WORLD TOUR PICTURES - PART 1

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Steve got his wish and took a digital camera with him on the World Tour - only a cheap one as the theory was that photos don't need to be high resolution for the web. As those of you who think Steve is a cheapskate may already have predicted, the pictures it takes have mostly been DREADFUL ... so there are only a few from this.

A small selection of our "real" photos is also incorporated below ... and we have had to be VERY selective. Of 390 pictures taken, 52 were rejected for being inadequate quality or duplicating others and will be made into an animal collage for Mo, and 66 were rejected completely - leaving 272 for the album. Of these only a little over 10% (30) have made it onto the web.

AFRICA

We started with a day each in Tarangire and Lake Manyara National Parks. As we drove into Tarangire on our way to the Lodge the road was LINED with animals: more animals on one drive than we had expected to see in total during our 10 days in Africa. Everything: elephants, giraffes, monkeys, lions, antelope. Of course, this was just the drive in to the Lodge, not a game drive, so we didn't stop and take any pictures. That afternoon and the next morning, when we came out for our first game drives, there was barely an animal to be seen. Typical!

Our first view of the Ngorongoro Crater. This is the largest caldera (volcano crater) in the world and a place of stunning natural beauty. It is full of animals who have never learned to fear humans so don't run when approached, it is surrounded on all sides by the walls of the crater - creating a fantastic back drop whichever way you look - and it has a range of environments: rain forest, savannah, water holes and lush meadows, soda lakes - all within a few square kilometres. Our driver/guide, Martin, thought it was a little too perfect and, with its tame animals and walls, a bit like a zoo and he preferred the Serengeti because it is a huge expanse of real wilderness. We could see what he meant but Ngorongoro is still amazingly beautiful and rich in the wildlife we had come to see.

Zebra. There are SO many of them and SO many wildebeeste (especially in the Serengeti) that even Mo, a committed lifelong vegetarian, was left wondering whether it might just possibly be ethical for some of the starvation problems of Africa to be solved by eating them!

See, this is how tame the lions are. They lie in the road (the bare earth is cooler than the grass) and either don't move when approached or actually move into the shade of the jeep. They then will NOT move even when the engine is started and the jeep wheels threaten to run over their paws or tails. The drivers have to very carefully twist and turn the vehicle away or sit and wait until the lion is ready to move.

Open wide, please. He's just feeling horny - read on.

These two were just getting to know each other - ready to start the very long and repetitive lion mating process. They were both covered in mud and weren't planning to have showers. She stayed lying on the ground and urinated near his face then he got up and urinated near her face. Then he took a deep breath and sip of her urine to work out whether she was ready. Call me a prude but lion sex is just too kinky!

Hippopotamus.

Don't you just love that face? "Aah, is 'oo a poor tired puddy tat?" Er, sorry!

This started with us stopping to watch a black rhino mother and child in the far distance. Then one orange head appeared above the grass, then another and the next thing we knew a whole pride of lions was advancing towards us: 2 males, 5 females and 14 cubs. The cubs were fascinated by the strange, square, white animals (us in jeeps) and kept edging closer for a better look. But, just as the family got near to the road, the females had second thoughts, turned back and disappeared into the grass - ordering the reluctant cubs to follow them. Damn!

OK, enough passive viewing, time for you to do some work. This is not an empty hillside, as we first thought. Scattered throughout the trees is a herd of elephants. At first you see nothing, then you realise there is an elephant there, then another one ... and there's another over there. I think we eventually counted seven - how about you?.

Martin, our driver/guide, went driving round and round a sandpit in ever-decreasing circles and wouldn't tell us what he was looking for. Suddenly he stopped and said, "There!" and there she was: a beautiful (and we suspect pregnant) cheetah relaxing in the shade of the grass.

Mo sitting on the balcony of our room overlooking the Serengeti.

Out in the Serengeti: a giraffe.

Lions before they all went to lie with their buddies in the open.

A family of young lions taking it easy. Moments later some of them trotted off to examine the possibilities of bringing down a stray zebra that had wandered past in the background. The zebra spotted them before they could make an attempt on its life and they all came back to lie down again. It's a hard life.

Leopard in a tree. Between these two pictures the leopard came down the tree, had a half-hearted attempt at catching a water buck - which came bolting out of the grass barking its alarm for the whole Serengeti to hear - and then, just like any other cat, casually settled back into the tree pretending it hadn't been trying anything of the sort.

INDIA

Mo by the pool in Goa. It's a hard life.

After Goa we first went to Kanha National Park where we saw many animals but no tiger.

A sambar deer.

African roads were very bad but nothing had prepared us for roads in the heartland of India. It took us 11 hours to drive the 230km from Kanha to Bandhavgarh! There are long stretches where the road is so bad you cannot do more than 15km an hour.

On elephant back in Bandhavgarh National Park about to track tigers into the jungle.

Tiger and (if you look closely) baby monkey. Do not read on if you are of a squeamish disposition.

This was the male tiger of a brother and sister pair of 19 month old cubs. We had gone from jeep to elephant to track it into a thicket of forest. Just before we arrived a baby Langur monkey must have fallen and its mother was sitting high up in a nearby tree howling her anger and fear at the tiger. We all watched spellbound as the tiger, perhaps confused by the baby's behaviour - shouldn't prey run away? - and put off by the elephants, just sat there for some minutes unsure of what to do. Suddenly, as his sister approached, he decided, snatched up the baby in his jaws and ran to a nearby rock where he dropped it again. We all hoped that the monkey was now dead but, sadly, it started to move again. We had to return to the road and leave the baby monkey to its fate. Later, round the other side of the thicket, we sat in the jeep and listened to what the guide said was the tearing of monkey flesh and the crunching of monkey bones. Nature is tough.

Mo "cooking" at the lodge in Bandhavgarh after seeing tigers.

Same tiger the following day. Click here if you want to read the full story of Mo, the tiger and the BBC.

On our last night in Bandhavgarh our guide, Vivek, brought out his telescope and showed us some of the main stars and planets visible in the Indian night sky. The most amazing was Saturn and its rings which looked just like the image below. It had such definite edges and was so perfectly monochrome that you suspected a trick in which someone had put a sticker on the front of the telescope!

Some of the many amazing temples at Khajuraho. There are 82 temples clustered on various sites around the small town. Most were built by the Chandela Kings in the 10th and 11th centuries and are said to provide one of the best examples of Indian art and architecture.

Intricate carvings cover the temples, many depicting "challenging" positions from the Kama Sutra.

16th and 17th century cenotaphs on the bank of the holy river Betwa in the medieval town of Orccha: a lunch stop on the way from Khajuraho to Jhansi, where we took the train to Agra.

Inside the train from Jhansi to Agra. The perceptions we grow up with of Indian railways are true: very poor people all but living on the platforms, toilets that empty directly onto the tracks, a range of classes from hugely overcrowded "cattle truck" class to the Executive Class luxury in which we travelled ... and there was a cow in the booking hall - brilliant!

The Taj Mahal - everything you've ever heard it is and more. Built by Shah Jehan in memory of his wife, Mumtaz, and housing her tomb, it is all white marble inlaid with semi-precious gems. Its perfect internal and external symmetry is matched by symmetrical gates into the grounds at each point of the compass, and by a huge mosque on one side which is mirrored by an identical but unused building on the other side.

Shah Jehan's own son later imprisoned his father in Agra Fort from where he could look out on the Taj Mahal. In a supreme irony, when Shah Jehan died he was buried in the Taj Mahal alongside his beloved wife and his offset tomb is the only thing that spoils the otherwise perfect symmetry of the whole place. Kids!

And just in case you don't believe we were there: a picture taken by one of the hundreds of hawkers trying to take your photo or sell you something.

The smaller tomb of Itmad-ud-Daulah. It predates and obviously provided some of the incentive for the Taj Mahal's design and much grander scale. The locals call it "baby Taj", which is kind of a shame as it is very beautiful in its own right and, being smaller and less imposing, is more "personal" and less crowded with tourists and hawkers.

Our guide did take a picture of us outside the building but, as he managed to blur it, cut off half the building, make it look like it was built on a slope and take a large expanse of empty pavement, you've got another picture of a building without us.

We also saw the imposing Agra Fort, built on the banks of the Yamuna River, and Fatehpur Sikri, the deserted red sandstone city built by Akbar the Great.

Although, with the exception of Mo's BBC experience, we didn't see any tigers at Ranthambore, it was as beautiful a place as the guide books and many wildlife documentaries shot here suggest. The ruins of the 13th century fort and temples being slowly reclaimed by nature, the imposing hills and rocky outcrops, and the lotus-strewn lakes all combine to make it a magical environment.

The very nice Trident Hotel at Jaipur (postcard). It is opposite the ruins of a beautiful palace set in the lake (next picture) but does a pretty good impression itself.

The abandoned Jal Mahal palace opposite our hotel in Jaipur. In Jaipur we also saw the Palace of Winds, Royal Observatory, City Palace and Amber Fort.

The Oberoi Maidens Hotel in Delhi (postcard). A fine piece of Raj architecture with old photos everywhere of Lord Curzon and dead tigers. Unfortunately the hotel facilities and service didn't live up to the building's promise. It was probably the worst and most expensive place we stayed. But, then, that's what you get in capital cities - ever tried staying in a hotel in London?

We had a tour of Old and New Delhi, including a rickshaw ride through the old market, the Red Fort, the memorial park where Mahatma Gandhi was cremated, and the very spacious British-designed and built government buildings.

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Go to World Tour Pictures: Part 2.