When Canton showed me the slick little podcasting interface for WordPress, my first thought was that it would be a great way to add some sound to the Diary. So, this will be different from the SSRI podcast which will remain a separate entity – with a new podcast forthcoming soon. Here I will just add little snippets of sound that I find interesting.

I recorded the Horse Bells in Kham, Eastern Tibet, with the built-in microphone of my Canon S70 camera one morning. The Tibetan horses each carry a heavy brass bell. Some of the horses are tethered for the night and some are left to roam – and some of the tethered horses free themselves during the night… I remember the sound of a horse eating right next to my tent during the night, or even tripping over one of the tent stakes! Actually, one night towards the end of our trip, horses ran through our camp and trampled through a tent. The sleeping inhabitant of the tent quickly rolled himself into a ball and tried to take up as little room as possible. His body was spared by inches, but it took a while to bend the tent posts into a usable shape…

The bells make it easier to find the horses in the morning. I also suspect that the bells deafen the horses somewhat, which makes them less likely to jump when a motorcycle roars around the bend.