I thought I had a pretty good feel for Provence (thanks in part to Peter Mayle). I did not expect to stumble upon, literally, ocher.
Northeast of Apt there’s this funny little area known as Colorado Provençal, just outside the village of Rustrel. Stephanie says she’s wanted to go for a while, but I don’t remember hearing about it until we flipped through a brochure in Loriol showing orange rocks jutting out of the green Provençal garrigue. A few weeks later, heading south from Auvergne, we sought out a campground in Rustrel to explore this Colorado-en-France.
If there’s a sign, then it must be for real
It wasn’t until we went hiking through the red, orange, yellow, and white rock of Colorado Provençal that we began to realize this place was more than just a pretty and unusual landscape: it was once a carrière d’ocre (ocher quarry). Thanks to an old map at the campground, we discovered it wasn’t the only one—a handful were scattered throughout the region. Another poster showcased several ocher-related sites in nearby Roussillon: a conservatory, a self-guided quarry trail, and an underground mine.
The red rocks of Colorado Provençal
I had heard the word “ocher” before, but I couldn’t tell you how to spell it (ocre, ochre, ocher?) let alone what it meant. I had the sense that it referred to an obscure color, but I didn’t know which: brown, yellow, orange? It was clear though that ocher was more than just a fancy name for autumnal fashions, it was something that existed in nature.
Shades of ocher
My curiosity was piqued. I wasn’t interested in the wine, the olive oil, or the fields of lavender that so many people come to Provence for. I wanted to know everything I could about ocher. Understanding it seemed to be a key to understanding something quintessentially Provençal: its color.
Agra was an overnight train trip west of Varanasi, which seemed to be a sign that we should stop and visit the famed Taj Mahal.
My favorite shot: I took this out the open door of our moving train in the early hours of the morning as the steel girders of the bridge (at least 30 feet over the Yamuna River) flashed by
The tomb’s pristine whiteness stands in stark contrast to all that surrounds it, but all that surrounds it is bustling with energy, while the Taj is surprisingly lifeless. Fitting for a mausoleum, I suppose.
A woman does the laundry; the Taj hovers in the distanceA bustling Agra street scene: water buffaloes in traffic
Back in May of last year I stumbled upon a blog post about Twitter’s new office. What stood out for me the most were the paintings of San Francisco’s classic 49 Mile Drive sign. (Funny, I don’t think I originally noticed that they replaced “49” with “140”, in homage to the 140 character limit of each tweet.)
At the time I was into local street signs, so I looked up the artist: Annie Galvin of 3 Fish Studios. As much as I liked her street sign paintings, I also really dug the linocut prints done by her husband, Eric Rewitzer. I almost ordered some prints online right then, but I thought it’d be cooler to visit their studio in person, seeing as though they were located in San Francisco.
Ta Prohm was the highlight of our third day at Angkor. Here’s where our guide’s services came in handy. We got off our tuktuk at one corner of the temple’s outer wall and started hiking along it. We walked for awhile before cutting through a gate, down into the first moat (now dry), over another wall, into the second moat (also dry), before we finally breached the temple.
Due to Ta Prohm’s popularity (spurred on thanks to the movies that have been filmed there: Tomb Raider and Two Brothers) as well as its structural instability, a boardwalk has been put in that walks people on a fixed route through the temple—complete with roped-off photo-taking platforms in front of some of the more dramatic trees. But we skipped most of this, taking an alternate route with few other people, giving us the space and quiet to enjoy these picturesque ruins and their giant trees by ourselves.
Stephanie is a treehuggerStanding between the humongous roots of a tree on the wallStanding on some fallen stones next to a tree on the roofPosing on the platform in front of the strangler figI stood amongst the roots of this tree during my first visit—now it has a photo platform that somewhat detracts from the allureStanding within the massive base of a spung tree
We spent all afternoon on our second day with the guide at Angkor Wat—nearly until sunset. Compared to my first trip, the weather was gorgeous: rich blue skies with beautiful clouds.
The expansive Angkor Wat from across the moatThe central Angkor Wat towers seen from the libraryAngkor Wat through a window in the libraryLooking at the towers of Angkor Wat from the causewayTourists posing for photos in front of the reflecting poolRedux of the original, “Angkor Wat, meet Justin Watt”
