UnSpace

For the first 25 years of Bangladesh after it's independence from Pakistan in 1971, no government lived through it's tenure: coup upon coup ravaged the nation. Some coups were four days apart. So when I found Virtual Bangladesh, I was astounded! They're willing to tell you the truth!

In an emotionless, unbiased fashion, they tell you the whole truth of their history. They also present all the good things about the country. For a third-world country to have a fantastic website is unheard of. There are professional looking pictures, thoroughness, and very good English.

They are able to tell the truth. For example,

The party in power usually takes advantage of state resources to suppress opposition activities. Opposition to ruling government policies are often portrayed as anti-state treasonable activities and the state police machinery is used to make politically motivated arrests and repression of opposition members.

I trust what they have to say good about the country because they are willing to say what's bad about it.

The web site is excellent, and worth a look. Surf around and learn more about this country!

Searching the web for good pictures for the Armchair Traveller calendars I create for my family revealed something surprising. In some locations, photographers appear to go out of their way to take terrible photos.

If you're a budding photographer wanting to make a name for yourself, do not by any means go to Viet Nam. Pulitzer-prize winning photographers retire there. Very few bad photographs are available on the web from Viet Nam. Even photos from the Viet Nam war haunt the American consciousness because they are such good (if painful) photographs. More recent photos from Viet Nam are wondrous.

If you can use a camera at all, you should go to Nigeria. You will be the only person ever to go to Nigeria who can. For the 2008 edition of The Armchair Traveller¹, I'm trying to find pictures of the Durbur festival, which ought to be one of the most gorgeous sights possible. Nobody who has ever seen the Durbur festival can take a picture worth a darn. I've seen some spectacularly bad photos of a spectacularly beautiful fesitval. I finally found one photo of the Durber festival: not good, but it at least rises to the level of "decent."

There was a Jain temple in India that was obviously photogenic, but there are no good pictures of it anywhere. My husband came up with a very interesting theory that, perhaps in the Jains prohibit taking good pictures of sacred things. I doubt that. It's the Jains themselves that have any decent photos of their temple at all.

There is a gorgeous little temple island called Tana Lot in Bali that's notorious for people taking pictures in the afternoon. Tana Lot in the sunset is nothing but shadows. In the morning light, it would be gorgeous. I had to search high and low to find anything that was remotely usable on Tana Lot.

For all the cameras and cherry blossom fascination of the Japanese, it's amazingly difficult to find good pictures of a cherry blossom tree in bloom in Japan. It's not that the Japanese can't take good pictures. When they visit other countries, they take wonderful pictures. This may be a cultural misunderstanding on my part. If the cherry blossoms are merely an excuse for a good party, then of course no one cares a wit about the trees. Why photograph them? I've been told cherry blossom viewing frequently includes beer and karaoke. Perhaps the Japanese should give a robot a camera to photograph the cherry trees. The robot would have to get a better picture simply by chance. Claiming the photograph as proof of artificial intelligence would be trivial!

Finding good pictures of the Cropover festival in Barbados was difficult. The festival celebrates the end of the sugar cane harvest, and it's a time of dance competitions, music, and good Carribean celebrations. The best one can hope for with the Cropover festival is that anyone with decent camera skills is too drunk to take a photograph. It really would explain the photos I found.

By skillfully picking your destination, you could be the best photographer a country has ever seen!

Update: I just came across this statement on Nigeria-Arts.net:

Photography is an underdeveloped genre in Nigeria; though there are many photographers in the employ of government and the media, there are relatively few who approach their work as an artistic endeavor.

See? I'm not kidding.

1. Nancy's gotten a bit ahead on the production schedule there. Before we print up the calendar, we'll need to check to see if all the locations still exist. — Rob [back]

At the Eat 'n' Park buffet this morning, Nancy described some of the things she learned about Tajikistan. Nancy's been researching material for the 2007 edition of our family calendar, "The Armchair Traveller III." What she told me was so fascinating, I asked her to share it with the UnSpace readers. She dictated this article to me, and I typed it, asking questions along the way. Although I did some editing and formatting, this is her article. Thanks, Sweetheart!

Tajikistan is technically in Central Asia, bounded by China on the east, Afghanistan on the south, Kyrgyzstan on the north, and Uzbekistan on the west. It is arguably the poorest of the former segments of the USSR. The Pamir mountains and the foothills of the Himilyaias make this a terribly mountainous country. Lonely Planet says "If you like it vertical, Tajikistan has the landscape for you." In the southern lowlands Tajikistan is subtropical and the mountainous highlands glaciated. The northern part of the country is cut off from the southern part for most of the year by bad roads and snow.

The land all around the mountains is strategic. Many trade routes pass through Tajikistan. Conquerers love the land but they don't pay attention to the mountains. The mountains are so steep, oppressed people fled to them for safety and freedom. Normally mountains are where terrorists and guerrillas hide out, but these mountains are too rugged and steep and life too harsh for anything but survival. The people are Muslim but not extremist. The country is secular, and they like it that way. They're worried about radical fundamentalist Islam creeping into their country from Afghanistan and elsewhere. There's a picture on the net where some fool attempted to take a tank up into the mountains; the tank is overturned in a raging river. People have been fleeing to these mountains for over 6,000 years, and they live like it. They are so primitive and isolated that virtually every pocket of people has it's own language.

In researching Tajikistan, I came across the web site of a man who cycled across Tajikistan with a friend. If he had not had the photographs to back up what he said, I would not have believed him. The photographer and his friend are incredibly tough. I give them credit, they are biking some of the steepest mountains and camping in some of the harshest country anywhere. At times, they make do with virtually nothing.

In one incident, these two are fording a raging river. As they struggle across, they notice people on the other side armed with Kalishnikov machine guns. One of the men yells something; it doesn't sound good. As it turns out, he was ordering the other armed men to help the cyclists cross the river.

Jeff lent them his bike and I did the same. In exchange we got a crash course in how to handle a Kalashnikov. Two happy Tajiks cycling around laughing on the green hills and two westerners playing with a huge machine gun.

Tajikistan has breathtaking scenery, with georgous mountains, clear high-altitude mountain lakes, majestic glaciers, vertical cliffs and land too difficult to spoil. Mountain climbing, parasailing, and trekking are some of the attractions of Tajikistan. Some of the land has a "lunar landscape" quality to it. High in the mountains, it can get kind of desolate at times. Back in the USSR days, it was known as the "Switzerland of the USSR."

If you want an adventure vacation, Tajikistan might be for you. This is not a destination for the faint of heart. There is still a little civil unrest in the country, making it a occasionally dangerous. You should keep up on the current trouble spots. If someone says "There's fighting in such-and-such a city", then avoid that city and its surroundings.

People of Tajikistan are very friendly. You may well be the only tourist they have ever seen, especially if you go up into the mountains. Russian is widely spoken. If you're staying with people, offer $5 a night. They may refuse: keep offering, because they are dirt poor and need the help. Thresholds and bread are considered to be alive, so treat them with respect.

The U.S. Ambassador to Tajikistan is a former National Geographic photographer. Througuout the year, he takes photographs. The proceeds went to buy coats and hats for the villages where he took the pictures.