A Vapi Break

Too many good opportunities for a blog post about Vapi have come up, so I'm taking a break from our vacation pictures to write a quick Vapi post.

This bus is broken-down along the side of NH8 -- pretty much in the middle of an on/off transition point. (It really can't call it a "ramp".) How do I know it's not working? There are rocks and tree branches next to the bus to warn drivers. You might have thought that was just debris on the road, but this is the Indian equivalent of those reflective triangles and flares we use in the U.S.

Just a 100 meters or so up the road:

A herd of water buffalo block the service road. They are emerging from the underpass tunnel visible in the center of the photo.

And on the other side of the tunnel, at least 4 laggards are still making their way.

Construction and Deconstruction

This tree was in the way for a bungalow under construction. But it couldn't be completely cut down -- it's needed to hold up a power line.

I think this is a case of remodeling, but I'm not sure. The worker on the cantilevered platform is using a jackhammer to remove concrete. I liked all the free-hanging rebar -- I presume it will support some sort of new structure.

This bungalow started coming down yesterday morning -- the one morning I forgot to bring my mobile phone with me. At that time they had removed all the concrete from the first floor pillars, and the structure was being held in place just with rebar. It was leaning, but far more stable that I would have thought. By the afternoon, deconstruction had progressed a good bit.

This morning, the rubble pile had grown considerably. The pile of "sticks" in the foreground is actually a mess of rebar.

This afternoon, there was still a ways to go.

The amount of construction/deconstruction debris is amazing. It's mostly brick and concrete. It seems to me that it could be put to good use filling the innumerable car-sized potholes along the street, but that never seems to happen. I'm getting a feel for how the ancient world built one city on top of a previous city's rubble piles.