The Grand Tour 05: Beirut and Kodachromes from Cairo, 1950

  

Beirut, Lebanon 

 

On the Avenue des Français, Beirut, Lebanon, October 14, 1950 (post card)

After leaving Delhi, my dad flew to Beirut on Pan American Airlines. It was a long trip, with stops in Karachi and Basra. Each stop wasted time with passport and cholera certificate inspections.  

Oddly, I did not see any slides from Beirut but came across a commercial post card. He never mailed it, and there was no location information. Was it Manila? Alexandria? Using the Google image search function, I saw a photograph taken by Mahmoud Hammad, a Syrian photographer featured in the Atassi Foundation for Arts in Damascus. He photographed some gents standing at the same balustrade with the same arched building in the background.

This was the famous corniche along the sea, the Avenue des Français. But it no longer exists because the bay was filled in with garbage during the horrifying Lebanese civil war of the 1970s. 

My dad wrote, "Beirut turned out to be a pretty clean place and the people looked European altho many of them wore the fez and there were some Arab costume." 

I vaguely remember Beirut from a visit with my mother some time in the late-1950s. She liked the city. It was sophisticated, cosmopolitan, and clean, and the women were modern and dressed stylishly. The cuisine was famous. It was known as the "Paris of the Middle East" prior to the 1975 Civil War. 

 

Cairo, Egypt

 

On the rent-a-camel

What do most tourists do immediately after they have checked into their Cairo hotel? They go to the Giza plateau to see the pyramids and the Sphinx. Where did the fez come from?

 

View west towards Giza

In this scene, this part of Cairo is a nasty collection of dirty 3- and 4-floor flats. As I recall from 1978, many parts of the city did not look much different, but some of the flats were crumbling. (One day, I will scan my 1978 Cairo slides.)

 

 Tea shop 

Tram - once one of the world's largest streetcar systems

Pet camel

Talaat Harb Street in downtown Cairo

Semiramis Hotel (built in 1907) on the left and the "new" Shepheard Hotel

My dad stayed in the Shepheard Hotel in 1950. My wife and I also stayed there in 1978. But by then, it looked rather tired and well-used. The original Shepheard Hotel, the one you see in mystery movies and Agatha Christs stories, was somewhere downtown, but it burned in a 1952 fire.

 

Mosque and madrasa of Sultan Hassan, Salah al-Din Square, built between 1356 and 1363 CE 

This ends a quick trip to 1950 Cairo. It is a fantastic destination. Go there as one of your life goals. Just do it.

My dad took these Kodachrome slides with his Leica IIIC camera and its 5 cm ƒ/2 Summitar lens. I scanned them with a Nikon CoolScan 5000ED film scanner running NikonScan 4.03. I made minor color corrections with Photoshop Elements 2024. 

 These were all real photographs taken by a real human 75 years ago - NO Ai GARBAGE.

 

Addendum 

 

My mom and dad returned to Egypt possibly in 1955, but I do not have an exact date. 

 

On the rent-a-camel

Happy rent-a-camel

  

The Grand Tour 04: Kodachrome Slides from Thailand and India, 1950

 

On my dad's trip westward, he flew from Hong Kong to Bangkok and then proceeded on to India.

Bangkok, Thailand

 

At the Grand Palace, Bangkok

Unfortunately, I did not see any pictures of the once-famous floating markets. In the last 50+ years, many of the canals were covered and turned into highways. 

Delhi, India

In 1950, India was also in turmoil because the chaotic and terrible 1947 partition between India and Pakistan was only three years in the past. I do not know why my dad chose to fly to Delhi on his grand tour, but he arrived there on October 6 of 1950. Many of his pictures were typical tourist snaps. I will skip the temples and monuments and show street scenes or markets. 

I love the cars in the last scene. A big Chevrolet, a Citroën Traction Avant, some little English cars, and some horses. It is hard to see on this scale, but the Chevrolet has right-hand drive. 

 

 

New Delhi 

 

 

This is the Ritz cinema, possibly near the Kashmere Gate in New Delhi. It took some searching in Google to find the location, but fortunately, people in India post thousands of photographs of everything. 

 

The Old Delhi Railway Station is only a few blocks away. I wish my dad had taken some pictures there of the architecture and of trains. 

 

 

This incredible edifice is the Laxminarayan Mandir, a Hindu temple in New Delhi, India. I thought it must date to the Mohguls, but I was surprised to read that it is modern. It was inaugurated by Mahatma Gandhi in 1939. 

Agra

 

Agra is a city on the Yamuna river in Uttar Pradesh. Most tourists go there to see the famous Taj Mahal, a marble mausoleum built by Shah Jahan. My dad took 10s of snapshots there, but here are some of his street scenes, instead.

 

Drum brake repair shop. Note hand-cranked blower

Procession or funeral (?)

 

This ends a short visit to north central India in 1950. In 1958, my dad returned to Delhi with my mom and me in tow, but I do not remember any details. It was another life, another era. 

 

I scanned these Kodachrome slides with a Nikon Coolscan 5000ED film scanner operated by NikonScan V. 4.03, running on WIN 7. I corrected some colors with Photoshop Elements 2014.

 

 Addendum

 

 

My mom and me, somewhere near Darjeeling, north India, April 1958.

 

 

The Grand Tour 03: Kodachrome Slides from Hong Kong, 1950

Hong Kong was the first stop on my dad's ambitious Grand Tour westward en route home to Massachusetts. For a New England boy, this destination may have felt exotic, a hint of the Orient.  He arrived in Hong Kong on October 30, 1950, after a long flight via Manila. 

In 1950, Hong Kong was a crucial strategic outpost for the American and European powers. The brutal and terrible Chinese Civil War was over, and Mao Tse-tung's communist forces had defeated Chiang Kai-shek's Kuomintang army in 1949. China had become a closed society. Thousands of refugees had fled to Hong Kong before Mao sealed the borders. Hong Kong was still a British Crown Colony in the post-war period when the United Kingdom still maintained some of its overseas empire. 

You will see more than the normal number of photos below because they show a Hong Kong that has changed drastically, a city without skyscrapers and with rice terraces on the hillsides. It was dramatically less urbanized than it is now. Please click any picture to see more detail.  

Victoria Harbour

This is the view from Victoria Peak of Victoria Harbour, one of the world's great natural harbors. It is a spectacular view, accessible by the Peak Tramway. There are two aircraft carriers at anchor, a non-subtle hint to Mao Tse-tung to behave and not try to invade the colony.

The waterfront from Wan Chai or Kowloon was always dynamic. Thousands of refugees lived on these sampans. As of 2014, I did not see these floating communities. I love the elegant motor launch in the photo above. Behind it is one of the traditional ferries.

Kowloon

In 1950, Kowloon was a crowded area of low-rise building and slums, densely occupied by refugees. Crime was rampant.  

       

Hong Kong Island (Central and Wan Chai)

Electra House

Electra House (also called Mercury House) was Cable & Wireless Ltd.'s regional headquarters on Connaught Road Central.

Carnarvon Road

Hennessy Road, Wan Chai district

This ends our quick stopover in the Hong Kong of 1950. My dad only stayed a few days and proceeded on to Bangkok.

I posted some of his B&W photos earlier (click the link). 

He took these Kodachrome slides with a Leica IIIC camera with 5cm ƒ/2 Summitar lens. I think he used a GE PR-1 light meter at the time. I scanned the slides with a Nikon Coolscan 5000ED film scanner running under NikonScan 4.03 software. Many of the colors were off, but I corrected most using the automatic color function in Photoshop Elements 2024 software. 

NO KINGS! Olympia, Washington, March 28, 2026 (Oly 26)

 

Washington State Capitol

On Saturday, March 28, 2026, angry Americans rallied at more that 3,300 NO KINGS protests around the USA and in many foreign countries. More and more people are disgusted by the nation's shift to kleptocracy, corruption, authoritarianism, Christian nationalism, and governmental incompetence. 

NO KINGS protesters gathered at the Washington Capitol Campus starting about 10:30. I biked to the campus and walked around. People were peaceful - no fire bombs or good stuff today. I loved the creativity of the signs. People in the following photographs gave me permission to take their pictures.  

Many (most?) of the signs were oriented to US politics, diversity, the excesses of ICE, and the rights of all humans. I saw some protests against the war in Iran. Oddly, I did not see any Ukraine or Gaza signs, but I may have missed them. Possibly most people here have moved on. 

 

Yup, same old s***. They could have added Mao Zedong's octagonal cap.

Ah, the wheel of corruption

Who is a puppet? Not me.....

Ferocious mountain dog is sick of all the doodoo, too

Time to wee - this one was seemed appropriate

More and more of these Handmaids are appearing at protests. 

 

These ladies are an allegory of a dystopian totalitarian America, where fertile women become the baby-making slaves for the leaders. The television series was based on the 1985 novel, The Handmaid's Tale, by Margaret Atwood. Women vote? Not in that brave new America.

I took these pictures with my Fuji X-E1 digital camera with the 18-55mm lens. I set the jpeg emulation for Astia film. The output is colorful and "sharp," but definitely looks digital. There is no character. 

This is an old camera on digital terms. I am sure it does not have enough megapixels, bokeh, or equivalence (bogus concept among D shooters), but it works well. It has been to Burma, Cuba, Hong Kong, the Colorado River, Columbia, Nepal, Greece, and more, and it keeps truckin' along.

Next week, we will continue on the 1950 Grand Tour around the world in Kodachrome slides.