Adam Monk Photo Tours & Images Gallery

During many of the festivals in Bhutan (a country with lots of festivals), they act out their traditional stories in dance.  Most of the stories are quite incomprehensible to the uninitiated without a guide explaining them, but they are fantastic to watch and exciting to be a part of the enthusiastic crowd as the dancers whirl around the coutyard with their costumes flaring out in bright vibrant colours and patterns.

Monasteries, Dzongs and Festivals

For many of the festivals, especially those in the Monasteries and Dzongs (temple fortress), the dancers are often the local Monks.  During my recent photographic tour of Bhutan we all saw many temples and Dzongs, but generally photography is forbidden within the inner sanctums of the temples themselves (fair enough i reckon, got to have some privacy).  Well imagine our surprise when we were standing (quiet and respectful) outside the temple door of the Trongsa Province Dzong watching while the Monks rehearsed their dances, when one of the senior Monks invited us in to take photos!

The light was streaming through the ancient windows behind the Monks and falling onto the old planked hardwood flooring creating a stunning backdrop to set off the deep red and saffron robes of the whirling Monks.  It was a magical experience, and was very hard to leave.

Bhutan Photo Tour 2013 dates released

The itinerary and the dates for the Bhutan Photography tour for 2013 have been finalised and booked.  I have reworked the whole itinerary and reduced the numbers of this photographic tour down to a maximum of 10 people to ensure a better and more rewarding experience for all.  You can read about this exciting new photo tour to Bhutan right here.

The Bhutanese love to eat chilli, they eat it with almost every meal, but more like a vegetable (actually a fruit) rather than a seasoning. The chilli  is actually the main dish.  To achieve this they need a lot of chillies, so almost every small farm holding throughout rural Bhutan has at least one field of chillies, some have very big fields of Chillies, and every market will have a large selection from green to red, and from fresh to dried.

The image on the left shows the Iron Bridge Monastery in Paro province during the chilli harvest.  The field in the bottom left is al chilli bushes, and the red spreading down the hill from the monastery are the freshly harvested chillies drying in the sun. Click on the image to see a bigger version.

Not everyone has a big piece of land to dry their chillies on, so what better place to dry your chillies than on the roof of your house… or convent?

This is one of the few Buddhist Nunneries in Bhutan (in Thimpu, the capital) and this young Buddhist Nun has been sent up to the roof to collect the chillies that are dry and ready for storage for the winter.  Seems like it was a nice spot in the sun to rest and contemplate for a while… and blow bubbles.

If you would like to visit Bhutan with me next year go to my Bhutan Photo Tour page for details.

The Vietnam and Cambodia Photographic tour that I am leading is approaching fast, we depart Perth 27th April 2013 and arrive back in Perth 11th May 2013.  This tour is a great combination of fantastic photo opportunities, cultural experiences and culinary delights combined with lots of free time to explore these locations in your own time and to download images, To read more about this photographic tour click HERE>

Information Sessions

I am having an information night on this Tour at 10.00am and again at 6.30pm, on Tuesday Dec 18th in Leederville.  If you would like to register for one of these sessions please call Maxiema  on 0415 854 179 or you can email tours@adammonk.com

Bhutan is a great country to be an animal, stray animals are cared for and fed by just about everybody and i have never seen so many happy well fed stray dogs.  The bhutanese almost never or rarely eat meat, usually only when an animal dies by accident or old age, and i’m pretty sure they never eat cat!

If you would like to meet and photograph the cats of Bhutan join me on on one of my Bhutan photo tours. 15 days of adventure through the magical Himalayan Kingdom of Bhutan.

I thought it was time to put up some shots from my recent photography tour to Bhutan that were not portraits, so here we go…  Bhutan is situated at the Southern base of the Himalaya range, squashed between India, Tibet and Nepal, so as you would expect most of the country is mountainous.

They have the knack of terracing out rice fields on the edge of mountains and these are visible all along the winding roads of rural Bhutan.  The houses are all built in traditional style, which is unique and quite beautiful, really defining the countryside as different to anywhere else.

Rivers of Bhutan

Rivers and waterfalls are everywhere, the countryside is full of them rushing out of the mountains.  Many of them are fed from glacial or snow melt and most of them run all year long.  Bhutan is a very lush and fertile country indeed.

Dont forget to click on the images to get a larger view.  more soon…