Patan is said to be one of the oldest Buddhist cities in the world. It is also known as Lalitpur, which means the City of Beauty. The name recognises its tradition of arts and crafts which continue to define the city.
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When I travel I am always curious about the people who inhabit the places I visit. I seek to understand their way of life and observe how it differs from, or is similar to, my own. But there are other people who populate my travels, the people who ONCE lived in these lands.
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One of the (many) things I like to photograph when I travel are the various buildings I see. Buildings tell us so much about how people live, how they work, how they worship. Or, if they are old buildings, how they once lived/worked/worshipped.
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Strung out along a ridge in the Himalayan foothills lies the ancient town of Bandipur. It has only been fully accessible by road since 1998. The ridge is just 200 metres long and barely wide enough to accommodate the main street and the buildings that line it. Behind the houses the mountainside falls away steeply. The small market gardens farmed by the inhabitants are accessible only by steps cut into the hillside.
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In 1902 Charles Jones, Ealing’s borough surveyor, published a book. In it he referred to Ealing as the ‘Queen of Suburbs’. His aim of course was to promote the area as a place to live.
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Bhaktapur lies a little to the east of Kathmandu. At its heart is a series of lanes and squares that seem little changed for centuries. Here more than anywhere in the country I felt immersed in the ageless atmosphere of Nepal.
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In one corner of the room a small TV broadcasts news and propaganda. Photo albums on the table are full of reminders of happy family gatherings. Some medals are proudly displayed on a shelf, while the drinks cabinet holds treasured bottles of imported brands.
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Is it ever OK to be late? It’s something I try my very best to avoid, but occasionally it can be a good thing, as in the case of Boris III of Bulgaria. This is the Hagia Nedelja church. The previous church on this spot was destroyed in a terrorist plot in 1925 to assassinate the king, Boris III. He was attending the funeral service of General Konstantin Georgiev, who had been killed in an assault two days previously, on 14 April of that year. The group from the Bulgarian Communist Party knew that in killing such a high powered…
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In 1132 a small group of monks left their Benedictine Monastery in York, fed up with the extravagant and rowdy lifestyle of the monks there. Seeking a more devout and simple way of life, they were granted a parcel of land by the River Skell where they built a small wooden church and applied, successfully, to join the Cistercian order.
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When Alexander Hadfield, a tailor, ordered a bale of cloth to be sent from London to his home in the small Derbyshire village of Eyam, he cannot have dreamed of the dreadful consequences. Nor could he have dreamed that this simple action would be remembered centuries later.
