A couple months back I was in Maldives and it was absolutely amazing. I will leave the activities and the location where I stayed for another post here. Anyway one of the key things which I realize, one, I should have planned my stay to be longer and two, I really do need a tripod especially when shooting landscape photos.

Here are some of the landscape photos I took at the various times of the day.



One thing which still mesmerizes me is that the water is so clear here. No teh tarik colours which we get from Port Dickson. You could just see the seabed through the water.



Another amazing point is how blue the sky was. Shooting during the day was an absolute joy with the exception of the heat and humidity.



Throughout my stay there, I was really fortunate to have great weather. It didn't rain a single day but the week before I arrived, it was raining almost everyday. I checked the weather forecast and was really praying for good weather when I arrived there.





Below are some of the chalets where they are built on stilts above the water. One of the best things about staying there is that you can just jump out from your room and into the water. If you could see closely at the image, you might be able to see two specks in the water, who happen to be two guests who were staying at the chalet and enjoying the water.





The next couple of shots were taken during sunset which provides a warmer feel to the images.















As mentioned earlier, because I didn't have a tripod, it was tough finding a flat rock where I could balance my camera and capture the images below at long exposure values.



Throughout my stay there, it was extremely windy and because it the winds were blowing at such a high speed, the clouds are blurred out due to it's movement.



The last photo shows the air taxi landing. Because the Maldives are made out of thousands of small islands, the only way to travel about is to travel via speedboat or air taxis.



Watch out for more posts about Maldives!

One of the places you must visit when you are at Cameron Highlands is the Boh' Tea Centre. Getting there is not an easy task and I would really advice against driving cars which are really huge as you might have to squeeze through oncoming traffic on a horrendous narrow path. Also car pool if necessary and try to use a 4 wheel drive just to feel a little bit more at ease.

But once you drive through the horrible stretch of road (don't forget to honk when you are approaching corners!), you reach the Boh Tea Centre which is surrounded by hills covered with tea leaf plantations. The sight itself was magnificent and you should be catching a couple of glimpses of the scenery on your way to the centre.



The moment you arrive at the parking lot, you get a view of the tea centre where you get to enjoy a nice cup of lovely tea as well as scones and strawberry jam.



Although the walk up there wasn't exactly an easy one, ok, maybe I was just out of shape. But the climb is definitely bearable and the cool air up there does help a lot.



But once you reach the top, you get welcomed with this incredible view of the valley surrounded with tea plantations.



When I was up there, I ended up taking loads of photos there that I completely forgotten about my tea and scones. Yes, I ate a bit but forgot to take the photos :P








The houses below are where the workers who worked at the tea plantation lived.







A quick group shot of us while we were still at the top of the tea centre.









Besides just the Boh Tea Plantation, there is another one which you will definitely pass by when you are driving up to Cameron Highlands, and that is the Cameronian Valley.



Personally I liked the view from here a little better and you get to walk through the tea plantation and can take really awesome portrait photos here as well. Make sure that you have good shoes on or else you might slip on the mud.








Frankly I am very proud of Cameron Highlands and it is indeed a great place to chill out, relax with friends and enjoy the cool breeze. Can't wait to plan my next trip there again and hopefully shoot more of the scenery as well as organize some portrait shoots there.

Also I will be posting up some portrait photos that were taken during the trip there as well in my next post :)

I had the priviledge of travelling to Phuket, Thailand, over the weekend for an assignment and it was equally taxing and enjoyable as well. The last time I was in Phuket was over 15 years ago and much has changed since then. The most noticeable change was that you can hardly see the aftermath of the tsunami which struck the area back in 2004. Much of the things have been rebuilt and resorts are springing back up everywhere.

The number of tourists were incredible as well and I always wondered to myself, "Why can't any place in Malaysia can be this popular?". Langkawi? Redang? Penang? Pangkor? Who knows, are we not that attractive enough to offer the tourists the same things?

Anyway at the same time, I managed to snap a couple of pics while I was on assignment there.


Sunset at Surin Beach


Ice melting by the beach - Think seafood being chilled on ice before barbequeing it and then these are the leftover ice


Bright sunlight from Surin Beach again


Senget shot of a senget horizon - Note, riding this without insurance is scary!

I have a couple more photos sitting in my hard disk but in total there are about 14Gb of data to go through. I definitely need to delete some of them as I am really running out of available space now in my PC!