Travel Photo: Speed Chess from Manila

I had just gotten out of the Manila MRT train after an interesting rush hour experience where I had to push my way out. It was stifling and I was glad to be out of the crowd. As I made my way out of the Guadalupe MRT, I saw a mall and decided to see if I could get any dinner there. While I was searching for dinner, I saw this large group of people standing around people who were playing speed chess.


There were about 6 tables and each had two participants who were playing speed chess and timing their moves. I am not sure if it was a competition or it is a regular pastime. But, whatever it was, it was very interesting and the locals seemed to enjoy it as they seemed to crane their necks to see the latest moves.


While some of them played speed chess where they had to check mate the other person within 3 minutes, some others played a sub 2 minute game where the player with the most coins on the board wins. I love playing chess, but play it the traditional way. Even though, I have never really indulged in playing speed chess, I really liked watching these Filipinos play. In spite of being hungry, I ended up watching them for a good 30 minutes. That is how interesting it was!

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Travel Photo: Kid and Life Size Chess

Life size chess amazes me and it amazed me more to see a small kid stand next to it and try to play with pieces that would take an adult two full hands to move around. I was standing in my room at a five star hotel in Tanjung Benoa, Bali when these events took place. As a photographer, it was a very different frame for me with actually no clear lines, but I somehow like the output.


These grey, black and white colors of the chess pieces and the floor contrast nicely with the colorful kid and it was even more amazing to see this kid play with these chess pieces. Hope you like this cross cross frame too.

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Travel Photo: Vietnamese Chess

As a traveler, there are those special moments that always catch your eye and egg you to notice it at close quarters. This was one such moment too where a couple of elderly gentlemen were playing a local game and some locals were watching them. As I am very inquisitive by nature, I was automatically tempted to go watch the game to understand what it was and how it was being played.


The location of this scene was at the banks of the Hoan Kiem lake at Hanoi in North Vietnam and under a lovely big tree. As I started watching this game, I figured out that it was very similar to chess and since I liked playing the game of chess, it piqued up my interest even more. And it looked even better as the two elderly gentlemen were playing it with a lot of thought and competition.


This game is played in a slightly different way when compared to traditional chess. As far as I understood, the players like rook, knight, queen, bishop, pawn, etc. moved like the normal game of chess, but the board in itself was different and apart from straight lines it had diagonal lines too. This signaled the way the players could move their coins. Unfortunately for me, I could not watch the entire game as I had a flight to catch, but I am planning on finding more about this game when I return to North Vietnam in a couple of weeks.

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‘Chess’ from the Chola Era

Have you ever wondered how the game of chess was played in the Chola era? May be in wood, may be in ivory, but definitely not plastic, like these days. But, did it even cross your mind that the chess pieces were given a true depiction during the yester years.



For example, the rook is depicted like an elephant, the knight is depicted sitting on a horse or a camel, the queen ornately decorated on an elephant, the king on a larger elephant and foot soldiers for pawns. I got a sense of this when I was scouring the shops near the Brihadeeshwara Temple in Thanjavur. It was during this visit that I spotted such a rare collection. All the pieces were ornately designed and looked brilliant. I would have bought the set, but for two reasons. One, it was very expensive and second, it was too bulky for a game of chess. May be, the people of the Chola era were used to such large size and weight while playing their game of Chess!

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