I'll be on the road for quite some time, and honestly, being older now, I'm not at every party, every night (never was, actually) — solo travel can get rather tedious and boring.
Subscribing does me a couple of favours: the ad revenue helps, but more importantly, it gives me a focus — something to keep pushing toward on the long evenings in the mid-latitudes.
Editing photos, sharing photo tips, keeping the whole thing ticking over — these become a welcome set of tasks rather than a chore.
So there's an exchange going on here: you subscribe, and keep me busy. I try to offer something worth reading in return.
Snakes Alive!
Pilgrim approaches the Virupaksha Temple at Hampi. He looks a little older than 70, so I guess he’s a lucky guy (read the post!).
Meetings with Remarkable Men
Photograph taken a few years ago in Rishikesh, of Pilgrims waiting for the scheduled blanket and food distribution. The old adage of ‘what you seek is inside of you’ doesn’t quite cut it for me. I think that you have to Be, and to Do, and to then receive what you need from the world, whether that’s material or spiritual. The ‘seeker’ needs to ‘feel’ the seeking, otherwise the ‘answers’ don’t know where to put themselves.
The Commitment Paradox
The Cycle of the Elements. Fire ignites Earth, Earth nourishes Water, Water feeds Air, Air returns to Fire. The pattern Murray committed to, and Goethe named.
The ‘Have-Do-Be’ Inversion
A roadside Dhaba along the magnificent Manali-Leh HIghway - almost 300 miles of high-altitude desert road through Ladakh in northern India.
A life-affirming adventure!
Made somewhat easier these days with a new tunnel that means you don’t have to navigate the deadly Rohtang La (Pile of Dead Bodies Pass)
FEWA in the Wild
Pangong Tso, Ladakh, September 2025. The huge lake spans the India/China border at an elevation of almost 14,000 feet. Bitterly cold and accessed via Chang La, a hair-raising road at 17,500 feet elevation (almost 3 ½ miles) which can only be used in late May to early October due to snow. (Tso means lake: La means mountain pass).
I spent a punishingly cold night there, with my travel-buddy Kath, whom you see at the water’s edge. We were delayed making the return trip back to the warmth of Leh, because of the icy road conditions, higher up at Chang La.