Last stop: Ellora and Ajanta Caves

Another day of travel: Goa via Mumbai and on to Aurangabad.  The flight is delayed, delayed again, and we're concerned we'll miss our connection, but with a tick of luck, it turns out that the plane we're on will also be our connecting flight, so we get to just stay on board!  Phew.

Aurangabad lies in dusty, drought stricken Maharastra, indistinguishable from other Indian cities of about one million inhabitants, except for its surprisingly modern roads.  We settle in to our hotel, head out into the street in hopes of finding some reasonable eating establishment, and hit the jackpot a couple of blocks on.  The streets are alive with food stalls, mobile phone shops and hordes of people getting a start on their evening.  We scrounge up a couple of sandwiches along with a very excited waitstaff, and then melt back into the shadows and back to the hotel, doing a little background reading on the site we'll be visiting the next day, Ellora Caves.

The site lies about 40 km from Aurangabad, and it's a quick drive.  These particular caves were carved out of the basalt rock cliffs in the area, date from the 6th through 10th centuries, and are divided into Hindu, Buddhist and Jain groups.  The crown jewel of the lot is cave 16 (Hindu), the Kailasha temple, which was excavated from one immense solid rock, but today shows off free-standing covered corridors, phenomenal numbers of carvings, and a several story high temple in the center of the site with beautifully adorned internal pillars.  It is dedicated to the god Shiva. We climb in and out of the many temples, visiting all the sites that are accessible, and walk the couple of kilometers to the more remote ones.  Pictures tell the story best, so check the link below.

The following day we're off to the other world heritage site, the Ajanta Caves, which lie about 100 km from Aurangabad, on one of the absolute worst roads we've been on during the trip.  Even the driver says we'll probably need a massage after this 5 hour back and forth in the car!  The caves here differ from those at Ellora in that for the most part they weren't excavated out of solid rock, although there is some rock carving internally as well as externally.  The caves lie all together in a great horseshoe shape above a dribble of a river, and they are all Buddhist.  The earlier caves date from about 200 B.C., while the later ones are from about the 4th century A.D.  The most striking element here is the fabulous amount of murals and paintings that have survived in reasonable condition.  They're often underlit, and the passage of time has eaten away at the art, but the paintings are still wonderfully evocative of these ancient worlds and stories of the Buddha's life, despite the lack of clarity in many of our photos.  The crowning piece is a large reclining Buddha.  Again, pictures do the place more justice than words.

This brings us to the end of our travels in India.  We head to Delhi for our connecting flight on to Amsterdam, where we'll undergo a whole different kind of culture shock after our two fascinating months in India.

Ellora Caves: https://photos.app.goo.gl/wEmNQTbRC4VL2FF76

Ajanta Caves: https://photos.app.goo.gl/AfunEr9gwqCaNtBL7

Resting in Goa

Another air jaunt, and we're in subtropical Goa, a colonial stronghold of the Portuguese until the early 1960's.  We're headed away from the crowds, the party hubs, the hippie haunts of old, and thus, well south of the city.  The airport lies south of Panaji, Goa's administrative capital, which bleeds into Old Goa.

The beach is lovely, quiet, wide and clean, and we spend hours each morning and evening walking the shoreline, watching sparse numbers of fishermen, tripping over innumerable sea-stars, unwittingly rubbing the callouses off the soles of our feet.  The water is delightful, and it's a well-deserved rest.  We particularly enjoy the locals bringing their buffalo down to the beach.  Sadly, we left the camera at the hotel on the first occasion, when two young fellows had their pinkish hued buffalo rolling and frolicking in the waves at the shore--very very happily indeed.  Sweet!

We try to hire a scooter, but that turns out to be difficult, and apparently risky without an international driver's license, so we take one day to head into Panaji via Margao on the local bus, wandering to the main cathedral, the high courts, and looking over the vestiges of Portuguese architecture.

After this, it's on the Aurangabad, base for visiting the caves at Ellora and Ajanta.

Restful days at Varca Beach, Goa:
https://photos.app.goo.gl/JTYw9bN8BaK8Zimo7

Exploring Hampi

Another marathon day to get from place to place.  Two hours plus of car from Kumarakon to Cochi Airport, then flying in a small prop jet to Hubbeli, followed by just over four hours of car to reach Hosapete, the gateway to the extensive ruins at Hampi.  Travelling the road from Hubbeli to Hosapete in the dark is like a nightmarish journey through Dante's inferno, so we are nothing short of relieved to arrive in one piece.

Our hotel rises like a giant mushroom at the edge of smallish Hosapete, which is worth a big miss, other than its being a mere 13 km from the Hampi ruins.  Getting information on the ruins and how to see them is trying, but we decide we'll head out with a tuk tuk and then check how things work.  We're lucky to run into a generous spirited driver who gives us the lowdown on Hampi and how to see it.  He cruises right into the village where he maintains--and we later confirm--is the only place to rent a motorbike/scooter. We did manage to find a useful website www.hampi.in, which gives a pretty good overview of the scope of the ruins and points out some of the highlights.  They're quite spread out, cars and tuk tuks cannot access everything, and yes, it's hot.

We pick from the dregs of motorbikes and putter off, barely making it up the first hill.  Hampi, a city of the Vijayanagara, appears to have been around in the 14th century, and by 1500 was reputed to be the world's second largest medieval city.  It was a major center of trade but was ultimately decimated by a series of Muslim sultanates, and subsequently fell into ruin.   There are dozens of sites, some of which are crumbling, but others remain stunning despite the passage of time.  The first temple we visit, Virupaksha, is the only site that has been in almost constant use since it was first erected.  This morning there are plenty of local people wandering, making offerings and praying.  The temple elephant is out, too, taking cash in his trunk to then rest his trunk on your crown to bless you.

We make an effort to hit all the highlights on this side of the river, including a large Royal quarter, which includes Elephant stables, the Queen's bath house, palace military reviewing grounds, and lots of smaller temples.  By mid afternoon, we're tooling around the rural areas that now engulf some of the ruins.  We end our day with the spectacular ruins of Vitthala, with its sweeping courtyard, market complex and signature stone garuda chariot, which is truly gorgeous.

Back to Hospete for the evening, with plans to return and cross the river to see some of the sites on the other side on our second day.  There's a misunderstanding with our tuk tuk driver, who ends up taking the really long, but wonderfully scenic road to the other side of Hampi, but we straighten it out, and find another motorbike to rent, then heading to the Hanuman Temple, climbing the 700 plus steps to reach where the monkey god is alleged to have been born.  The remainder of the day, we explore some more small ruins, but mostly meander the small country roads, through the villages, watching the new rice being sown, the old rice fields being cleared, endless flocks of sheep, goats, cows and oxen wandering the fields and roads, while locals finish husking and packing rice.  It's tranquil, and a whole other India from what we've seen in the cities.  Without the mobile phones and ubiquitous electric wires crisscrossing fields, it could be a whole other century.

We return our bike, wander through the "hippie" side of Hampi, which seems to be an outpost for young backpackers--many of whom are Israeli--and finally make our way across the river, no mean task, since the boat owner is reluctant to cross with only two or even four passengers, but maintains he'll happily do this favor for 3 times the going rate.  Luckily for us, some other passengers show, haggling continues, but we win out.

Our final day, it's back to Hampi Bazaar --the Hosapete side--, where we're lucky to cross the river more easily, and spend a delightful handful of hours just wandering.  In the afternoon we return to Hosapete, enjoy dinner at the local restaurant down the road--Naivedyam--, walk around and around the small paid entry city park just a tad further down the road, before picking up our bags and catching the night train to Mysore.

Check out the pictures of Hampi, and the small videos of combined scenes we shot while zipping around the surrounding countryside.
The ruins: https://photos.app.goo.gl/sxLn3PsJD5Hgjq1m6

The countryside:  https://photos.app.goo.gl/AcDY4HJZ9PXPzbHy9

Tea plantations of Munnar

It's a long and bumpy ride up into the mountains known as the Western Ghats.  We leave the trop,ics of Cochi behind, but are heading into some rain.  Turns out that some tropical typhoon has come in near Chennai and is now moving overland and into the Arabian Sea.  This is the same area that hit a couple of months earlier with devastating floods and mudslides, but it's tamer this time around, although by the time we reach the remotish hotel, nestled between the tea plantations and forested hills, sheets of rain are coming down.  The afternoon is spent in the room watching the trees sway wildly, the rain cascading from the skies.  By evening the rain has let up and we enjoy a wonderful dinner in hotel in the middle of the trees.

The sun greets us the next day, and with a bit of information from the hotel staff, we walk down the patchy road to look for the famed views over the tea plantations that cover the hillsides here.  We reach a point where we follow a smaller track into a plantation for even better views, then eventually back track to the hotel, this time continuing in the opposite direction to see what we can find there.  We definitely strike gold.

Tea pickers dot the nearby hills, and as we navigate the track, we figure a way to get closer and see more of what is going on.  Our timing turns out to be perfect.  The workers are fanned out over the hill, clipping with an implement that is something like hedge-clippers with an attached box.  The clipped leaves fall directly into this box and are then dumped out onto a tarp that each cutter has with her(most are women).  They appear to be just about finishing up their clipping for the morning/day, and begin to tie up their bundles and head down hill to the track we're on.  Each sits down on her now open tarp and begins sifting through what she's picked, removing some stems, throwing out some weeds and the odd flower.  She lightly tosses the leaves while doing this sorting.  The manager lady comes barreling through the line of pickers, barking out orders we don't understand, but the pickers don't seem to pay her any heed.  A short while later the pickers line up to have their bundles weighed, then dump their leaves in common piles, where another bunch begins stuffing the mesh bags with the leaves.  Meanwhile the women collect their bags, their clippers, and walk away down the hillside.  Had we come thirty minutes later, we would have missed the whole thing!

Photos and video of the tea picking and hillside views of the patchwork of tea:
https://photos.app.goo.gl/RKJ2QhgHw8y7YeRA8

A window on Kerala

It's a long day of airports:  Udaipur to Chennai, then a wait to fly on via Trivandrum to Cochi.  Arriving after dark, it's another couple of hours through surprisingly modern urban sprawl on pretty good roads to get to the smallish outpost of Cochi.  Around for centuries as a center of the spice trade on the Arabian Sea's Malabar coast, it has seen seasons of Chinese, Portuguese, Dutch and British colonies, and has also been home to a community of Jews as far back as the mid 1300's.  In fact, tiny Mattancherry, which lies next to Fort Cochi, boasts India's oldest still working synagogue--although there are reputedly only a handful of Jews left in the area, and there is no rabbi.

In a morning of sweltering heat and humidity, we wander down the block to the sea, fallen upon by local tuk tuk drivers who want to take us on "tour".  Of note are the fish stands, backed by the huge Chinese nets--this name given since it was the Chinese who originally introduced them.  The giant nets are lowered and raised in what seems a ludicrous attempt at fishing.  They're hung on massive poles weighted with hefty stones, and when raised there is barely a butterfly net's worth of tiny fish.  Men sit mending nets, while others mostly lounge along the shore pathway, which, truth be told, is indescribably filthy with rubbish.  We walk along towards Gandhi beach, but again, there's not a grain of sand, only rubbish.  Across the entry way into the harbor, oil tankers and a couple of military looking vessels sail by.  Huge oil storage facilities dot various parts of the landscape, along with the forest of taller buildings in distant Ernakulam, the modern city across the water.

We continuing walking the small historic area that is now called Fort Cochi, although none of the fort walls or much of anything else are left.  We run into our tuk tuk friend Subhair again--he's been shadowing us--, and agree to have him haul us around to see the sights.  It's too hellishly hot to walk it all.  As India's most Christian state, we start off with a couple of churches.  One originally held the explorer Vasco da Gama's remains, before they were returned to Lisbon in the 1530's.  There is a Dutch cemetery, an old palace with gorgeous murals, appropriated by the Dutch after they ousted the Portuguese, and the lovely little Jewish synagogue in Mattancherry.  We visit the local laundry site, refurbished and still in use, originally set up as a central area to clean the uniforms of the Dutch soldiers, where some major whacking of clothes and linens is going on in small stalls, while in the adjoining spaces, clothes are hung on twisted ropes so as to make clothespins unnecessary, and where coal fed irons are used by the team of men ironing.  We end up the day with a visit to a small cooperative where they dry ginger and where the women make all sorts of spice mixes, teas, candles for the local churches and soap.  I am easily persuaded to bring home a spice mix for masala tea and some heavenly smelling cardomon pods.

An unexpected highlight of the day is stumbling upon the preparations and later actual festivities around children's day at a local school.  The very young children are shy, but the older ones, getting ready for their bicycle parade, are wildly enthusiastic and thrilled to pose for photos. 

The next morning we contemplate taking the ferry around the waterways, but it's truly oppressively hot, so instead we spend hours hanging out in a small cafe on Princess Street, whiling away time with chai and juice.  In the evening we visit a small cultural center to get a tourist view of Kerala's Kathakali performance, a classical Indian dance with highly stylized hand and eye movements, accompanied by some singing, a chime and some drums.  It is preceded by a session demonstrating the application of some of the very elaborate theatrical make-up.

We leave Cochi for Munnar up in the Western Ghat mountains for a couple of days--see the separate post on Munnar--and then move on to the backwaters of Kerala, in the small town of Kumarakon, another longer than expected drive.

We're back in the tropics after a couple of days in the highlands, and despite the lake breeze, it's still uncomfortably hot.  We arrive in time for an afternoon tea with some snacks and then take an uneventful hour long ride on the boat courtesy of the hotel.  The water landscape is flat and rather monotone, so we plan to make our way into the nearby town on the following day to check out the backwater canals and waterways that have garnered the area its name.

By morning we've discovered that the hotel has some rickety bicycles we can borrow for our little exploration and we're off.  The backwaters are rimmed with coconut palms, rice paddies and small brightly painted homes.  The air is ripe with humidity, school kids rush off to school and the local ferry drops off  passengers as we look down from a bridge.  The odd fisherman sits by the side of the road with a tray full of fish for sale.  Traffic is light on the main road, but as we drift to the small lanes that line the smaller waterways, the pace slows down still more.  Women launder at the water sides, a small group of men is busy taking down a couple of dead trees, motorized long boats chug along the water, ladies saunter by under umbrellas, and we watch.  In the afternoon, we head out once more, waving and smiling at the locals, who are lounging on stoops, chatting with neighbors, and slowly bringing their day to a close.  As the sun sets over the lake, we enjoy the peace, and get ready for another bout of plane and car as we head north to the ruins at Hampi.

Some pictures of Cochi and the Kerala backwaters:  lots of places didn't allow photos....
https://photos.app.goo.gl/AFQtny6Xs1icPHJH7

Udaipur: A Palace and a Painter

Ram Ram drops us as close as he can get to our hotel on the Lal Ghat in Udaipur, and he's gone.  We weave through the traffic and find our hotel, which lies right on Lake Pichola.  Our view is a refreshing change from the scrubby desert, and as we settle in, the sun turns fiery as it sinks behind the distant hills.

We have more days than we might have chosen in Udaipur, so we're carefree with our time.  The Lal Ghat area is clearly the epicenter of the tourist zone, overrun with souvenir shops, hotels and guesthouses, countless ayurvedic massage shops, tailors and street artisans, and the calls to come into shops incessant and insistent as ever.  We're better and better at simply walking on, knowing there will be plenty more occasions to chat about where we're from and how long we're in India.  Crossing one of the pedestrian bridges nearby, we search out the alleys leading to Hanuman Ghat, where there are some swankier hotels and restaurants, and a good view of the City Palace.

Udaipur is known for its miniature painting, and artists fall from the trees all over town.  A young man gets talking to Andres, weaving his fabulous tale of generations of artists, and then takes us to a nearby shop, but Andres edges on and says he'd like to see these artists at work.  Really?  Yes, really.  A moment's thought and a bit of back and forth about how it's a fair walk--no, we're totally on board with walking, more back and forth, and finally he says he will take us on the back of his motorbike.  OK?  Well, ok then.  It's a tight squeeze, and I'm holding on for dear life, but we whiz through the alleyways, back into the Lal Ghat, over another bridge, and into another clearly residential area, and we're there.  We're ceremoniously introduced to the brother, Manish, and then to the painter extraordinaire, their father, Jagdish.

A lovely man whose grey mane of hair seems lit up next to his ebony skin, he's sitting quietly on the floor, brush focused on a large scene of a procession in front of the local city palace.  Manish speaks very good English and eagerly explains his father's work, the whole process of sketching, color mixing from local stones, and even shows us the gold leaf which is used in some of the finer work.  He also shows us the very fine brush-tips--made from the eyelashes of camels--, used for the very finest details.  He brings out his various credentials, and photos and letters documenting his invitations to stay in Finland and Germany where he taught with the help of an interpreter, some years ago. 

Then we look at some of the work that is for sale, some of which is really striking in its detail.  We're particularly taken with what is a classic Indian motif--that of the elephant, the horse and the camel--, which Manish explains represents the ideas of good luck(the elephant), power or strength(the horse), and love(the camel).  It's difficult to keep all the information straight, because there is just so much of it, but we listen and say that we are interested in the work, and would like to think about it, and return the next day.  He's a little deflated, but says we are welcome whenever we choose to return.

Stopping in at the Edelweiss cafe back in the Lal Ghat area, we run into a British couple that we literally bumped into during our stop at Ranakpur, sit and chat at length and agree to meet for dinner in the evening.  A bit of a rest during the warmest part of the day, looking out over the lake from our window, followed by a wander to check out the entrance times and prices at the palace, and a delightful dinner and conversation on a nearby rooftop, and the day comes to a close.

We've done our thinking about the painting, having also stopped in a handful of local art shops, but the quality of Jagdish's work is far superior to anything we've seen--even to our untrained eyes--.  The snarled traffic is like something out of a movie,--laughably ridiculous--.  It takes the work of several car passengers and random passersby to reorganize and manage the tangled mess, but it all thins out as we cross the bridge to the Ambamata Temple Road and head left and uphill.  We arrive at the door to the astonished faces of the family, who can't believe that we've returned and that we've found our way back!  We're ushered in with great ceremony, with cups of masala tea and small bottles of water and the warmest of welcomes.  We again look over the painting, close the deal, and then Manish offers to have the work framed for a nominal fee, if we can return a final time and he entreats us to please join the whole family for dinner upon our return.  We're just bowled over by their genuine hospitality and grace, and agree to return once again the next evening.

The following morning we're off to the City Palace, which our British friends recommend we visit right when it opens.  At the juice stand we've adopted and around town, the locals are complaining about the hordes of Gujaratis who are in town and simply taking over the place.  It turns out that in the state of Gujarat, Diwali is a longer holiday, and the locals pour into Rajasthan, many coming by car, clogging the roads, partying hard as Gujarat is a "dry state", and from what we've seen the Gujarati tourists truly are everywhere, and especially gathering in crowds in the area outside the main gate to the palace.  We had the weird good luck to receive some tickets from a couple of passing French tourists.  They asked if we'd already visited the palace, --we hadn't-- so we could have their tickets, which due to the hordes of people, hadn't been torn off, and were thus still valid.  Propitious indeed since we were about the first to walk through the main gateway, well ahead of the already gathering hordes.

The palace, which dates from about the year 1600, is another maze of a building, several stories high, with several tree-lined courtyards, some working fountains, galleries of artwork, and lots of mirror and glazed tile work.  The palace and museum galleries include some lighter fare including demonstrations of turban making, hookah smoking and classical meditation music.  By the time we have wound our way through the palace the queues to enter are already interminable.

By evening we're ready to go back to Mr Jagdish's home and join the family for dinner.  The family is in all states of excitement when we arrive, and despite the customary pitfalls of communication, it's clear that they are as thrilled to have us as we are honored to be there.  After checking out the painting--now framed--, we take some photos of Mr Jagdish with his work, and of course with us.  Manish proceeds to elaborately pack it up for us and payment is settled.  Meanwhile preparations for bringing in dinner are underway.  In one of the most endearing moments yet, Mr Jagdish pulls aside Andres, whispering whether he would like them to procure a beer for him.  They are again amazed when he explains that he really doesn't consume alcohol at all, and make him doubly happy when they bring out a cold can of Coke instead!  They seem worried about us sitting on the floor, but we allay their fears, and the food comes in.  Rice, dal, and a very nice paneer chile, along with a platter of tomatoes and cucumbers, papadums and chapatis.  We expect them to join us, but they insist we eat first.  Conversation is really quite wonderful, covering our poor eating manners--countered by their confusion over forks and knives--to how we spend our days when we are home. We share photos of our family, parents, and even answer Manish's query about ways to improve his English.  We also meet the rest of the family, Manish's brothers, niece and nephews, and finally also his sister-in-law and smiling mother.  They are movingly gracious, and near the end Jagdish insists on actually feeding both Andres and me some of the sweet galub jamun dessert.  He sits with his arms draped over Andres' shoulder, sometimes holding his hand, and the impression is of genuine mutual appreciation.  Nothing short of humbling.  Photos of us with the family at Jagdish's personal request cap the evening, and as we ready to leave, he hugs each of us tightly, wishing us every good fortune in life.  Even his wife hugs me several times.  We tell him that these are moments we will never forget, and wander back to the main street, turning often to wave one more time, feeling we've been privy to something special. 

Our remaining time is spent meandering through the markets, watching the chai makers, laughing with the rickshaw passengers who are working hard to load wares onto the vehicle, wandering the quieter back alleys where a determined little boy, maybe 4, smiles disarmingly and confidently as he heads home all alone in the ghastly traffic, and finally, relaxing with a fresh juice while the world hustles by.  From here we'll change things up as we head 2100 km south to Cochi, in Kerala.

Links to the photos of Udaipur:
Around town:  https://photos.app.goo.gl/AAcNYsxGEV6LvieW9

The Udaipur Palace:  https://photos.app.goo.gl/AAcNYsxGEV6LvieW9

Visit with Jagdish Yadav, painter:  https://photos.app.goo.gl/JoFCAdosAP9bT4ZB8

  

Stop in Ranakpur

Our driver Ram Ram arrives a little late to pick us up in Jodhpur, but he's in good spirits.  The roads are quiet because a lot of the country is shut down due to Diwali celebrations. He is on the phone almost non-stop, even asking me to please wish his various family members a happy holiday, since that way they'll believe he really is working.  Also he seems to know everyone everywhere.  He chats with the driver of the car next to us through open windows as we drive down the (fortunately) empty road, then catch up with a "brother cousin" at a gas station.  He stops constantly, and then finally justifies all the mysterious stops by explaining that Ranakpur, the great Jain temple we're planning to visit on our way, doesn't open to non-Jains until noon, so it turns out we've got time to kill.  It's a cup of chai at one stand, some well-meant but nauseatingly sweet and sticky rice flour balls at another, and later still some lentil flour chips with chilis--which he suggests we might not want to eat--"most spicy".  Every stop we're asked whether we'd like whatever he's offering, but clearly a "no, thanks" still brings him rushing back to the car with his latest idea. 

The road is wide and empty for the first bit, but then we bump onto a semi-asphalted track with aspirations of being a road-- a mite tricky when we do encounter oncoming traffic.  Today, though, most of the traffic is livestock, some of it very inconveniently parked in the middle of the road.  For the first time we even come across dead animals--the inevitable result of hanging out on roads.  The nice thing is that Ram Ram isn't in any hurry, so he's not driving like the more typical madman, and after a couple more stops he suddenly picks up speed, and we roll into Ranakpur right around noon.

It's a madhouse in the parking lot, so we hop out and head to the ticket line, which is equally nuts.  Long lines, lots of don'ts on a bill board, and of course, queuing is for amateurs.  We do finally secure a place in line, but it then turns out that cell phones need to be left behind in lockers, that there are strict clothing guidelines, and on and on, but the reality is again somewhat different.  As foreigners we have to pay an entrance and camera fee--no-one says anything about mobiles--, but we have to take an audio-guide, a sort of compensation for the fee, as locals don't pay an entrance fee at all, and don't typically use an audio-guide, but instead are expected to give a donation to the temple.  The Indian woman behind us in line does her level best to unravel all this for us.  Tickets in hand we head to the security lines to get into the temple, where some people lose their water bottles, others are fine, a man in shorts in sent out, while behind him, several others in shorts walk straight in.  A bit of a circus --without the clowns, though--. 

The inside of this 14th century gem is breathtaking.  Ornate pillars and domes in beautiful symmetry surround us.  The detailed stone-carving high and low is truly stunning.  Despite the sign to keep silence, there is very loud chatter everywhere.  Some Jains--not sure if they're priests or not--wander around the temple, regularly stopping to ask people if they can pray for them.  They're prohibited from asking for donations, but that doesn't appear to worry them in the least--, on the contrary, they're very forward about the donation aspect of their prayers.  Guards are everywhere and often right in the line of where you want to take a photograph, so the visit is an exercise in patience.  Jains pile in and out of the main altar area, which is closed to non-Jains. 

Check out the photos, as they do the temple more justice.
https://photos.app.goo.gl/3vcQpw4DepmN4ctGA