Best Island – Bali, Indonesia – As voted in Travel + Leisure magazine's "World's Best Awards – Islands", 2009.
(via Yahoo News, India)
Destinations
Udaipur voted world's best city in travel poll – Yahoo! India News:
Udaipur, known as the "Venice of the East", was voted the world's best city for travellers in 2009 in an online poll by Travel + Leisure magazine, trumping last year's winner Bangkok.
Ghana vs Kenya – Bono on Kenya:
Despite Kenya’s unspeakable beauty and its recent victories against the anopheles mosquito, the country’s still-stinging corruption and political unrest confirms too many of the headlines we in the West read about Africa.
Bono on Ghana:
This is a country whose music of choice is jazz; a country that long ago invented a genre called highlife that spread across Africa — and, more recently, hiplife, which is what happens when hip-hop meets reggaetón meets rhythm and blues meets Ghanaian melody, if you’re keeping track (and you really should be).
… and …
Ghana is well governed. After a close election, power changed hands peacefully. Civil society is becoming stronger. The country’s economy was growing at a good clip even before oil was found off the coast a few years ago. Though it has been a little battered by the global economic meltdown, Ghana appears to be weathering the storm. I don’t normally give investment tips — sound the alarm at Times headquarters — but here is one: buy Ghanaian.
One of the "perks" of working with a big corporation like Oracle (ORCL) is that you get to travel a lot. Well, one reason why I decided to quit Oracle mid-2005 was due to all that travelling.
But a visit to Gurgaon, India in the last quarter of 2004 was a good experience.
That, and I got to stay in the very nice and classy Trident Hilton Gurgaon Hotel.
The hotel is beautifully designed (you'll feel as if you were on an Indiana Jones set), service was top-notch, the room was luxurious and staff were friendly.
This photo was edited in Google's Picasa program ( ) using its array of one-click image editing features, and subsequently resized and sharpened in IrfanView. I've just started giving Picasa a spin, and will have more to write about it in future.
Equipment used? Nikon D70 and the dirt-cheap, USD100 Sigma 18-50mm f/3.5-5.6 DC lens – I now own the more expensive Sigma 18-50mm f/2.8 lens, but I have tons of nice pictures captured with the cheaper version.
Other Fun Things To Do In Gurgaon and Surrounding Areas
Top on the list is to have a cobra round your neck – something I've always wanted to do for a long time.
And this was in Delhi. Be careful with the pricing though – the handler will tell you that it costs, oh USD5 to hold the snake, and when you're starting to really enjoy it, he'll put the reptile round your neck and charge you $10 later.
By the way, the prices I mentioned were back in 2004 – you'll have to factor inflation in if you go there now. The taxi driver took this image, and I'll always remember him for charging me more than what was originally agreed.
It looks like the 598px x 900px image dimensions of my pitcher plant photo is a bit too wide for this blog's template, so I've shrunk the picture in my second "photo post" to 500px x 752px.
This photo was taken with the Nikon D70 on a tripod. It was shot RAW, and the NEF file processed through Nikon Capture 4.4. Nothing was done except for resizing and sharpening, so I think I'll go ahead and append the EXIF data after the image.
Exif data
Nikon D70
Focal Length: 35mm
Optimize Image: Custom
Color Mode: Mode Ia (sRGB)
Long Exposure NR: Off
2005/10/23 23:07:23.9
Exposure Mode: Aperture Priority
White Balance: Auto -3
Tone Comp.: User-Defined Custom Curve – I used Komin's curve for this one.
Compressed RAW (12-bit)
Metering Mode: Multi-Pattern
AF Mode: Manual
Hue Adjustment: -3°
Image Size: Large (3008 x 2000)
30 sec – F/10
Flash Sync Mode: Not Attached
Saturation: Normal
Exposure Comp.: 0 EV
Sharpening: High
Lens: Sigma 18-50mm F/2.8 G
Sensitivity: ISO 200