Carroms

October 27, 2006 at 4:19 pm · Filed under Darjeeling, India, travel

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!

Carroms game in McLeod Ganj

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ExxonMobil letter – part two

October 25, 2006 at 11:17 am · Filed under Big Oil, environment, Peak Oil, politics, propaganda, transport

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:

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The Vibhuti Express

October 20, 2006 at 7:12 pm · Filed under India, Kolkata, trains, travel, Varanasi

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.)

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On the Himalayan Queen

October 20, 2006 at 5:10 pm · Filed under India, Shimla, trains, transport, travel

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.

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Racism and outside food not allowed

October 20, 2006 at 4:56 pm · Filed under India, politics, Shimla, travel

at a cafe in Shimla.

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Save the planet – sell your bicycle, and drive that car!

October 18, 2006 at 10:58 pm · Filed under bicycles, cars, environment

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.

  • The amazing amount of energy that is required to heat the 45 litres of water that people typically use when they have a shower.
  • The amount of CO2 that will be released to provide this energy.
  • The amount of CO2 that would have been generated by your car.

    • 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…
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    Morning commute

    October 18, 2006 at 9:35 am · Filed under transport, travel

    People walking to work in Forrest Chase

    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…

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    At the border

    October 17, 2006 at 11:23 pm · Filed under India, politics, travel

    At the border (3)

    At the border (2)

    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.

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    No Plastic!

    October 17, 2006 at 10:40 pm · Filed under environment, India, Khajuraho, Kolkata, travel

    No Plastic Bags at Khujaraho!

    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.

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    Khajuraho Musicians

    October 17, 2006 at 8:39 pm · Filed under India, Khajuraho, travel

    Musicans at Khujaraho

    Friday night I went to see some drummers and dancers at Kulcha, in Freo. The event, “Rhythms of Sri-Lanka” reminded me of the folk/classical dance show that I went to see while in Khajuraho. Khajuraho is a must for any itinerary to north India, to see the Jain temples there (Wikipedia currently says they are Hindu, but I don’t think that’s right). They are well known for the carvings that depict daily life a thousand years ago. Being in remarkably good condition is a consequence of the dry climate of the region, and the fact that they were forgotten about for the better part of a thousand years. They were rediscovered by Victorian archeologists at the end of the 19th century. Elsewhere in India, carvings such as those at Khajuraho would have been destroyed by the relatively prudish Muslims that entered the area a few hundred years before. What draws the crowds of course are the erotic carvings, though they are only a fraction of what is to be seen.

    Vandalism was something that disappointed me at many historical sites in India. And not just in the past – I watched it take place right in front of me. In Jaipur, a bunch of Indian teenagers thought it would be fun to carve their names into a building hundreds of years old. A lack of money means that many sites aren’t looked after properly. But Khajuraho seemed graffiti free – perhaps the locals feel more ownership of the temples, for whatever reason?

    Anyway, while at Khajuraho there are other things to see and do, and I suggest the dance show that is put on regularly in the evenings. The audience were almost all tourists, many on package tours, and the show is tailored to be tourist-friendly. But I didn’t think that was a big minus. The performers look like they have lots of fun. While the dancers got all the attention, I was just as impressed by the small group of musicans and vocalists supporting the performance and took a photo of them afterwards (above) – everybody else seemed to be ignoring them. The woman was generating sounds with her voice that, if I didn’t know better, I would have assumed were being generated with electronic special effects.

    btw – if you’re in Perth, there’s another “Rhythms of Sri-Lanka” show on in a couple of weeks – tickets are $20 at the door.

    Here are a couple of temple photos (more will follow!):

    A Jain temple at Khujaraho

    An erotic carving at Khujaraho

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    First Pictures from India

    October 17, 2006 at 2:29 pm · Filed under Chamba, Dalhousie, India, Khajiar, travel

    Am finally getting to linking in photos from India! For a couple of weeks I did an “Intrepid” tour called “Mountains and Mystics”. Mostly in Himachal Pradesh (“Himalayan State”), with a little bit of time spent in Punjab. This photo was taken at a farmstay in the Chamba Valley, in Himachal. In the distance you can see a wee bit of snow melting away on some peaks that some of us had walked over a few days before. I was a bit apprehensive about the walk, but decided to go anyway. At the time, there were observations from the valleys that suggested that there might have been up to three feet of snow to plough through on our trek. But when we got up there, our route never took us through more then about 15cm of it. A couple of people left the tour a few days before because of injuries on a day walk – Glen had a fairly serious fall while heading above the snow line near McLeod Ganj. He fell 10 metres down a steep slope, was knocked out and scored a badly dislocated shoulder. Hitting a couple of trees and rocks might have been what saved his life.

    It’s a lovely spot to rest at, but requires some effort to get to, even if you’re not trekking. The nearest road is a steep half-hours walk away. and is a bit of a trek in itself. No running hot water here, to bathe you scoop water over yourself from a bucket heated in the kitchen. There is no shortage of cold water though. It runs continously from taps fed by mountain streams. Quite shocking to see for somebody who has grown up in Perth – always felt an urge to close the taps.

    What most impressed in this region, apart from the scenery, was how well balanced and agile the folk that live in these parts are, on very steep surfaces, and wearing only sandals. I loved the clean air and dark skies here, after breathing in Delhi and a few of the larger towns. The peacefulness during the walk was interrupted by a sonic boom at one point though. Probably the Indian airforce doing exercises – the amount of military activity in the region was an eye opener.

    That’s Catherine in the photo, she joined us with her sister Louise at a town called Khajiar, which is a days walk away from here. We started walking from Dalhousie, which is a couple of days away. The photo below, of the Pir Panjal, was taken from Dalhousie. The Pir Panjal is a Himalayan range that separates Himachal Pradesh from Jammu and Kashmir.

    The Pir Panjal Range

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    ExxonMobil letter – part one

    October 16, 2006 at 5:25 pm · Filed under Big Oil, environment, Peak Oil, politics, propaganda

    I recently wrote a letter which I will send to ExxonMobil soon. Don’t like the first couple of sentences – really weak beginning, so I think it needs some more editing. It was orginally all friendly and wordy, then I made it terse and and somewhat agressive. This is the current compromise. I do of course realise that it will go straight to the circular file, or maybe their propaganda department to help them market themselves better.

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