One of my favourite cow photos. It was taken in Orcha.
Archive for October, 2006
A tourist on the Ganges
I took quite a few of this fellow – here are three frames. We are on different boats and he was usually far away – I’m pleased that the pictures came out as well as they did, given the long zoom, and our independent movement.
He prayed as we rowed past a burning ghat. (Cremations take place all through the day.)
Dawn on the Ganges
I hired a boat with a spanish couple (both engineers), Santi and Angels, who I had been sharing transport with since Orcha. The boatman was recommended by Nitin, and was a good choice (none of the problems some have experienced with boatmen)- we spent two hours out in the boat at about the going rate. Leaving from Assi Ghat he rowed us up past the main ghats, including the main burning ghat. The boat trip was the highlight of Varansi, and made up for a not so good experience I had the day before (where I let myself get scammed because I really wanted to believe something – at least it wasn’t for much, about Aus $10).
Details and more photos to follow. Here are Angels and Santi (on what isn’t the most inspiring background, I know!)
Carroms
Carroms is a cross between pool and marbles. I had only ever seen this game played by relatives, in Perth, until I saw a photo in a Lonely Planet guide. I decided that, while in India, I was going to find myself some Carrom players. And I did – the above photo was taken in Darjeeling, near a butcher, on a street leading away from the town square (“Chowrasta”).
To begin play, the disks, called carrommen, are set up in the middle of the board. A heavier disk, called the striker, is analogous to a cue ball. Each player has nine carrommen, and the goal is to use the striker to bounce each of your carrommen into the holes at the corners of the board, before your opponent can pocket theirs. The striker is flicked, like in marbles.
Just before getting in your last carromman, you must strike a red disk (the “Queen”) in, and “cover” it by pocketing that last carromman on the same strike, or straight after.
Some of the folk in the photo were playing for small money, for extra motivation – but it all seemed like a friendly way to pass time on a grey afternoon.
Here’s another game in McLeod Ganj!
ExxonMobil letter – part two
I’ve gotten a reply to my letter which I sent to ExxonMobil recently, and posted here on the 16th of October. The Public Affairs Manager, Samantha Potts, went through it point by point and expressed ExxonMobil’s position on each. I will give them credit here, as my expectation was no response at all, or a form letter response. (Though as GP pointed out, it merely says that they are well-organised and skilled at PR.)
Having said that, the reply dodges issues. For example, she writes:
However, it is important to point out that it is both false and misleading to suggest, as the Enough Rope program and the Royal Society have done, that in providing financial support to such organisations [she is referring to the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI), in this case], ExxonMobil controls their views and messages.
While it may be true that ExxonMobil does not control the views and messages of organisations that it funds or is a client of, it surely has some influence over those views and messages. And it can choose to end its relationship with them, citing their views and messages as a reason for this.
She points out that ExxonMobil has not funded CEI in 2006, but there is no indication that this won’t change again next year. Also the reply suggests that ExxonMobil funded them only in 2005, whereas the reality is that they had been funding them for several years.
I’ve scanned and linked the reply here. I will probably reply to this – feel free to leave a comment if you have a suggestion!
Incidently, here are some excerpts from Andrew Denton’s interview with Al Gore:
The Vibhuti Express
My ticket for the Vibhuti Express from Varanasi to Kolkata. (I don’t remember how the coffee stain got there.) It’s a 774km overnight trip that cost Rs 801, for a 3A berth. It’s a waitlisted ticket, but as usual, a berth became available by the afternoon I was to catch the train. When I figure out how, I’ll link this to a larger image so that the ticket can be read. One day I’ll post on the Indian train reservation system. It’s amazingly efficient, and problably like nothing you’ve experienced before!
From my notebook…
Well, here I am in Kolkata. No problems on this trip.
I was seated beside a yoga master and naturopath, along with his bank manager. The yoga master said that he wants to visit Australia to set up a school here. Being between the two of them, I swapped with the bank manager so that they could talk business. Which they did – for hours. They spoke in Hindi, but it was obvious that the yoga master was after a loan as he had a gazzillion documents and dozens of photos of himself with VIPs to show off. He was well prepared to impress. They were gone by the morning.
Opposite was a frail old man who reminded me of Grandpa. He was with his two grandsons, who were escorting him to Kolkata. He had an infected wound in his foot, bandaged up, and they were pouring betadine onto it regularly. It disturbed me that the betadine didn’t seem to be causing him any pain. Health workers in Varanasi told them that he needed to be taken to a major hospital, urgently. The grandsons took turns through the night to look after him and keep him warm – one remained sitting and awake while the other slept. I slept in my sleeping bag to give them extra blankets. As my pack was stored under their berths, I was the last person out of the train – we waited for the crowds to disperse so that they could carry him off the train. He had a bottle which he kept close through the night, which again reminded me of Grandpa when, he was in hospital a couple of months before.
(I had heard a week before this that my Grandfather had passed away in Perth.)
On the Himalayan Queen
Travel from Delhi to Kalka on the Kalka Shatabdi Express (7:40am -> 12pm) in comfy AC Chair class. Then rush to find the platform for the Himalayan Queen, which leaves at 12:10pm for Shimla, arriving at about 5:30pm. Michael Palin shows the way in his documentary, “Himalaya”. The Himalayan Queen passes through 101 tunnels and over 864 bridges on its slow accent to Shimla. This is typical of the Roman viaduct style, multi-arch, bridges that are found along the line.
Save the planet – sell your bicycle, and drive that car!
Sorry, provocative is me!
But sometimes you really might be better off driving to work, rather then using a bicycle. The issue is the CO2 cost of heating the water for the shower that you might well have when you get there. Three aspects need to be considered.
In my workplace, hot water is provided by instantaneous electric heaters. In Perth, most of our electricity is provided by burning coal. And my car is a petrol, four cylinder, manual 1.5l Mitsubishi Mirage that gets 7.1 litres/100km.
Lets do the maths for this situation…
Read the rest of this entry »
Morning commute
I took this snapshot this morning while walking through Forrest Place on the way to St Georges Tce to catch a bus to work. They’re all walking away from the train station. It’s handheld unfortunately, so I didn’t really get the effect I was going for. What I would love to do is set up my camera on a tripod in the train station itself, at the platform, facing a train which has just rolled in, with passengers alighting. I’d need a neutral density filter too, which is just a way to cut down the amount of light getting to the lens. That means slow shutter speed in daylight, which will give me pin-sharp train station, but motion blurred people. And it would work best in black-and-white. Being handheld also has the problem that people look away from the camera, as it’s obvious when I’m taking a photo!
Unfortunately, nowadays, I suspect taking photos at Perth train station might not make me popular with the security folk and police, there.
Here’s a similar hand-held photo taken a few months ago during rush-hour at Orchard MRT in Singapore. I liked the pinks and purples…
At the border
At the Indian-Pakistan border, during the border closing ceremony.
In India there are many occasions when it is appropriate for guys to spontaneously burst into song and dance.
No Plastic!
Plastic bags are discouraged in some parts of the world. In Khajuraho they go a step further – plastic bags are illegal. Some other Indian small towns have similar penalties.
In Kolkata they don’t go this far, but if you visit a public building you will often find that they effectively don’t permit plastic. The museum for example – they will refuse to look after a plastic bag for you, and as bags can’t be taken into the museum that means you can’t visit the museum if you’re carrying a plastic bag.
Wheels World 