Helping Hands Orphanage, Bangalore, India

Helping Hands Orphanage

I went to this orphanage with a friend and my daughter this Saturday.

It was stunning. 52 beautiful, happy healthy children living in a house about the same size as ours. 20 children to a bedroom. 17 girls, and the rest boys. No real beds, just floor covers that the spread out. It must be a scene at bedtime...

The vibe was energetic, and the kids were really well-behaved. The owners were really putting themselves out for these kids.

My daughter raised some money with her birthday last year, and we gave 1/2 the money to this orphanage. We'll probably give more in Feb when we're back and can spend more time there.

If you're looking for a place to send some cash, these folks will make sure it goes to good use.

Bengaluru International Airport Sucks

Bengaluru International Airport

I'm sitting on the floor at the ONLY working power plug in this whole damn place.

There is one pole in the middle with 6 power plugs, all of which are broken. When I asked why, the guy tells me "they were turned off because people were using them."

But I found an ATM in the corner (out of order of course) that had working power. It's probably out of order because everyone unplugs it to use it.

There is a guy manning the Airtel booth next to me whose feet smell so foul I thought the bathroom had overflowed.

The "security" here is pathetic. They have this ridiculous outpost as you drive in, complete with men in black bandannas holding antique rifles behind a sandbag bunker. I swear it looks like a scene from a cheap kung-fu movie. A really cheap one.

Once inside, you are offered the privilege of paying 150 rupees for a breakfast that would cost you 30 outside the airport.

September 09. It can't come fast enough.

t r u t h o u t | India's War on False Antiterrorism

t r u t h o u t | India's War on False Antiterrorism

Why is it that writing in India is so poor?

I mean, just read the first few paragraphs of this rant and tell me what the guy is trying to say.

The entire Times of India is full of this writing. I had to cancel my subscription because it was just making me angry to have to read it every day.

Chicken Gift

 

Riding through the village, my daughter saw some chicks cross the road and pointed and screamed.

Stopping to look at the baby chickens and their parents, the owner of the house came out and offered us this juvenile chicken to take home. Pet? Dinner? I wasn't sure, but I was sure our neighbors wouldn't approve of the squawking.

Gateway Drug

The Gateway Drug




$30 plus shipping is a little rich for my blood especially since I have a lifetimes supply of t-shirts already.

But it does make a lot of sense... Certainly how I feel about giving my kids a bicycle... ;-)

But no, I'm not giving them titanium tricycles. Just cheapo Indian-made MTBs that last just long enough for them to grow out of them.

The Tricycle aimed at Wall Streeters

Lynskey Performance - Tricycle

This just in... An $800 dollar tricycle for kids who really need a titanium ride. (double butted no less)

The market for this probably just disappeared with the 4 trillion dollars wiped out of the market last week.

But you know someone is going to skim enough off the top of the 700 Billion bailout to gift their little ones with the best trike that other people's money can buy.

Me? I'm kinda disappointed in the components. I mean what's the point of titanium if you can't also put some carbon rims on it?

New Tranny in the old steed

Together with my two mechanics-in-training (aka kids) I replaced the rear cassette, the front chainrings, and the chain today on my old mountain bike. While I was in there, I gave it some new rubber (Dart and Mythos XC), greased up the WTB front hub, and gave the bike a decent cleaning.

The drivetrain had the original parts from when I first built the bike. The chain had been replaced once or twice, but the rest (rings and cassette) is original. They have 18 years of abuse in them. Mountain biking in Austin mud, Colorado grit, and Moab dust. A fully-loaded tour from Seattle to Guadalajara down the west coast. Rusty rain in Amsterdam. Beach riding in Zandvoort. Poor cogs.

While dismantling the poor abused chap, I realized just how much paint I have removed in the past 18 years. (Yes, this poor beast is now that old.) It could really use a new paint job. But putting real money into it for that right now just isn't going to happen. I suppose I could find a painter here to do it, but the quality is pretty bad here. I had some motorcycles painted here in Bangalore and was pretty miffed with the result.

I'm pretty psyched to get it back on the road, but unfortunately the old Rock Shox Mag 21 gave up the ghost last month. I have a new fork here but no star-fangled nut for the headset. I have a new Mag 21 that I picked up from flea-bay, but it's in California, not here, since the shipping was one day too slow last time I was there. So until I either make another trip to the US or find a nut here in Bangalore, I get to just look at the bike with all it's shiny new parts on it.

Sure looks purty.

Further proof I'm getting old and crochety

trackosaurus rex - Nice one...

So friggin what! A guy pops a 180 and a bit of a lip off a tiny little ramp.

This kind of lame shit reminds me when 20 years ago kids discovered skateboards again. First they all ran around trying to do a simple flip-kick. When they finally pulled one off they acted as if they'd actually landed on Mars.

This dude, wearing a friggin pink t-shirt and jeans, gets posed in front of some flood lights and pulls a wheelie off a lip.

In a couple years, they'll be riding pools, getting some real air. Then someone will attempt a back-flip and they'll make it to the X-games.

And he calls himself Sexy Sushi. I'm sure his mother is proud.

I guess I just live too damn far from NYC. heh. yeah, that's it.

XDRTB.org | Spread the story. Stop the Disease.

XDRTB.org | Spread the story. Stop the Disease.

Hosakote Photos

Flowers on the way.

Stopping for a rest.

Cooling off

Long slow ride.. Lots of water

Out to Hosakote and back at a very relaxed pace.

Flooded fields everywhere.

Things that show up on Google Maps as lakes were actually lakes. I guess there are some folks suffering due to flooded apartments. As you travel around that area (Kodugadi) you notice that most of the land is low-lying flood-prone, and then there are some apartment complexes rising out of the swamps.

We took a swim in an irrigation tank. Taught a local how to dive. Water felt great.

We took some photos of a flooded cemetery and some locals washing their goats in the floodwaters.

Pics later.

One of the best rides yet.

Friday I rode really fast, but today we just cruised around, avoiding all roads where possible. Good group of people and a relaxed ride.



And I even got a swim in.

Out and back. Zzzzz.

Legs tired from the start after two days of riding earlier. A day of rest would have helped. The south african and the belgian rode away from me at the end. It felt just like in high-school. I'd get within 3 miles of home and just watch everyone ride away. Mental? Physical? Probably both.

Oh, and my new saddle is KILLING me. I'll give it another couple rides before I burn it.

American Beef in the Tour!

American Beef signs on as co-sponsor of Scott squad

Someone in the American Beef industry has a wicked sense of humor or is incredibly stupid. I don't know which.

American beef is roundly suspected of being full of hormones, antibiotics and other nasties. Sounds like they need a marketing plan!

So they decide to sponsor a team that was just disgraced out of the Tour de France for taking drugs.

Anyone else think this is going to end badly?

Back in the saddle again

I survived the return trip from SFO on Jet Airways happily, as the plane was nearly empty and I had three seats to stretch out on.

I was able yesterday to take my new bicycle out for the first time. While I didn't intend to go far, and didn't take tools, phone, water, in fact NOTHING with me, I ended up riding through some of the normal routes for about 1:20. It was muddy, and lots of fun.

The new bike, my first with good suspension, just cruises. Lots of fun in the bumps, though I'm still not comfortable with the slow-speed and technical sections.

I'm happy again...

Jet Airways Bangalore to San Francisco

The ticket was cheap.

The Mumbai-San Francisco plane was a new 777 with LOTS of legroom in economy.

That's about all I can say positive...

The Mumbai transfer was all you expect with a transfer in India. 2 hours was just enough time to cover all the extra insane security checks and the bus ride from one terminal to another. Said bus ride was on what is quite possibly the filthiest bus on the planet. The Mumbai airport is nicer than when I was there 2 years ago, but still not a nice place to spend time.

The 2 hour stopover in Shanghai for refueling was an absolute bummer. You are guided off the plane into a glass jail cell to sit. No wandering the airport. No lounge. No TV. No amenities. The most horrible piped-in muzak you can imagine. It's like 2 hours of water-torture. And I'm not a smoker, but I felt sorry for the smokers, cause in this layover, there is no smoking area.

So, would I take Jet Airways again to SFO? Probably not. Singapore Airlines is much better in every respect. Lufthansa is not a better on-plane experience (it's the worst), but at least you get a break (pretzel and a good beer) in Germany. Air France is better and you can smuggle nice cheeses back into India on the return flight.

swimming hole...

Nothing better than a good swimming hole. And this one is literally a hole in the ground. That's me, shortly after having jumped from the launching pad at the top there. It was a hot day out on the bicycles so when we found the locals enjoying this spot, I had to join in.

It's an irrigation well and the water is at least 20 feet deep. Those stairs continue down another 10' at least underwater.

It was certainly dug by hand (imagine the effort) and probably a long long time ago. It's completely lined with stone.

As far as cleanliness, there are fish living in it, no algae or other signs of nutrient issues (fertilizer or waste), and well, a month later, I still don't have any rashes or skin diseases.

Local motion

A very typical pile of fresh veggies at the Madiwala market in town.

Locovore's make a small difference

I used to read ES&T regularly in grad school, but haven't seen it in years. Here is an interesting article on what it really means to only eat foods that come from a short distance around where you live.

Do food miles matter? | ES&T Online News

Bottom line is this: for an average American eating locally makes as much impact on greenhouse gas emissions as switching away from red-meat for one day a week. Red meat production represents 30% of the greenhouse-gas emissions, while shipping food to market is about 4%.

So what does this have to do with India? A couple things.

First, I suspect that the vast majority of Indians are locovores already. They simply cannot afford to buy food that has been trucked or shipped around the globe, let alone across India. In Bangalore we do see apples from Shimla in the north, but the vast majority of the food that is normally eaten in Bangalore can be grown within a 250km radius of here. We can reach the coasts of Kerala and Tamil Nadu to get the most tropical of things, even though bananas and coconuts grow right in town. So we're fortunate in that respect. This part of India is VERY wealthy from a food-growing perspective. Lots of rain, mild climate, no frost, and some good soil in areas.

Second, the majority are vegetarians. And those who are not vegetarian typically don't eat much beef. They do eat goat (mutton) which qualifies as a red meat but isn't industrially grown like cows are in the US. I have never seen an industrial goat farm here. I have seen single herders tending to their herds of 30-50 goats. I have seen goat markets in the medium cities like Hosakote where it seems these herders bring their animals for sale and shipping to market. But I'm not sure there is a "feed-lot" concept in the production of mutton in India. This is probably why the mutton here is very stringy, chewy and rarely thick and tender like New Zealand mutton (sheep). And just outside of town (east of Whitefield, for example) you see many small chicken farms. These are what would probably qualify as "free-range" even. Certainly they're not "organic" but I doubt they're pumped full anti-biotics like the super-industrial chickens in America and Europe. And they don't travel far to market.

And with oil prices climbing higher, the economic drivers for local eating are even stronger.

My only real complaint about the veggies in Bangalore is the lack of variety. It seems that if it doesn't go in sambar, they hardly sell it.

Pain Killers May Delay Bone Healing

Pain Killers May Delay Bone Healing

Now they tell me.

I've been taking some NSAID painkillers for my broken collarbone. I took them pretty regularly for the first week, and then after that only when it was really bothering me.

Now, I usually look upon chiropractors as "Quacks", (See Penn and Teller's show for some info on that), but this article at the Chiropractice Research site actually cites university studies on rats which showed much slower bone recovery in those who were given painkillers.

I think I'll do my best to lay off the tablets for a while...

I really want this bone to heal and my shoulder to get back to normal. It is making me very very grumpy.