Dharamsala is a Buddhist enclave in the largely Hindu country of India.

Yesterday Jennifer and I walked down from the Dalai Lama Temple to the Library of Tibetan Works and Archives.

We were there last year filming for PGS – this time we went up to the museum, which was set up by the Dalai Lama to preserve Tibetan culture, after the Chinese invasion. Tragically, they destroyed so many important cultural and religious sites.

I feel very at peace here in Dharamsala. There is a very relaxed unhurried energy here. And a healing rejuvenating energy. The Tibetans are very laid back and friendly – a product of their Buddhist beliefs.

The food here is also uniquely Tibetan; momos, which are Tibetan dumplings, are yummy! But they have a “butter tea” which is putrid. I tried some yesterday, and could only take a couple of sips. Truly disgusting…

But everywhere you see Buddhist monks walking around – and sometimes they pose for photos!

Last night we had dinner at our favourite restaurant in McLeod Ganj, and two Aussies sat down beside us – Dick and Ken.

They are on a bike trip from Delhi across the Himalayas. They are both from Nelson Bay, north of Newcastle, and are seasoned travelers. They are visiting Kashmir and Ladakh on their three week journey.

These are two blokes getting on in age who are doing their own version of raging against the dying light, like a lot of Camino folk. We wish them safe travels ~

Today was a big travel day, driving from Amritsar to Dharamsala.

It’s only a four and a half hour drive, but it’s as though you move from one country to another. Dharmsala is in a far northern state of India, close to the foothills of the Himalayas, and yet it has a strong Tibetan influence; not surprising given it’s so close to the border.

This is where His Holiness the Dalai Lama fled in exile after Tibet was invaded by China. We are now staying only a few hundred meters from His temple, and in fact He’s in residence at the moment. He’s giving a series of public teachings – and Jennifer and I hope to attend one tomorrow. If we can get in…

We’re here for the next few days to check that this part of the tour will run smoothly. We’ve already checked out the hotel we’ll be staying in – a new hotel open only three months. It’s  beautiful, the best one in the district, and again right near the Dalai Lama temple.

Just a quick update on Steve:

He’s back on his walker today, poor bugger, and in pain again. The medicos think he might have picked up a bone infection, and he’ll have tests next week to determine whether that’s the case or not.

But nearly three months now since his operation, he still can’t walk, he still is in pain, and still the doctors can’t determine what’s the root cause. They’re systematically ruling out what’s NOT causing his problem, and in doing this they’re hoping they can progressively narrow it down to what IS causing his pain.

It’s unbelievable. I’ve never heard of a situation like this before. And Steve has some of the country’s best physicians on this. Let’s hope they determine what’s wrong really fast.

I didn’t take any photos today. Well, I took two, only two but they’re both horrible. I always show you the best possible shots I take each day, so perhaps I should show you one of the two horrible shots I took today. It’s the most horrible of the two…

(note the power pole coming out of his head?)

I’m enjoying swapping emails with Michael Tamura, the psychic healer and teacher based at Mount Shasta, in Northern California.

Each email I get from Michael teaches me something new.

The other day he sent me an email – and in it he responded to something I’d written him, about how I learned to dispel fear while walking the Camino by asking myself: What’s the worst that can happen?

I said to him that when you answer that truthfully, and you examine that answer from all angles, without fear, then the worst is usually not so bad after all.

Here is what Michael wrote in reply:

I like your mantra, too: “What’s the worst that can happen?”  I’ve used that myself many times.  It buys us space in relationship to the fears that may arise in the mind.  And, space is not the final frontier – it needs to be the first!  

When we have space to be that which we are already, we’re not only fine, we’re magnificent.  When we don’t give ourselves that space to be, then, we become ill.  So, simply put, illness is an illusion we live in when we can’t allow ourselves to be as we truly are as spirit.  

When we believe in death, we reincarnate because we have to.  Waking up really boils down to waking up from the illusion of death.

Clairvoyance is not just about seeing auras, chakras, energies and spirit.  It’s about seeing the truth clearly.  The path of a clairvoyant is truly to wake up to the whole truth.  In the process of waking up, we start to see more clearly beyond our “normally” limited perception.  

For the “average” person, he’s looking at so many images in his mind that are what contains thoughts and feelings and everything he seems to experience that he believes that house of cards, so to speak, is reality.  

Amongst all of that, of course, are those that hold fear and judgments and everything else.  These are the “logs” or “planks” that Jesus was talking about when he said we had to remove the log out of our own eye before we can see clearly enough to help remove a splinter from our brother’s eye.  

Why is it that something about someone else bothers us so much at times?  That which is being bothered is really inside of us rather than anything about that other person, of course.  

Spirit is never disturbed or agitated.  Only that which we call the ego.  And, the ego is nothing more than those images that we’ve structured in a certain way to ensure its survival.  That’s why it’s so convincing – if we are living in those pictures. 

Today we finally got to the Golden Temple at Amritsar.

It has a power and a majesty that’s hard to put into words. For Sikhs, it’s their most sacred temple.

I went early in the morning by myself. Jennifer was needing some catch-up sleep.

Later we checked out some of the shops our tour people might like to visit – and we had a thali lunch in a down-and-dirty hideaway joint where the food was sensational –

 The naan-like bread is actually called kulcher – it’s an Amritsar local speciality, and this one was full of grilled cauliflower. It came with a spicy dhal, a yogurt based curry, and a glorious chick-pea curry.

In the evening we headed back to the temple, so that Jennifer could see it. Sunday night and it was packed, but stunningly beautiful.

tomorrow we head north to Dharmsala, on our pre-tour scout. We’re doing this to double check that everything will go without a catch. But this is India, and I have no doubt there will be a catch or two!

How can we spend an entire day in Amritsar and not go to the Golden Temple?

Well we did.

We’re saving our visit for very early morning light. Tomorrow morning. We want to see it in the most magical circumstances possible.

I did go out early with my camera though and got a few pics –

Today we checked out things that our tour guests might want to do; for the women, that might include shopping for traditional Punjabi shoes!

Jennifer had done her research and this morning we went to the best place in Amritsar to buy Juttis – all hand made. Beautiful embroidery and leatherwork.

We had lunch in one of the city’s best Thali joints – it was packed with people coming back from the Golden Temple. We had the traditional Punjabi kulcher with two spicy and very tasty curries.

In the afternoon we took a car out to the Indian / Pakistan border to see the Wagah Border ceremony. There must have been more than fifty thousand people there, with the crowd buzzing like they were about to witness an exciting footy game.

I’ll elaborate on this ceremony during the tour, when we take our guests back, but just to say it’s one of the weirdest, and wildest, ceremonies I’ve ever witnessed. Very colourful, very bizarre.

Tomorrow morning we’ll visit the Golden Temple. Very much looking forward to seeing one of the most important spiritual sites of India…

We’ve spent yesterday and today scouting Delhi in preparation for the tour, and this afternoon we hopped on a train to Amritsar,

Amritsar is in the state of Punjab, in the north of India, and the reason we’re here is to see the Golden Temple – one of the great spiritual sites of India – sacred to the Sikhs.

The train trip took 6 and a half hours. It was comfortable, the food was edible, the toilets were prison yard standard.

Not that I’ve used a toilet in a prison yard….

But I can imagine.

Before leaving for the railway station, we stopped in at Ghandi’s Tomb – where Jennifer became suddenly in demand to be in everyone’s photos…

And at India Gate, she had her hands adorned with henna –

And then the train, and a fascinating journey.

We’ve arrived late, and tomorrow we go to the Golden Temple, and to the Wagah Border ceremony…

Jennifer and I spent the first day in Delhi doing a pre-tour scout.

We met up with Rachit, who will be working with us on the tour.

We walked through Old Delhi.

Here are some shots…
(taken with Sony a7s with Zeiss 16-35mm)

Steve McCurry is one of the best photo-portraiturists working today. Here is a selection of his work…

Remember Kodak?

Kodak was synonymous with cameras. With all things photographic.

You bought a Kodak camera. You loaded it with Kodak film. You used Kodak flashbulbs. You got your pictures processed using Kodak laboratories using Kodak chemicals. You got your photos back from the chemist, or through the post, and they were in Kodak folders printed on Kodak paper – or if they were slides you used a Kodak projector to screen them onto your living room wall.

The term “a Kodak moment”  became vernacular for describing a moment so glorious it should be captured on film.

On Kodak film.

So in other words, Kodak WAS photography.

Now Kodak is dead.

Digital photography killed it.

But hold on – Kodak invented the digital camera.

Yes, that’s right.

Kodak invented digital photography.

So why isn’t Kodak the market leader? It’s not the market leader. In fact it’s not even in the photographic business anymore. It went bankrupt.

What happened to Kodak is fascinating – and we can draw personal lessons from analysing the death of a corporate giant.

Here’s what happened ~

In 1975, a 24 year old engineer named Steven Sasson, working for Kodak, invented the first digital camera. Compared to what we use now, it was huge. It took 23 seconds to produce a black and white image that was 100 pixels by 100 pixels.

First digital camera, invented by Steven Sasson

He took it to his bosses, who were singularly unimpressed. He said later –

“They were convinced that no one would ever want to look at their pictures on a television set,” he said. “Print had been with us for over 100 years, no one was complaining about prints, they were very inexpensive, and so why would anyone want to look at their picture on a television set?”

The thing was, Kodak had held a dominant position in the photographic market for more than 100 years. They were making money on every stage of the photographic process. They didn’t want to take on anything which could in any way threaten their stranglehold.

However, they had the good sense to keep Mr. Sasson working on the digital side of things, and It would take him a further 14 years to develop the first consumer Digital Single Lens Reflex camera –

First DSLR, made by Kodak

Kodak was ahead of Nikon, and Canon. They were the first to market. So what happened? Why didn’t Kodak capitalise on their invention?

They were complacent.
They were tops.

They were stolid.
They never made decisions fast. Why should they?

They were insulated.
They were based in Rochester, it was a company town, and they didn’t abide with outside criticism. They were Kodak, after all. The market leaders.

Kodak saw change coming – they knew that digital was the future – however they were old world, cumbersome, and they misjudged their place in the world. They became victims of their own corporate hubris.

Interesting, at the same time a Japanese company, Fujifilm, was also facing the same dilemmas. The Harvard Business School, and business colleges around the world, have since made case studies of why Kodak went bust and Fuji thrived.

Fuji now holds a significant market share of the digital camera market. What’s interesting is that many thought being a highly structured hierarchical Japanese company, they would not handle change, and that a US company would – the United States leading the way in technology advancements via Steve Jobs and Bill Gates.

But no, Kodak wasn’t nimble enough – and the Japanese were.

Here is a fascinating case study done by the London Economist several years ago, citing why Fuji prospered and Kodak failed.  The Economist article – Kodak vs Fuji case study ~ 

What personal lessons can we learn from this?

• We have to be humble.
• We have to be nimble.
• We have to be aware of complacency.
• We have to be aware that the world is always in flux.
• We have to pay attention.
• We have to accept that ego and pride are ultimately not strengths, but weaknesses.

You can have a lot of money. You can have a big house. An expensive car. You can have personal and professional status. All of this is transitory. It can be taken away from you.

What do you have left?

Kodak thought they were the big cheese. Now they’re gone. Personally, I have learned a lot from the death of a giant.