the candy trail ...: Featured Galleries and Collections

ART exhibition

mrp@thecandytrail.com (the candy trail ...) — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 00:00:00 GMT

< JOURNEYS ACROSS THE PLANET - TRAVELS INSIDE MY HEAD > MRP solo art exhibition: March 2006, Thistle Hall, Cuba St, Wellington, New Zealand.

> Gallery of my Digital Paintings

Cearà, Brazil

mrp@thecandytrail.com (the candy trail ...) — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 00:00:00 GMT

Brazil, Cearà, Jericoacoara & Tatajuba, 2003: I stayed here 3 months and lived with a local family, met a local girl ... ended up buying land within the national park, in Tatajuba - 40 km from Jeri, on the coast of north-eastern Brazil. It's a relaxed, surreal place and one day I'll return ...

Timbuktu, Mali

mrp@thecandytrail.com (the candy trail ...) — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 00:00:00 GMT

Timbuktu, 2007: Following a 3-day, slow boat, tranquil desert river trip down the Niger, I arrived in the ancient and mysterious Saharan trading town of Timbuktu. Indeed it is remote - an end of the world destination. Once a fabled city of great gold wealth and Islamic scholarship today it's a quiet, dusty outpost ... During my 5 days I mostly just sat around, taking in the ambience. But off course, I did wander the streets ...

Timbuktu was established by the nomadic Tuareg as early as the 10th century. Its name is made up of: tin which means « place » and buktu, the name of an old Malian woman known for her honesty and who once lived in the region. The two terms ended up fusing into one word, thus giving the city the name of Tinbuktu which later became Timbuktu.

Ganvie, Benin

mrp@thecandytrail.com (the candy trail ...) — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 00:00:00 GMT

Ganvie is a community that settled here some centuries ago to avoid enslavement by the blood-thirsty, slave-selling kingdom of Dahomey (central Benin) who sold their product onto the Europeans based in trade forts along the coast; because of their religious beliefs it was forbidden for the Dahomey African slavers to go out onto the waters. Today the people of Ganvie are very shy about having their photo taken so mostly these pics were taken discreetly from my stilt-house guestroom balcony.

Iraq 1989

mrp@thecandytrail.com (the candy trail ...) — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 00:00:00 GMT

Travels in SADDAM'S IRAQ, November 1989 - I hitch-hiked from Amman - Jordan, in two days the 1000km across the desert to Baghdad ... in the street there I met by chance an English guy called Gary - on his way to India, via Kuwait - and so he soon joined me for a tour of Iraq. It was crazy; constant police hassles - photos were difficult. After 3 weeks we were arrested by the Iraqi military in Rayat, North-West Kurdistan, accused of being Iranian spies and then journalists before being released after 30 hours to be kicked out ... of Iraq.

> travel story: Insane first day - IRAQ '89

DIGITAL PAINTINGS

mrp@thecandytrail.com (the candy trail ...) — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 00:00:00 GMT

2004 - 2005: ART BURST - a selection of my psychedelic, surreal, mystical, sexual, futuristic, realistic, crazy world travel perspectives created whilst living in a 400-year-old Portuguese church overlooking the fortress on the Arabian Sea island of Diu, India 2004; & then a village-pace, high ocean island panoramic sunset vista in Sihanoukville - Cambodia, followed by another sunset room overlooking the calm lakeside in the crazy capital - Phnom Pehn, during 2005.

THOUGHTS: the state of the world & the future of the planet

Getting high, living local life, making art from a hammock, the peace and quiet, the spice the view the sex, the drink; conspired to inspire me during this 1 & 1/2 years of art creation holiday. They were very free and happy days; and the subject matter here reflects my observations of the world and/or experiences in a random way of ideas across my years of thought and is not any comment on my then present living/travelling life of the day to day happiness of creating, enjoying, being where I was in both India & Cambodia (as that narrative is another story ...).

> MRP ART Exhibition

Togo

mrp@thecandytrail.com (the candy trail ...) — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 00:00:00 GMT

Doucki, Guinea

mrp@thecandytrail.com (the candy trail ...) — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 00:00:00 GMT

Doucki - 2007: Known as the "Grand Canyon of Guinea", this canyon runs for 70+ km amid the Fouta Djalon highlands. I stayed above the canyon at the village of Doucki with the fun host and great guide Hassan and extended tribal family for a few days of wandering.

Sanaá, Yemen

mrp@thecandytrail.com (the candy trail ...) — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 00:00:00 GMT

YEMEN, 2005 - I spent 6 weeks of overland travel from Sanaá and the mountain towns of Yemen down to the Red Sea coast and then thru the south-eastern desert of Hadramut to enter neighbouring Oman, before finishing in Shahjah & Dubai, in UAE ... Yemen is the ancestral homeland of Osama bin Laden - he was born in Saudi Arabia but his father is Yemeni - but, I loved travelling there and faced no outward hostility as a lone westerner.

>>> surfing yemeni-style movie

Antarctica

mrp@thecandytrail.com (the candy trail ...) — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 00:00:00 GMT

Seoraksan, Korea

mrp@thecandytrail.com (the candy trail ...) — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 00:00:00 GMT

Korea, Seoraksan national park - winter 2006 (first real test for my new dSLR: Nikon D80 w/ Nikkor 18-200 VR lens).

Mauritania

mrp@thecandytrail.com (the candy trail ...) — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 00:00:00 GMT

Mauritania, August 2007, damned hot, as you'd expect from the Sahara in summer: often 45 celicius. Close to unbearable unless there's a breeze but watch out if that breeze is in fact searing hot. Anyway, I checked out a few places of which the desert surrounds of ancient Chinguetti were the highlight. There were no buses and public transport was infrequent and uncomfortable in crowded, non-AC, old Mercedes taxis, squeezing in 6 passengers plus driver. What stays most in my head is the extreme heat and the stunning desert scenery, the trash mountains littering urban areas and the honest, friendly people. And also: the thirst I had from the lack of alcohol (cos it's illegal in Mauritania, although I found a few expensive blackmarket cans).

Rostav Veliky, Russia

mrp@thecandytrail.com (the candy trail ...) — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 00:00:00 GMT

Rostav Veliky, 2005 - I stayed a few days in a Medieval setting, in a room in a monastery, within the walls of the Kremlin (fort); and chilled-out by the reed lake, listening to the bells, the birds, the silence as I munched salami and cheese and drank red wine as the sun colored the domes golden ...

Tongo Hills, Ghana

mrp@thecandytrail.com (the candy trail ...) — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 00:00:00 GMT

Tongo Hills and Tengzueg Shrine, northern Ghana: I visited this area over two days with my local guide Rashid, meeting the King and his son, and later drinking beer and smoking joints in this surreal landscape ... where the local people believe in the spirit world and offer chicken sacrifaces in a sacred cave in the rocks above the village

Deception Island

mrp@thecandytrail.com (the candy trail ...) — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 00:00:00 GMT

Whalers Bay, Deception Island - Human occupation began here in 1911 with Norway establishing a whaling station, that closed in 1931 with the slump in whale oil prices. Then in 1944 the British Navy made a base here that after the war became a science research station to be occupied continuously til 1967, when a volcanic eruption saw the base evacuated and then abandoned as a mudflow destroyed most buildings during a second eruption in 1969.

Djenne, Mali

mrp@thecandytrail.com (the candy trail ...) — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 00:00:00 GMT

Djenne is an ancient centre of Islamic learning surrounded by rivers and famous for its monday market and beautiful, surreal mud mosque.

Ethiopia

mrp@thecandytrail.com (the candy trail ...) — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 00:00:00 GMT

During a 6-week period in 1994-95, I crossed fascinating Ethiopia as part of a south-to-north trans-Africa journey, visiting Moyale, Dila, Shashamene, Lake Langano, Lake Awsay, Addis Ababa, Weldiya, Lalibela, Gonder, Debark, Axum ... on route to Eritrea.

Central Mongolia

mrp@thecandytrail.com (the candy trail ...) — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 00:00:00 GMT

Mongolia, 2005 - stunning big-sky landscapes ... Stopped off a few weeks on-route from Beijing to London on the Trans-Siberian railway, and beyond the capital city - Ulaan Bataar, I did a rugged circuit of central and northern Mongolia in a Russian 4WD-van, with 3 other relaxed westerners. We had a blast!!!

Maliana, East Timor

mrp@thecandytrail.com (the candy trail ...) — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 00:00:00 GMT