Singapore-Nepal-Tibet trip 2001

In the Spring of 2001, I made what I then considered to be “the trip of a lifetime” to Tibet!

To put this in perspective, in 1973, I was taking a Hatha Yoga adult education class at Merion High School outside Philadelphia. At the end of the last class, I shared with the instructor (Don Wesley) that if I wasn’t back after the holiday break in January, that I’d be on my way to Tibet. I wasn’t back...

Somehow I remembered this, embarking in March 2001, to a land I’d heard about from my parents in the 1950’s. And more recently, I had been encouraged to go there and bear witness by the president of San Francisco Zen Center.

My son Tim had offered me his Canon SLR, but declined, saying I didn’t want to see Tibet through a viewfinder. He thought it was a good answer. It seems, indeed, silly in retrospect. Actually, I wouldn’t do a trip like this with borrowed gear (rented maybe), and only if it was insured.

What I did take along was my 5 year old Canon SureShot 80, a point-n-click film camera. The results are here.

I re-discovered these rolls of films their CDs with basic scans from Wolf Camera a few months ago. The scans are 1440x900 jpegs, so post-processing now is limited, although I do have the negatives, which could also be scanned some day.

I imported them into Adobe Lightroom and subtracted all the recognizable people shots. Was there anything left of value? For me, yes, some wonderful memories of sights and energies — extraordinary people and places.

Perhaps it will be my good fortune to return some day with our current Nikon DSLRs! Dharma gates are boundless, I vow to enter them...