Travel Archivy - Page 6 of 6

How to use the public transport in Bangkok?

09Mar By irma

Bangkok is a vast and at times chaotic city plagued by traffic jams, smog and lack of traffic signs. Exploring it on foot is really not advisable – not only can it be physically demanding, it can be downright health-threatening.

If renting a car is not an option, you can try local buses, taxies or the traditional Thai Tuk-Tuk, but the most reliable mode of transport around the city is the metro. The first two lines run aboveground, the rest underground. The metro is clean, safe and in many ways more modern that for example the London Tube.

Before embarking from point to A to point B, you need to find your location and destination on the map because the price of the metro ticket depends on where you are going. This is easy because all names are written in Thai and English. You can either use an automatic ticket machine to buy your ticket or ask the station staff and they will give you a token with a magnetic reader confirming your payment. Tickets cost a couple dozen Baht, which is comparable to ticket prices in European cities. It is possible to buy rechargeable travel cards, but they are not the best option for tourists.

At the metro entrance place your token on the turnstile reader, which will register your location on the token and off you go. At the exist station simply insert the token into the turnstile, which will verify your journey has been paid for and let you pass.

Because of the frequent protests in Bangkok, some metro stations have been fitted with security scanners, which are mostly ignored by travelers without any luggage. If the staff asks you to pass through the scanner they will ask you to do so with everything you have, giving the scanner a beeping fit, which the guards just ignore.

The Bangkok metro is fast, reliable and traveling on it is very pleasant, which cannot be said about the remaining available modes of transportation. Thai people are generally nice, respectful of each other and quiet. Unlike in Europe, it is customary to offer your seat not only to pregnant women, but also to monks and children. On the other hand, the elderly largely ignored and left to stand — different countries, different customs.

How to clean lenses on the road?

01Jan18.1.2015 By irma

Even if you are attentive to your photo equipment, you can’t avoid the necessity of cleaning your lens. Unlike the cleaning of DSLR sensor, the lens care is not difficult while traveling, you just need to have the right equipment. Let’s describe whole process step-by-step:

Step One: Clean by air

The gentlest way to clean your lens is blowing of clean air. In this way you usually remove most of the impurities without any scretches. Never blow by mouth! Always use the special blower.

Step Two: Brush

If the solid contaminants like dust stuck remained on the optics after the first step, gently remove it using special dust removal brush. I have very good personal experience with Lenspen which combines brush and non-liquid cleaning element from graphite.

Step Three: Moistened Cleaning Tissue

The special solution for cleaning the optics must be used for removal of greasy soils. The liquid transportation is not very practical specially for air traffic safety regulations and that’s why I’m traveling with Moistened Cleaning Tissues. These one use moistened tissue perfectly clean the greasy soils without any spots and if you have followed the step 1 and 2, you don’t need to be afraid of scratches on your lens.

In conclusion it is good to highlight that there is no need to clean the optics if you can’t see any impurities on your photos. Minor dirt will not endanger the lens or camera because they are far away of depth of field.

Less cleaning means longer lens life!

Do you have your own favourite style of cleaning? Let us know and we will share it to others!

Amazing photo safari in Botswana

11Dec18.1.2015 By Jan Brezina

To say the Botswana photo trip was a journey into a very different world is an understatement. The country is not as besieged by tourists as the more popular Kenya, so the wild world welcomed us with open arms as we entered a landscape barely touched by humans. We rented open Jeeps and set off on a Safari in the Chobe National Park and the Okavango Delta. As soon as we hit the unpaved road we found ourselves worlds away from civilization, both physically and mentally, instead of cars there was a family of elephants heading towards us. From a respectful distance we watched the majestic animals and waited until they deigned to move and let us pass.

It goes without saying that we did not waste this opportunity and forever immortalized the pachyderm beauties with our cameras. By the way, unless you are a professional photographer, it pays off to bring a wide angle lens to a Safari, be it a DSLR ultra-zoom or an 18-250. Botswana is an incredibly dusty country so frequent switching of lenses means lots of dirt on your camera chip. However, if you are a true Safari connoisseur, 120-300 mm or 200-400 mm lenses will be an excellent choice. Long-focus lenses are not very practical because of the haze and omnipresent dust.

We have encountered them on several more occasions because our camp was near a water hole frequented by every elephant in the neighborhood. In Africa, you have to adapt your daily routines to those of the animals, so we got up every day around four to watch their morning rituals, holding our breath in awe.

A couple of days after setting up camp we experienced another close encounter – a hungry lion strayed near our tents. Yet again, we found ourselves holding our breath, but this time, taking pictures was the last thing on anyone’s mind. Perhaps he was tempted by the smell of our dinner being cooked by our guides, who conjured up delicious meals including to-die-for deserts using only a piece of chicken wire stretched over a fire pit.

During our two weeks in Botswana we snapped not only all of Africa’s big five, but also more than forty other animal species, incredible sunsets and picturesque huts of the native tribes. Organizing a trip to Botswana may be challenging, but it is definitely worth it.