Panoramas

A selection of panoramic photos from this year.

Panoramas

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First snow

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It's snowing

Snow, hail, rain and thunder. Yep, that's what you get for staying half way up the mountain in winter.
This kind of weather started 3 days ago, and it's giving us a hard time here in Dharamkot.
The first hazard is the coldness, but it's actually the easiest one to deal with.
Not long after the temperature dropped, we were then trapped inside the hotel by the rain and the freezing wind almost all day long.
Whenever the weather gets bad, the internet stops working.

The lightening and thunders...they are not just spectacles that I used to watch with great interest and enjoyment in New Zealand, here they are real hazards to electronic equipments. I keep hearing stories about how they burn out everything connected to the power outlet in the entire house.
Just before we moved into our current hotel, one of the power supply of their computer was burnt by the lightening.
Several times we have sparks coming out (not sure from where) near our computers after lightening, that we immediately shut down everything to make sure we don't lose our hardwares.

You may wonder, why don't they just install something (earthing or whatever) to prevent this from happening?
It's a good question, but there's no good answers. The conclusion would be: "This is India, what do you expect?"

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More internet bugs

This month had been a great training session for my patience.

On the technical front, there's been one bug after another, none stop. First there was the usual difficulties & frustrations to get an internet connection, then for an entire day & night the power supply of our building fluctuated like crazy. The lights went brighter & dimmer all the time like in some horror movies, and the voltage was so unstable that the computers would constantly crash if we switch them on.

An electrician fixed the power problem the next day, but soon after, our internet provider denied our access for 3 days with the message that the username/password was invalid.

After the problem was finally resolved, just one day later, the light on the ADSL modem wouldn't come on. I picked up the phone, and there were no sound. We thought that something messed up the phone line, so there's nothing we can do but wait for the phone company to repair the problem.

We soon heard the news that during the previous night, someone had stolen a significant chunk of the cable from the major phone line, so all the telephone connections from McLeod Ganj upward were down. McLeod Ganj, being the main center in the area, got the phone connection back 2 days later, and for us in Dharamkot, we waited for 3 days until the phone connection was finally back, but...the internet was still not working.

That was yesterday, and today we found out that our network cable was not functioning. As a last resort, I connected an older cable that was broken earlier, and miraculously it worked. That's why I have access the internet at this very moment. We ordered a new cable, and with luck hopefully it will arrive promptly tomorrow.

This, ladies and gentlemen, is life in India. Either you get use to it, or you gocrazy.

On the personal front....ah..well...it's a long story. The only thing I can say is that it has been everything, but never boring.

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