Sunday, March 25, 2018

One for the Joseph Rock nerds

I don't delve much into the Rock-abilia these days, but here's a good book I haven't seen before: Plant Hunting in China (1945) by EHM Cox. Nice summing up of Rock's status as a plant collector - not very good! You can download it as a pdf here.


Tuesday, March 20, 2018

Monday, March 19, 2018

Some of my favourite photos from the Nujiang Christmas cycle ride ...

All taken with my trusty old Leica M2 and a 50mm Summicron lens.


This is the octagon building at Zhiziluo - a weird retro mountain town near Laomudeng. This forgotten village used to be the capital of the country, and it was known as Bijiang. The place fell into decrepitude after 1974 when the country admin function was moved down to the riverside at Luhshui/Liuku about 120km south.
Zhiziluo is now a relic of time's past, with a slight unreconstructed industrial/Communist feel to it. The people are Nu and Christian. This one street town is just 5km hike up a good road from the famous church at Laomudeng. One of the villagers will usually give you a lift up here -'re quite friendly.



Gongshan. What can I say? It looks so scenic from a distance, but close up it is has the usual Chinese shoddiness and pollution. This is taken from the 'beach' looking northwest. Over the hills to the Dulong valley and Burma. The memorial stands next to a tourist area but there are no tourists. The riverside area has million dollar views but no million dollars.


Gongshan again. This time taken from the top of the hill looking south, towards the river area where I took the photo above. You get  a bit puffed out walking back up this hill!

More photos from the Nujiang bike ride at Christmas

Missing it already!


This one is taken look north from the outskirts of Gongshan. I've cheated a bit by photoshopping out some ugly powerlines running across the middle of the picture. Taken with my Leica M4 and a Summic50mm lens.