2010-03-10T10:23:57Z snae andy@snae.net Copyright 2010, snae SPHPBLOG
Saturday afternoon, I picked up a new mountain bike. Felicitas has been into mountain biking for a few years now, but with the other things I do, there wasn't really time for me to do it too. However, since I have decided to quit running altogether, the time was right to get a bike.

This weekend the weather has been great and the area around here really is paradise for mountain biking. We are surrounded by forest where we are in Germany, literally 2 minutes from the house in many directions. Its all hilly forest too, so it means lots of good trails, ranging from long, steady inclines on well made tracks, to dodgy, fast downhills on paths which you are never quite sure will last. So in the last coupleof days we have been out twice and have done over 50km in some really beautiful scenery. This area was not one of our first choices for living in Germany (would rather be down in the Alps), but it seems it has a real silver lining, it would really be hard to beat for mountain biking.

The bike I got is this Bergamont, a German bike (and I got a few upgrades on various bits). It really is a nice bike, not that I know a great deal about them at the moment, but it rides really well, its light and it looks good (hey, thats always good... and it looks better in reality than it does on the website). So anyway, thats it, mountain biking is the new running...]]> http://www.snae.net/index.php?entry=entry090503-202656 2009-05-03T00:00:00Z 2009-05-03T00:00:00Z This article contains a useful script for converting from MKV to MP4 on Windows without using some unneccessary third-party GUI tool. I actually removed the step using h264info to convert to 4.1 as it seems not to be needed for the MKV files I get and reduces the time needed for the whole process significantly.

I have a similar script for Linux using similar tools which I will post at some point too.]]> http://www.snae.net/index.php?entry=entry090429-223653 2009-04-29T00:00:00Z 2009-04-29T00:00:00Z
Anyway, apart from that my trip overall was great. Very different from previous trips to India where I had usually spent all (or almost all) of the trip trekking in the high mountains. This time I had a mix of some mountains, but also two weeks or so on the plains and cities of central India. The far north of the country is still my favourite, Himachal Pradesh and even the north of the Punjab (Amritsar, for its huge size, is a lovely city). Rajasthan was nice, especially Johdpur, but it seemed my trip, from Jaipur onwards seemed to nose dive a little. I'm not sure if it was me getting tired with the whole performance of travelling in India, the heat, or the relentless pestering of touts but I started to get a little fed up.

In both Jaipur and Varanasi it was a constant battle with the touts. I love talking to people and for most of the trip I could talk with random people about whatever quite easily. People would offer up advice, information, friendship and whatever else quite freely and without expectation. In Jaipur (with one exception) and in Varanasi I dont recall ANY conversation with a local that didnt involve them trying to sell me something or to extract money from me for something and it really started to grate. These persistent touts and con-men really damaged the image of India for me and have made me think for the first time about not going again (especially not to the main bulk of India - the Himalayas will probably always draw me back, but thats like a different world). The worst of all were those who appeared to offer up genuine friendship (which does happen quite genuinely in many places) and then when they had gained your confidence, would then request some donation for some good cause or other. Now, if it really was going to some good cause or other I wouldn't mind, but the chances are its not. And again, if it really was a good cause, then if people were upfront with me I would be much more likely to contribute to it. Anyway, as soon as its made clear that you are not going to contribute to anything then the friendship suddenly evaporates, great...

Even in Delhi the touting does not seem to be as bad a Varanasi especially. There are the usual Kashmiri guys trying to sell trips to Kashmir and hashish, but I made 'friends' with a couple of these guys even after I had refused to buy anything from them. Over several days in Delhi I would sit and chat with them for several hours on several occaisions, with no question of there being any business dealings. In Varanasi it appears this just couldn't happen.

Varanasi is also probably the dirtiest place I have ever visited. The river Ganges here (which thousands bathe in every day) is septic (there is no dissolved oxygen), there is human urine and faeces everywhere, rotting food and burning corpses (which in themselves are not dirty, but it helps contribute to the whole feel). Its stupidly hot there (up to 45 when I was there, but will reach 50 or higher during the high summer) which certainly doesnt help with the pollution. The city does have a certain beauty, it is one of the worlds oldest living cities and centers of civilisation and there are beautiful temples all over the city, but the overall feel (to me) was oppressive and difficult. I guess the holiest of Hindu cities just isnt that holy for non-Hindus.

So I return with mixed feelings about my trip this time. It was a great break, calling it a holiday would be too much and its really great to be back, so I guess it has satisfied my wanderlust for a while, which in itself is a good enough reason to have gone.

I have also added a few more photos to my facebook page which is here.]]> http://www.snae.net/index.php?entry=entry090427-092832 2009-04-27T00:00:00Z 2009-04-27T00:00:00Z
After leaving Jaipur I got a bus ride from hell to Jaipur. 40 odd degrees on a non AC bus for 10 hours, bliss. The bus was supposed to take 7 hours, but due to heavy traffic and breaking down and being fixed by the roadside, it took 10. Anyways, after getting to Jaipur I headed straight for the hotel, and got a fairly decent one (actually a very decent one). Nothing doing that night to just relax a little. Jaipur is a big city and feels nothing like the village feel that the old part of Johdpur has. Everyone wants to sell you something, and to be honest the sights are not so great there either. There is the palace of the winds, there is an old observatory, but its all nothing special - and it means making fairly long journeys through what is a very busy, and hot, city.

Following Jaipur I moved on to Allahabad (with the help of 17 hours of trains) to meet with a friend for a couple of days. Allahabad is an old city, with no tourism trade to speak of, so it was nice to be (mostly) left alone for a while in the city. I visited a very rural village to see how some development work was going and also had a boat ride down the river to the confluence of the Ganges and some other river. Its a very sacred site for Hindus and I must say it was a pleasant little trip. The city of Allahabad itself seems to know what its doing too. It has very good roads, the best I have seen in India and the people there seem pretty nice.

Today I came by bus to Varanasi. This place is like nowhere I have ever seen. A city almost falling into the Ganges it seems. The place is just so old its untrue. The Ganges runs right through the city and is the focal point for the place. Along the river are the Ghats, which are basically jetties of sorts. All the Ghats along the water front have their purpose, but the most interesting of those is the Manikarnika Ghat where cremations take place. These cremations follow the body being carried through the streets, doused in the river then publicly burnt on a special mix of firewood. For Hindus its all very sacred and the place really just ticks over with all of this. Seeing the odd foot sticking out of the fires is quite common and its all rather normal. Apart from the Ghats, Varanasi is full of temples, absolutely full of them, although the significance of one from the other is lost on me....

Its really, really hot here too, well over 40 in the middle of the day, so its a fairly expensive AC room for me for my time here...]]> http://www.snae.net/index.php?entry=entry090419-152144 2009-04-19T00:00:00Z 2009-04-19T00:00:00Z at this link.]]> http://www.snae.net/index.php?entry=entry090414-110218 2009-04-14T00:00:00Z 2009-04-14T00:00:00Z
As it is, I found a really nice hotel just fine. The main attraction of Johdpur is a huge medieval fort in the middle of the old town, built on a huge rock outcrop. It is absolutely incredible, one of the most amazing buildings I have ever seen to be honest. It pisses over most castles we have in the UK and for Indian standards this place is well maintained. Anyway, the guesthouse is just below the walls surrounding the fort and the terrace on the roof has great views of the building itself. The owners son has just won Indias 'next great model' or something, and apparently there was a party last night - everyone was pretty blurry eyed today when I arrived this morning. I got up to the fort early this morning while it still cold (read, below 35...) and got an audio tour around the place. This was also really well done and really enjoyable.

I just had lunch in a cheap old roadside cafe for 25 Rupees (about 40p), and very tasty it was too. Great that was apart from a really persistent 12 year old spice shop tout pestering me. Anyway, he got the message in the end - 'I'm not your man' was the mantra to get rid...!

Anyway, tomorrow its on to Jaipur on a mid-day bus (I wanted to get a day bus so I can actually sleep in a hotel for two consecutive nights and not on the train). Its going to be a hot one...]]> http://www.snae.net/index.php?entry=entry090414-101759 2009-04-14T00:00:00Z 2009-04-14T00:00:00Z
Amritsar was great! I went there with little idea of what to do, but after getting there (by bus from Himachal Pradesh, 6 hours...) I got wind of the visit to the Pakistani border thats possible (its only 30km away), so thats just what I did, went to see the ritual closing of the border between India and Pakistan that they do every day. Its more like being at a football match than a border, and is really great fun... all foreigners get to go in the VIP section and thus have a great view. India soldiers marching up and down, tannoys playing Hindi music - all the while with the threat of serious war between these two countries hanging around. Only thing that spolit it for me was they confiscated my popcorn - I thought it would be nice to watch the whole thing whilst eating popcorn.. but alas no.

Following that I spent the evening at the Golden Temple, a oasis of calm in the midst of Amritsar, which is not calm at all... I ate dinner with the Sikhs there for free in the scrum that is known as dinner time. Basically free food (and good food) is provided free for all (thats about 35000 people a day on average), you line up, grab your plate, sit in lines and wait for various curry bits to be dumped on your plate from a bucket. Great fun. I went back the next day for seconds...!

Also in Amritsar, I visited the memorial site of a massacre perpetrated by the Bristish in the early part of last century, quite moving I must say. Not a lot else really (well, probably a lot more, but I'm too tired to type anymore) apart from good food and exceptionally friendly people up there. I must have more pictures of me with various random Indians than anywhere else I've been, and that was them demanding that they had their picture with me, not the other way round!

So, now to sleep in a flea pit for a couple of hours before moving onto Johdpur where its going to get even hotter...]]> http://www.snae.net/index.php?entry=entry090413-075912 2009-04-13T00:00:00Z 2009-04-13T00:00:00Z Avidemux seems to do it easily.

Its open source, available for all operating systems (within reason) and seems well written. Last night I had to hard-code some VobSub (.idx/.sub) subtitles to a foreign video to watch on my XBox. Simple. Open Avidemux, open the video (it was an xvid encoded AVI in this case), set the codec to be xvid, set the container as AVI, choose 'filters' and simply use the subtitle filter (which happens to have a nice option for VobSub subtitles, along with .srt and more) and encode the file. Took about an hour for a video of an hour and a half, the encode took about an hour on my laptop (which isn't the greatest), using Avidemux on Ubuntu.]]> http://www.snae.net/index.php?entry=entry090318-083216 2009-03-18T00:00:00Z 2009-03-18T00:00:00Z