Trucks (Again)

Two road photos from our trip back from Mumbai today.

This truck combines the two most common phrases on the back of trucks in India: "Horn OK Please" and "India is Great". But the placement of the words is more for aesthetics than meaning: "Horn India is OK Great Please".

There's obviously not much room in the cab, so it's much easier to ride atop it.
This morning I also saw many people riding in the back of trucks along with the cargo, including one truck that was filled with roses, and three men sitting in the midst of them.

Seasons in India

Makar Sankranti ("Kite Day") is considered the start of "spring" in India. But being a tropical country, India doesn't have the seasons like temperate places do.

Officially (as in the Gujarat textbooks), the seasons are as follows:
     Cool Season: November through February
     Summer: March through June
     Rainy Season (Monsoon): July through September
But even that varies considerably throughout India, largely depending upon the monsoon seasons. The only thing everyone has in common is that from April through the beginning of the monsoon, it is unbearably hot almost everywhere in India.

Here is a climate chart for Vapi:

Rainfall and temperature data for Vapi.

I found this data on the Internet, and it is somewhat outdated (ideally, I should be using 1981 - 2010), but the pattern is still the same. In Vapi, monsoon is mid-June through mid-September, with occasional showers in October. December, January, and February are the cool months. This chart really understates the heat in April and May, when highs are typically closer to 40°C (104°F) rather than 35°C (95°F). October and November are also quite hot and humid.

Kite Night

Evening brings a new dimension to Kite Day.

Night brings time for what I call "candle kites". I'll have to find out the real name …

This year, I bought a candle kite. This "Made in China" kite/balloon uses a candle to create hot air, and it floats across the sky. Last year I thought watching these in the evening was the best part of Kite Day.

The instructions are even more inscrutable than the usual English translations on Chinese products. I've kept this scan full-size so that if you want, you can download the full-size scan and read for yourself. (Or maybe you know someone who reads Mandarin.) Alternatively, you can just read below.

Here are the instructions, verbatim, including punctuation, capitalization, and line breaks:

1: After the distribution of fuel to packaging equipment

Kong Cross wire in the side of the field again deduction presses

The fuel-pressure lock firmly.

2: A person XuYuan light take up a Top;

Another person fuel ignited the four angle.

3: Wait for that the heat enough light, lanterns person lest loose

A top hand,changes grips under the light to encircle, Has when

the lifting force may let go releases for flying.

4: XuYuan light rose slowly the sky, do not forget Wishing oh

Got that? Safety instructions follow:

Notice item:

1: Should choose at the option open, calm environment released

for flight.No fire ban in areas,  the tall building the floor, and

so on have covers under the thing to release for flight, must leave

outside the airport 10 kilomters from flying.

2: XuYuan light can only be used for the distribution the

special-purposeof fuel,prohibited by any burning Replace.

3: XuYuan light are on the rise, that of the flying, cannot the long

time not put, and the Flight not to be append the foreign body.

4: Children must be under the custody of the adults use.

Now you're an expert in flying this kite!

We did figure out how to make it work -- at least enough to get it floating through the sky.

The hot air will be contained in a tissue-paper heart-shaped bag. At the bottom is a hoop with cross-wires to which you finagle to attach the lump of paraffin that burns to produce heat (and light).

All lit and ready to launch as soon as it inflates and gets buoyant.

I didn't get a good picture of our in the air -- it just looked like a red blob like these two other balloons in the sky.

Three more balloons floating through the Vapi night.

What happens when the fuel runs out? The kite comes down, obviously. I'm really surprised that no fires are started. When we went up to the roof to launch our kite/balloon, we had a "used" balloon on our terrace -- still smoldering somewhat. But since there's nothing up there to catch fire, it was harmless.

And as a bonus on a lovely evening:

Orion shines through Vapi's light- and soot-polluted air. Of course, it can't compare to rural Africa, where even the Orion nebula was visible to the naked eye during twilight. That gave us an inkling of what the skies must have been like 150 years ago, before the advent of electric lights. (BTW, for those interested, this is a 1-sec exposure at ISO 800.)

Kite Day

Today is Kite Day -- Makar Sankranti. All the schools and most businesses are closed today. This is one of the few Indian holidays that is solar (rather than lunar) based, so it falls on either 14 or 15 Jan every year. For India, it's also the official start of "spring", although it's really the dead of "winter". (Seasons are different here. I should make that the topic of another post.)

Preparation for Kite Day begins about a week ahead.

Scaffolding for kite booths being set up along the Gunjan market road.

Setting up the next day. The wrapped bundles contain hundreds of kites each.

The market is busiest in the early evening. This is the evening before Kite Day and everyone is buying their kites.

The booths go on for about 200 m.

This year, I bought kites. I was astounded by how cheap they are. I also found out you buy them in packets of five identical kites. Five kites for 20 to 40 rupees (35 to 65 cents), depending upon the size. I did buy one expensive kite (150 Rs, $2.50) -- it's much bigger and fancier.

A selection of the kites I purchased. The lady beetle kite was the expensive one. I had to buy it to take back to "Lady Beetle Manor" in Virginia. Maybe it will scare the real lady beetles away! I declined to purchase a Narendra Modi - Barack Obama kite. (All the kite-wallahs thought that as an American, I needed that kite.) 

Kites and a few birds.

Most of the kites end up like this -- in a tree or in power lines. The power has been on-and-off today as the power company tries to keep up with kite-compromised power lines.

All the dangling kite strings are dangerous to both people and birds. Much of the string has finely-ground glass on it -- the better to cut off a competing kite. But it also cuts through birds and even the occasional motorcyclist. Every year a few motorcyclists are killed by kite string.

Once again the Jains set up their emergency bird hospital on the street in Vapi.

Vapi Views

Another Sunday in Vapi.

The faucet at the kitchen sink had reduced to just a bit more than a trickle, and one of the upstairs bathrooms was completely blocked -- no water to the toilet or sink. (That didn't really matter since we never use the "pink" -- very pink -- bathroom.) Turns out there's so much dirt in the water (and, I think, clumps of rust from the pipes) that some of the pipes had been blocked. So we had our water tank cleaned. Now we have to contend with water that looks like this:

This is the dishpan we use for washing dishes. The water used to be clear (mostly -- a fair amount of grit would settle out if we let it sit for a few hours). Now it's this "lovely" yellow and filled with even more grit.

Over the last two days the water has improved. I've reached the point where I will wash my hair and clothes with it. But this confirms my thoughts that a lot of my problem with laundry has been the dirt in the water making everything gray and dingy.

On to more interesting things.

The neighborhood I walk through on my way to the market area is having sewers installed (replaced?). The streets have been throughly dug up and everything is really a mess -- uneven, dirty, and dusty. While the holes are filled, there is very little effort made to restore the road to a truly drivable condition.

This is a road. This crew is backfilling around the new sewer access points. Women do a lot of the heavy lifting (literally) at construction sites. The metal pans are used to move materials -- dirt, bricks, sand, concrete -- whatever is needed. Also note that the women work while wearing saris.

This is a typical construction worker camp. All the activities of daily life take place here: cooking, laundry, bathing, sleeping. At building sites, the workers start out in camps like this, then move into the unfinished building until the interior is nearly finished. Then it's back to outdoor camps.

A 10-floor building around the corner has been under construction the whole time we've been living here. Polished granite slabs for some of the finishing work (interior, I presume) was delivered last week. It took four men to handle a slab.

Polished granite slabs after delivery to a construction site.

Kite day ("Makarsankranti") is coming up on Wednesday. More on that in a later post.

Tanzania 27 - Arusha National Park and Beyond

27 December 2014

To the west, Mt Meru. By mid-morning the summit is covered in clouds.

To the east, Mt Kilimanjaro. This was the first opportunity we had to see the mountain. It, too, is usually shrouded in clouds by mid-day.

Arusha National Park, a strangler fig. Fig vines start around an existing tree, eventually kill the first tree and become a tree in their own right.

Arusha National Park, Ngurdoto Crater. After Ngorongoro, it's something of an anticlimax, but it's still an interesting sight.

Even through binoculars, we did not see much wildlife on the crater floor.

Arusha National Park, panoramic view of Momella Lakes. The mountain to the right contains the crater.

The area around Arusha grows a lot of vegetables -- especially for the Europe. These women are picking tomatoes.

Carrying buckets of tomatoes to a truck for transport.

As a fitting end to our trip, we had a great view of Kilimanjaro from the plane as we left the airport.

Clouds have built up on the southern flank of the mountain.

The top of Kilimanjaro was nicely visible.

As we ascended, the craters on the top of the mountain became obvious.

A final look back at the top of Kilimanjaro.

Tanzania 26 - Arusha National Park - Wildlife

27 December 2014

Before taking an afternoon flight to Addis Ababa and then on to Mumbai, we had a morning excursion to Arusha National Park. Like Lake Manyara, Arusha is a small, but ecologically significant park. It spans the area from Mt Meru to the Ngurdoto Crater and is surrounded by unprotected lands. While by this time we were familiar with most of the northern Tanzania wildlife, Arusha still had some surprises.

Mammals

Arusha National Park is one of the few places with a population of the black & white colobus (monkey). We only saw one.

A bushbuck doe. Bushbucks prefer to spend their time in the shelter of dense forests.

Giraffes were plentiful in Arusha. This young giraffe sports two bushy knobs.

By the time they reach adulthood, most of the hair has been worn off a giraffe's knobs.

Birds

While the flamingoes took center stage in Arusha, we saw a number of other species.

Augur buzzard

Augur buzzard coming in for a landing. Its chestnut-red tail is prominent.

Flamngoes, thousands of flamingoes

The first hint of the flamingoes to come. The pink "scum" in the middle of the lake and around the edges is really masses of flamingoes.

A small group of flamingoes feeding in the shallow waters at the edge of the lake.

Two lesser flamingoes.

A lesser flamingo in flight. When open, the wings are really spectacular with the pink bands and black edging.

Classic flamingo poses.