A million candles

Tonight more than 100 places in Switzerland displayed candles in support of “Eine Million Sterne,” a Caritas initiative to express solidarity with the poor in Switzerland and around the world. Here are some photos of the candle displays and Christmas lights in the center of Basel’s Old Town.

 

Tom Fakler Photography website

I have just revamped my photography website.

There are new photos from recent trips, take a look.

In doing this, I had to change the location of photos for this blog, so you may have received an e-mail announcing the again.

Please let me know what you think of the site!

View camera on the High Line

While strolling the High Line in New York City a few weeks ago, we came across a young lady photographing with a 4 x 5 view camera. I assume she was trying to capture the light and shadow on the building on the right.

Light and shadow

The windows of the old restored New England sheep barn where we stayed recently has old glass panes which distort the light. Your eyes do not see it but the shadows show the distortion.

Desolation

The dictionary defines desolation as "empty, bare, uninhabited, deserted, alone and solitary"; these are all words that you could use to describe Wadi Rum. You could also describe it as peaceful, tranquil, serene and a great place for contemplation.

Natural bridges, Wadi Rum

There are some rock climbing areas in Wadi Rum, the closest we got to these were two natural bridges.

Camel ride at sunrise

We hired four camels and a driver to have subjects for our desert photos. The camels showed up at 06:30 and we were ready to go by 07:00.

Camels don’t walk very fast but if you take a photo of them and then want to get back in front of them and set up for the next shot, they seem to be moving very fast.

Setting out in the morning

Godan the camel

While in Wadi Rum Anita and I had the opportunity to ride camels. Anita was very lucky: she rode Godan, the youngest camel. Godan is about two years old and looked and felt like a very large soft toy.

The only problem with Godan was that he wanted to stop at every bush for breakfast. Anita was unable to get him going again after he stopped. The camel driver finally tied Godan to the camel ahead of him.

Godan with Anita aboard.

Jerash, Jordan: Roman column city

I have always admired Roman architecture, but when Anita and I visited Jerash in northern Jordan, I developed a deeper understanding of how important columns were to Roman architecture.


The city has two main streets  lined with columns; the longer of the two leads into the Oval Plaza, which is defined by columns.

The Oval Plaza

Typical capstone

The two main streets

Columns in front of the temple of Artemis

Petra Sandstone

Petra was carved by the Nabataeans because it was easier to carve sandstone than to build with it. In my view it also gave a very nice interior finish to the caves.

Take a look at some of the sandstone in Petra.

Smoking in Jordan

In the USA smoking is banned in most restaurants; in Jordan it’s on the menu, yes, many menus have a page listing the flavors of shesha you can order. Shesha is the tobacco that is smoked in a Hooka pipe (water pipe). I was quite surprised to see it so prevalent in Jordan.

I had dinner and watched people having a great time at Haret Jdoudna restaurant in Madaba, there were several people smoking.

Pipes ready to go

Glowing embers are placed on top of the foil which is on top of the tobacco. 

Smokers enjoying their pipes

Crossing the road

In Jordan as in Morocco, old ways meet new; I saw an example of this while driving near Madaba. As I drove along a wide busy highway I saw a goat herder bring his charges up to the edge of the road and order them to stop. They obeyed like a line of school children waiting to cross the road. As the flock waited for an opening in traffic, one of the goats stepped onto the shoulder, just like boys in a school clas. The shepherd threw a rock at it and the animal hopped back up on the curb.

It was a very busy road and I did not have the patience to wait for a break in traffic to observe and photograph the goats actually crossing the road.

What a difference a day makes

What a difference a day made in Madaba, Jordan.
The photos on the left were taken one day and the ones on the right hand, the next. A sandstorm had blown in from the Saudi Arabian desert.

Basel at night

The other night with a full moon I went out to take a few photos of Basel, Switzerland.
Basel Munster

Bridges over the Rhine

Les Trois Rois hotel

Day trip to Meknes, Morocco

While refurbishing our old house, Dar Borj Dahab, in the Fez medina, Anita and I took a day trip to Meknes, which is only a 30 minute train ride from Fez.

Place el-Hedim in the Meknes medina is great for people watching.

In the ceramics souk we found a sea of tajines, traditional ceramic cooking vessels.

Just around the corner there were rows upon rows of babouches, traditional Moroccan shoes.

Inside, the covered market is filled with spices, olives, sweets and dried fruit.

As I watched the couple strolling around Place el-Hedim I wondered if they were looking for tagines, babouches or something from the spice market.

Mobile phone recharge

Every time I get a new mobile phone sim card it comes with a different recharge process and codes. When we arrived in Morocco, I picked up a new Maroc Telecom card with just a few dirham’s worth of time on it. I had forgotten that Maroc Telecom does not provide coverage in the ground floor rooms of Dar Borj Dahab.

When the time on the card ran out I purchased a Meditel sim card because Meditel provides better coverage throughout the house. The card came with 30 dirham of time. I’m set!

I put the chip in and tried to call. It did not work! I listened to the message which was in Darija (Moroccan Arabic). I understood two things: first, from the message, I assumed that I could press 1 for an option, but no idea what the option was;  and second, that I would not be using the phone until someone helped me change the language from Darija to French.

When our house manager Mouanis came over, it took him about ten minutes and two calls from another phone to get the sim card working, but finally I had a working phone.

After making a few brief calls I checked the credit remaining. With just 10 Dirham left, it was time to recharge, so I purchased a 20 Dirham recharge card at the corner store.

The Meditel recharge card is the red sliver pictured below a credit card. The instructions were in a font that was so small neither Anita nor I could read it. I tried to send a text message with the recharge code as I would have done with a Maroc Telecom recharge. That did not work.  Ok we need help on this too.

Our plasterer Abdelkader was about to leave after work, so I asked if he could help. Abdelkader, who speaks Darija, Spanish and a little French, said “Ok”. He looked at the instructions on the recharge card and dialed the access code 555. He realized my phone was set to French so he dialed 555 on his Meditel phone and then pushed the numbers on my phone to match what he was hearing in Darija on his phone.

It worked.

Beng Mealea

While we were in Siem Reap, ABOUTAsia recommended two temples that made up a half day trip, Banteay Srei and Beng Mealea. These photos are from Beng Mealea.