the ice.

The recent years, I have been told, have seen an explosion of people trying to get on Chadar. It has come with its share of environmental consequences, such as porters cutting away the last of the trees for firewood and too much human activity degrading the ice surface. Some travellers have complained about accumulating trash and human waste. The narrow river gorge has very little plain spaces in its banks and trekkers have even had difficulties finding ground to pitch tents in the crowded camping locations.

Looking back at all this and my own journey across the ice-river, it is obvious that I have been one of the contributors to the transformation of a region of astounding beauty into just-another-place that contributed to human need for entertainment. Being one of the early visitors to the area and having written about it and talked about it many forums, I have perhaps had my contributions to popularizing the region as well (you can see several stories by searching within this blog).

This brings me to a larger question, where I only have questions at the moment without any answers. How do we make our insatiable desire to be everywhere a sustainable one that leaves no damaging footprints? The work is on; I am, as lot of travellers are, increasingly looking forward to making our journeys environment conscious, and hoping to taking more concrete steps in the direction with progress in time.

My first brush with Changpa nomads happened a decade ago, when I spotted their rebo–traditional yak-wool tents–at a distance on the long road from Manali to Leh. They had pitched tents on the famous Morey plains faraway from the road that made them look like black spots in the landscape. But smoke rising from the cow-dung stoves revealed what they are. Until that time, I had heard time and again that there are no settlements in the highlands on the difficult road from Manali to Leh. I learned few years later that they were not here just for the warm summer months, but continue to live at high altitudes even in winters, braving temperatures of -25C and lower. 

Over the years, I had many encounters with Changpa people during my wanderings in the high-altitude Changthang region adjoining Tibet. A few weeks after I first saw their tents, I had an opportunity to wander in one of their settlements in a place of spell-binding beauty. The land they had chosen was carpeted with lush green grass on a kind of soft ground where you relish walking bare foot. Small streams–springs that emerged from gaps in the ground–crisscrossed the fresh landscape. When you looked up, mountains in every direction were adorned with thick cover of snow on their peaks. The skies appeared eternally blue. Yaks, cows, a few sheep that had not made their way up the mountains and a handful of donkeys grazed happily on the tender grass. 

I was lost in the joy of the landscapes wandering aimlessly, when a freak storm hit us unaware. The raindrops were thick enough to hurt and was so cold that my entire face grew numb in a matter of minutes. But in good time, we were called by a friendly Changpa lady into her tent and were rejuvenated with a cup of hot milk. 

In the last decade, I have had many such chance encounters and as many planned visits to the Changpas in the unforgiving landscapes of Ladakh. Friends from the community have always welcomed me to the region and have taken me around to places that doesn’t get much attention from outsiders.

Despite being exposed to their way of life for a nearly decade now, I continue to be amazed by their resilience to the harsh weather and tough terrain they live in. In the last few years, a handful of Changpa have attempted to explore an urban lifestyle that offered better comforts, made possible with a boom in tourism in the highlands. And surprisingly, some of them have returned to Changthang to find comfort in their traditional shepherding lifestyle. 

Every year, we spend a week with Changpa people, living in their settlements, learning about their culture and photographing their everyday life. Join us on a photography tour to witness, understand and capture the Life of Changpa Nomads on this Photography Tour. Here is a short video that offers a glimpse of their lifestyle. 

See it on YouTube for a larger version. If you are reading this over email and can’t see the embedded video preview above this line, you may have to visit the webpage or see on YouTube. 

It was a beautiful winter afternoon in the highlands of Ladakh, when sun was shining bright and everything was going just the way we wanted. Driving through Changthang plateau at an altitude of 14,000 feet, we stopped at a small village to handover prints to people whom we had photographed during a previous visit. We had a whole lot of photo prints, which meant we had a chance to meet many of the village folks. At this moment, a bunch of curious children gathered to take a peek at the beautiful prints and thus ensued another session to create more prints. 

The kids were happy to see the prints we had brought that day. They were excited to be photographed and we were more than eager to freeze those happy faces. At the blink of an eye, they were all ready to show their teeth and say ‘cheeees’ to the camera one by one. Not cheese; they all said Tashi Delek (a Tibetan/Ladakhi greeting, roughly translates as ‘good luck’) to our cameras. I had to be quick to make sure we have them at their enthusiastic best, before they got distracted with something else, and completed the entire shoot in less than five minutes. The energy was high and the bounty of joy showed up in their faces. Here is what we managed to capture. 

See it on YouTube for an HD version. If you are reading this over email and can’t see the embedded video below, you may have to visit the webpage or see on YouTube. 

 The video was made, when I was leading a Himalayan Photography Tour for Darter Photography. 

The eagles–a golden eagle in this case–are usually picked up from the nest at an early age. A falconer keeps them for about twenty years and subsequently releases them in the wild. This is a practice that perhaps helped perpetuate their population in the wild during the times when eagle hunting was a common practice across Central Asia. 

These eagles have a wingspan of about five feet, almost as long as a man’s hands stretched wide open. You hear a powerful swoosh and feel the air currents when they flap the wings and dive into the prey.

Despite their size, they only weigh about five to eight kilos, and yet feel heavy on the hand on which they are perched. I had the privilege to hold this one briefly, and the the bird weighed down heavily on my hands. It must have been some effort for this falconer to raise the eagle high-up, where he held it for quite some time. 

Perhaps the eagles develop a good bonding with the falconer as the bird grows up with him. This eagle was very friendly and did not mind us getting closer or petting its feathers. As you get closer, it’s evident how powerful these birds are: the beaks are visibly strong and the talons are tough as metal and as large as human palms. It can easily lift away a fox or a goat with very little effort.

During a hunt, the falconer usually goes up a hill for a better view, and releases the eagle to catch and bring back the prey. A successful hunt is rewarded with a piece of meat that the bird devours eagerly. It’s a spectacle to watch the bird swoop in on a prey at the blink of an eye.