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Saturday, January 27, 2007

Avi Industries


If you need a perfect trek bag and don't want to cut a hole in your pocket, Avi Industries is the place to go. Veteran trekkers swear by their name. Located in Matunga East, these guys make very nice bags. Also available are camera pouches, sleeping bags and some great shoes. The shoes are expensive though. Lots of trek equipment necessary for Himalayan treks, moutaineering and rock climbing equipment and a whole lot of advice too. These guys are trekkers themselves. Extremely comfortable bags with all that compartments you wanted. A big size bag, a small size bag (for small treks), a camera pouch, and a cotton sleeping bag should set you back by about 2000 rupees. But it worth every paisa. Get down at Matunga Station and exit from Kurla side to east. Find a circular face building called Shriji Sadan and look for a small yellow board saying Avi industries. I think they have a website too. No, I do not get commission from them, but rumour is that Ajit gets some. :)) In the picture I am carrying a big size bag, while Ajit is carrying a small size bag.

Avchitgad Trek


Avchitgad. Our second Google Earth Trek on 13/01/2007. We also referred to Wikimapia. Wikimapia has lots of details not found in Google Earth, but the only problem is that it eats into my download quota as it does not cache images. So everytime I check a place the whole images get downloaded.This is a very neglected fort (in terms of trekkers visiting), but it is awesome nonetheless. Apart from the well preserved water reservoir and doors, the village at the base (Medhe, Hanuman Ali) is a pleasant surprise. With not piped water yet, this village and its lifestyle is well preserved. Just like it was about 60-70 years ago. Some houses even had windows with wooden bars. The wells were well, well used. A magnificient view of the Konkan Railway line all the way from Roha to Bhise tunnel near Nagothane. You can get a clear cell phone reception on the top. It appears to be an awesome one day trek for monsoon. There is no dry cave or anything on top, so you have to make it one day. Fortunately the timing of the train at the nearest railway staion suits one day treks. The train leaves at 4:05 pm from Nidi. There is one more after that. But this one suits you as it is not so crowded. In the morning catch the 6:15 am Diva Madgaon Passenger.Some well preserved sculptures, doors and a cannon to see. Do not forget to visit the Vitthal Mandir in Medhe. This time it was Ajit, Sushant, Sanket and me. Check Wikimapia for some pictures posted.
How to reach: Catch Diva-Madgaon passenger from Diva on Central line.Get down at Nidi (Next after Nagothane), Ask where Medha is. Find Vitthal Mandir, then find "houd" (a well) and then keep climbing. Lots of pathways here, but the fort is so small it won't matter if you get lost.

Friday, January 26, 2007

Blazing BSNL Broadband

I subscribed to BSNL Broadband (DataOne) after very bad experiences with Sify and GPRS on BPL Mobile. In fact I got a landline just for that. BSNL being a government monolith, I had the least expectations. It took seven visits and three months to just get the connection. (No, I did not have to bribe) It had taken just a phonecall and 24 hrs for the BPL Mobile GPRS. So expectations were low. I did not expect much speeds, I just expected an always on connection.
I setup a system for downloading during the Happy Hours between 2 and 8 am, using FreeByte Task Scheduler (To startup programs when needed) , Down2Home (to keep an eye on the amount of data downloaded and uploaded and the speed) and BitComet (Torrent downloads). Happily BSNL recently upgraded all 256 kbps to 2 Mbps following a government order.
And the speeds... they are amazing. Check out the image which shows the status at 7 am after a 5 hours of download. 469 kbps max speed. Holy mother of byte.

Thursday, January 25, 2007

Tauli Trek




We went to Tauli on 31 Dec 2006. It was our first google earth trek. Meaning We pored over google earth to find the way, took print outs and found our way to the top. We had planned for a two day trek thinking we might get lost. But we found our way quickly. Its like 10 rs bus ticket from my house, but its was awesome. People walk up to Haji Malang, but almost nobody goes ahead to Tauli. I remember as a child, being told that there was a dense dark jungle ahead of Malangad. Looks like all those sticks the piligrims carry home were a part of that jungle. Its sparse now, like all the jungles on Sahyadris. Ajit, Masture, Ravi and Me. We met a guy called Chand on the way, who stays near a waterfall and serves jaggery tea and medicine to people going up to Tauli. On the top near Dadi Ma's Kabar lives a group of guys (Rambhau and another one) whose houses are built like they have been in 16th Century. The view of the Chanderi, Badlapur hills range is breath taking. There have been many landslides to remind you of the destructive power of nature, giving you a peek into the kind of processes that have shaped these mountains. The only sad part was the dense air pollution due to the brick kilns. Ya, I took these pics.

Fear and Loathing

Ever fast forward jumped through a movie and found it not worth a watch? Nothing to really grab your attention as you click randomly on the slider below the Media Player. Nothing particularly interesting about it. And then suddenly you find someone who is a real fan of that film. Curiosity strikes and you decide to give it a go. The movie grabs you at the first line and by the end of it, you are a fan of that movie.
Well, just saw a movie like that this week. Its called "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas"

Narrator: We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the drugs began to take hold. I remember saying something like:
Raoul Duke: I feel a bit lightheaded. Maybe you should drive.
Narrator: Suddenly, there was a terrible roar all around us, and the sky was full with what looked like huge bats, all swooping and screeching and diving around the car, and a voice was screaming:
Raoul Duke: Holy Jesus! What are these goddamn animals?!
Acosta: Did you say something?
Raoul Duke: Hm? Nevermind. It's your turn to drive.
Narrator: No point in mentioning these bats, I thought. Poor bastard will see them soon enough.

The search for the "American Dream". My respect for Depp is even deeper now. Clearly he is a class of his own. And Benico Del Toro ...
"There he goes. One of God's own prototypes. Some kind of high powered mutant never even considered for mass production. Too weird to live, and too rare to die"
Have a great watch.

Monday, January 22, 2007

A New Train is Coming

I have been a great fan of Microsoft train simulator. But Microsoft dropped Trainsimulator for a while and I was very sad. Thankfully BVE Train Simulator kept me going. So yesterday was a great day when I found out that there are two train simulators coming my way. Kuju, the original developers of Microsoft Train Simulator were coming up with Rail Simulator distributed by EA and Microsoft was back with Train Simulator 2 , but developed by another company. So currently although BVE remains my favorite, I can't wait to get my hands on these new babies. Ooooh!