On the eve of my last trip for the year

ok, well, second last!

While bringing in 2009 on a train trip to McLeodgunj I made a few promises to myself...

among other things I vowed to do a trip a month, for every month of the year... I vowed to not get 'stuck' (photographically ofcourse) and I made promises to push my work further.

It started in McLeodgunj with the Dalai Lama's blessing, went into Rajasthan, down to Goa and to the construction sites of Mumbai, back to Mumbai and Goa then to reunion with some wonderful friends In New York, straight up north to Manali, further into Kashmir and then to the borders of Amritsar...

Now I'm off to photograph in Thailand and Cambodia and will hopefully round off the year with a trip into the jungles and bring in 2010 in yet another inspiring location.

I'm happy, but I want even more - I'm at my happiest when I'm out and about, making connections, meeting real people and in part discovering something new each hour, every day. Sometimes I feel I can't relate to the real world around me - yet I know that it exists.

I've loved every second of it - now hoping for a first class finish to the year! woooohoooo! 

With His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama at his home 

in McLeodgunj, January 2009