Loose_Grip/Pete's photos with the keyword: Southeast

The wind was blowing like crazy & the monsoon downpour had just stopped but these minor things didn't slow this farmer down as he planted out his rice.

General Aung San was instrumental in Burma/Myanmar's struggle for independence from British rule but he was assassinated just six months before his goal was realized. He is considered the founder of modern-day Myanmar. The Bogyoke Aung San Museum was the residence of Aung San and his family just before his assassination in July 1947. His better-known daughter Aung San Suu Kyi grew up here as a child. This is part of a beautiful circular wooden fence around a shady verandah overlooking the garden. HFF to everyone. Have a great weekend.

Walking in the fields off the Berestagi road near Pancurbatu southwest of Medan. We were recce-ing a trail for the Medan House House Harriers in this area. The atap hut has seen better days. In this view there are ground nuts in the foreground, maize beyond, with a smattering of banana & palm trees. The Barisan mountains are on the skyline to the south.

Borobudur is a Buddhist stupa and temple complex in Central Java, dating from the 8th century. It is one of the world's great ancient monuments, the single largest Buddhist structure anywhere on earth. Borobudur lay abandoned and hidden for centuries under layers of volcanic ash and thick jungle growth until The British governor Thomas Stamford Raffles instigated its partial exhumation in 1814. I thought it was crowded in 1981 but since it became a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1991 it has become the most popular tourist attraction in modern day Indonesia and a major international attraction. HWW to everyone. Enjoy the day.

A fairly early Sunday morning drive around the city of Medan. This is Jalan Letjen Suprapto although I notice that the modern spelling (from Google) is different from that on the street sign on the far left. I worked in the Mobil Oil Indonesia office further back on Jalan Jenderal Sudirman - the former pre-war Shell office.

We were staying in the Mobil guesthouse in Puncak in the mountains south of Jakarta. This was the view looking west towards Mount Pangrango (3,019 m/ 9,905 ft) a dormant volcanic peak, one of many on the Sunda Arc.

In the tropics it can be very hot and humid but when you dress for the weather it's not so bad especially in the rain... :-) Happy Wet Wall Wednesday to everyone!

We had been in Jakarta for a meeting with Pertamina and were now at the airport waiting for our Garuda flight back to Medan. We got a beer while we waited and as the doors to the departure lounge opened straight out onto the airstrip Ken took a stroll in the heat outside. I'm not sure where the barefoot little Indonesian girl came from but I thought the two of them made a nice composition.

We climbed Sibayak volcano a couple of times when we lived in Medan. This this was the first ascent and we met this group of kids on their way down. A photo was called for. The walk starts in rice padi fields but climbs quite steeply through forest and then onto open rock. The crest is at 2,212 m (7,257 ft) and in the clouds it gets chilly when you're wearing shorts!

When I first started working for Blue Circle Cement in 1970 one of my fellow geologists had just come back from an assignment in Langkawi Malaysia. I was impressed by his stories of this island paradise in the Strait of Malacca near the Thai border but never thought I would ever go there. Wind on 10 years & I was living in North Sumatra and discovered that a short flight from Medan to Penang followed by a shorter flight by light aircraft northward would take me to the small airport at Langkawi. It was well worth the trip and the unspoilt island was a delight. It remained a quiet backwater until 1986, when the Malaysian Prime Minister transformed it into a major tourist resort. A large international airport was built and the island rapidly grew as a tourist destination, and by 2012, it received over three million tourists a year.

We were en route by boat from Jakarta to Pulau Seribu in the Java Sea when we passed this classic sailing ship carrying timber probably from Sulawesi. It made a fine sight. Lots of other working sailing ships in the background.

I love the fronds of tall grass that grow along the banks of Inle Lake, delicately shimmering in the wind.

Passengers must only cross the line by means of the footbridge provided... but these ladies are taking the most direct route to market with their fruit passing in front of diesel DF.1264, Chinese-built for Myanmar Railways in 1995, waiting to depart from Yangon's main station.

Bike and sidecar in the streets of Rangoon/Yangon.

Burma Railways metre gauge class YD 2-8-2 967 passes northwards as darkness falls. The sun really had set by this time and we needed a torch to pick our way out of the padi fields back to the train.

It may look like a dug-out canoe high and dry in a field but these fields are actually floating on Inle Lake and the boat, like ours, is making its way along a narrow waterway. The fields are anchored into the bottom of the shallow lake by those hundreds of wooden poles. We had a great time in Burma but little did we realise that it would be the last trip before the covid lockdown. Now we are very pleased to have actually been able to take a holiday in 2020. Let's hope the recent military coup doesn't lead to any deaths and can be resolved quickly.