...and looking down

I don't go for window seats on long haul flights, and I seem to have done most of my recent travelling in the dark, so it's a while since I've been able to enjoy really good views from a plane. Today, with a long daylight flight and plenty of time to wander around and stretch my legs, I had a look out the little window in the emergency door and saw we were flying over mountains, frozen lakes, rivers and plains. I went and got my camera from the overhead locker and spent the next 20 minutes probably making myself very unpopular by being in the way of my fellow passengers who had to get past me to get to the toilets!

Looking from that height gives an unusual perspective, and at times the landscape looked almost alien. Shooting through that tiny window with its double layer of Perspex, reflections and condensation was never going to produce technically good photos. But I played around with this one afterwards and converted it to mono, and I hope I've managed to capture some idea of how bleak and dramatic these landscape views were.

As to where we were... shortly before that, I remember seeing on the moving map that we were to the north of Ulaanbaatar, so I've stuck a pin in the map vaguely in that area. I suppose it would be possible to trawl Google Earth mile by mile and eventually find the river with that distinctive shape, but life's too short!

When I got home today I worked out that it had been 34 hours since I left the office in Sydney! I'm finding it hard to keep my eyes open, so much as I'm looking forward to catching up with everyone's blips I'm afraid that'll have to wait - but I'll enjoy looking at them tomorrow! :)