Hi guys,
    [/tab]Am on a long well-deserved vacation back home in India after 3 years. As soon as I landed here, I was whisked off to a high-altitude trek around 15,000ft (half the height of Mt. Everest) up in the norther mountains in India - the Himalayan Range, of which Mt. Everest, K2 etc. are a part.

[tab]The places we visited are parts of the state known as Jammu & Kashmir very close to the Indo-Pakistan border. The trek took us over massive ice-fields and glaciers and pristine valleys way high up on the mountains. Felt nothing short of awesome/awestruck to be back in the lap of Mama Nature. In some places the roads were terribly bad as no proper roads can be constructed due to continuous landslides. These stretches mostly were covered with 8ft thick glaciers which have flowed down and covered most of the road before spilling into the ravine right next to it. Extremely treacherous - a slight mistake meant you'd land up right at the bottom of the ravine some 14-15,000 ft down. But all in all it was the most thrilling & breathtaking journey I've ever undertaken. It also took us over the Higest Golf Course in the world as well as the highest Tee-off point in the same - in a place called Gulmarg in Kashmir.

    Unfortunately, I was armed with very limited resources - i.e., a measly Sony cybershot, which nonetheless came up with some really cool snaps. But not what I'd expect out of my own SLR or some high-end SLR digicam. Still.. here are the snaps. ENJOY

A couple of sneak peeks



Full Gallery
http://img265.imageshack.us/gal.php?g=dsc00050resize0nr.jpg

Comments in my photoblog much appreciated.

More to come soon...

Regards,
m^e

Stunning pictures! Love'em! I just changed my wallpaper to the second sneak peak because it's so mellow yet..how do i put it? Artistic?. Of course i edited off the center tree because its really ruining the sight but i kept the original because the edited one doesn't seem as natural.

I've never been to India but the mountain trek must've been pretty worth it judging by the pictures (and the fact that you used a cybershot but still get the resolution right =)). The closest I've been to a mountain trek is like - the Appalachians. I went up there horseback riding once and we sorta went around the hill/mountain instead of going on top of it. But its still pretty great. I went in the morning so there is just the touch of hanging mist in the air which is just beautiful to go with the view!

Nice , i bet you would also like Northen Pakistan , especially the region of Baltistan, its the same region ..just divided by borders.
In the south eastern border of these mountains (Himalyas and Karakoram) you can find alot of histricla places, like where Alexander's army crossed into India and Old Buddissth Monistries ..and ruins of ancient cities.

nice pics btw.

Oh man, these pics are simply amazing. It must feel great to take pics like these with your own camera instead of buying them. Of all your pics, I just love this one:

This one

I'm using this as a wallpaper and think I will for some time to come. btw... there isn't any copyright on these photos right ? hehe...not that it'll stop me but just curious.

I'll have to go there trekking sometime myself. I'm way down in the South. Too damn hot right now.

Glad that you guys liked 'em. Indeed it's one of the best pleasures of life to actually be there and shoot 'em rather than just viewing them off the pages of some glossy magazine. But what's even more enchanting is being right there and immersing all your senses into the beauty of the whole thing. That I'm sure - no camera can ever capture. Hehe - don't worry about copyright.. I don't believe in holding back onto them. These are for sharing - coz that simply increases the joy of the occasion.

The whole Himlayan belt - whichever side you go to - India, Pakistan, Nepal, Tibet - are filled with breathtaking places like these. You could spend your whole lifetime travelling around there and never be bored for a single moment.

The cybershot I was using gave me far better results than I expected - coz the apperture was pretty limited (only upto 5.2). Although it's a 7.2 megapixel camera, for most part i didn't use more than 5megapix as I was running short on my supply of memory sticks. The only good part about is it's lens - which is an authentic Carl-Zeiss ED.. although the zoom is rather disappointing (only 3X optical).. So I couldn't get very clear closeups of some extremely stunning ice-capped peaks. Wish this one had lower apperture ratings as that'd have given me crystal clear visuals of the distant terrain - if you notice carefully, in most of the pictures the mountains far off didn't come out very clear. But whatever came out was quite satisfying nonetheless

More to come soon as soon as I manage to shake off the laziness and resize them. These pics came out around 2.8Megs apiece.

Regards,
m^e

nice photos. i went to the North West in December last year.

wow! the pictures are really top notch! when I look at them I almost imagine myself there. so good the space is represented. Loving lonely trees here and there Damn, this must be really awesome to be there...

All right - you guys have charged me up majorly and now you're going to suffer.. haha.. wait up for a coupla days while I get some more of those snaps up in my photoblog.

Thanks for visiting it though.

Regards,
m^e

Oooooh... I'm trembling!! We're sowwy

LOL

Alright then, sir. I'll be waiting for more pictures!! And again, compliments. Those are really good pictures!! I have a Sony Cybershot but like others said, it's not a very good digital camera. I prefer Canon above all others... What you really need are field cameras or photography cameras. Those are awfully nice but awfully expensive. However, the resolution is good and the sharpness is great.

Well, I never expected those place to be in India. Honestly, I thought India would be something like Iraq with grassy plains here and there, but mostly a dusty place. Heh, I have a lot to learn, yes, I know. Hehehe...

Keep it up!!

hehe... did you also think there would be snake charmers and flying ropes in every nook and corner?

Saw something of that sort in a couple of cartoons (yes I do watch cartoons if you don't mind ). Mind you they weren't even old! Quite recent cartoons... 'Duck Tales' and 'The Real Adventures of Johnny Quest'....just goes to show how much research some people do before they embark on portraying India.