Continuing my #traveltales #travelnotes, and staying on the topic of #masks

I'm in #Hyderabad for #KubeCon #India and forced myself out of the hotel on my arrival day at least once. Even walking to the ATM around the corner, I already put on my mask against all the dust and smog. Taking a tuktuk across town, I was immediately forced to put it back on and keep it on.

I love the buzzing and chaos on the streets, but I am also quite happy about my place with quiet and good air..

I always take tuktuks (called auto, here) where feasible. Cheaper, quicker, and generally more fun. In a real car now, because other than one time in Iceland and one time in Moab, I've never driven through as much and deep water in my life.

We're stuck at an intersection trying to turn. The waves from the car passing by are rocking the car back and forth

#traveltales #travelnotes #hyderabad #india

@RichiH that actually sounds kind of dangerous :) an adventure!

One fascinating aspect is how, being with six Indian coworkers for food, when one of them chooses a restaurant serving their home food, none of the others know the dishes. I know #India is large etc pp. Still, this drives it home even more.

#traveltales #travelnotes

#India was way too short, as always. I love the bustle, the colors, the smells, the spices, all the chaos which somehow just chugs along.

On the negative side, I don't think I will be able to not wear a mask outdoors in any major Indian city for the foreseeable future.

Even a few hours after landing in #Taiwan for #COSCUP, it was clear that it's the most.. deliberate.. of all the Asian countries I've ever been to. Very orderly and structured, with clear long term planning shining through everywhere. Maintenance and upkeep are being taken seriously. While it's obviously different in many ways, it reminds me of Germany in a way.

One small and almost invisible aspect of Asian countries is how even low quality goods will have high quality cases, lanyards, etc. in Western country, you regularly need to buy expensive stuff to get nice auxiliary goods; in east Asian countries you will get nice auxiliary goods even for giveaways.

I received a battery powered fan someone got for free and didn't need; and the lanyard it came with is nicer than most lanyards I recently got with any but the most quality goods.

At scale, the unit prices from the factory door can't be impacted beyond cents, and yet we're just used to getting throwaway lanyards, cases, etc with stuff in Western countries.

@RichiH hm, some of the lower-quality stuff I bought when backpacking to replace broken things really were not good from core product to accessoiries. You might actually be extrapolating this a bit much :) But: I've experienced Japanese and (mainland) Chinese taking "giving a present" a lot more serious than what I'm used to as European. The nice case definitely *is* important to the gifter (e.g., got a tie once. It came in a magnet-closing box with textile inlays). And so I presume that
1/2

@RichiH extends to corporate giveaways. Giving you a battery fan whose lanyard would not make you feel valued is just not cutting it.

2/2

@funkylab I won't claim that my experience is universal, yet in my experience this holds generally true other than for what are basically throwaway items.

Maybe it's the general state of upkeep seen everywhere else, but this has left me somewhat unimpressed. Right next to Taipei Arena, there's a manhole without a cover. Just some cones and a blinky light. There's not construction work on Sunday, so this has been that way for at least ~30 hours by the time I saw it. If concrete settles, I'd expect a steel plate to cover everything...

That was certainly unexpected..

I've seen this a few times already, only on German cars.

Reduce, reuse, recycle etc

@RichiH they didn't even remove the old license plate and just bolted the local one over it? :D

@H4ndy I suspect it's a cool thing to do. Import discarded license plates and mount them under the real plates. It could also be direct import of the car. I don't know

@wouter @RichiH oh that's possible that they reuse the original plate holder and bolt some adapter for the local plate on it

@H4ndy @wouter most cars have the normal plates mounted. I suspect car manufacturers make that portion of any car able to take screws pretty much anywhere for compatibility reasons

Not super impressed by this one to be honest. But that is very likely in part because everything else is well maintained

@RichiH missed chance to put this in a perfect pentagram (on the preview it looked like it)

"relax please" says the tiny Thai lady who seems to be made solely of muscle and knuckles while she kneels on my upper legs, right before ramming both hands between my shoulder

@RichiH @H4ndy @wouter it's extremely common in Australia for older models of European cars to have badly mounted number plates. They are commonly installed crooked, or using the plate's top screw holes, to screw the plate where the adaptor would mount to the car (where the middle of the plate should be), so the plate ends up too low.

The original owners would have had a personalised European style number plates, or a "slimline" number plates (which cost 5 times as much as regular number plates), but the new owner cheaps out and buys a set of standard issue plates, but there's not a plastic adapter plate.

Instead of buying one, they either drill holes into their number plate (the smart cheapskate approach, what used car dealers do), or they just put screws wherever fits and bolt it to the car.

The food in #Taiwan is impressive. The night markets are really something for locals, and the density of food stalls is the highest I have ever seen in such places

Homeless (or very poor, I don't know) old people are markedly better dressed and smelling than in most other places I've been. Convenience store owners let them sit at the tables in peace and quiet to rest from the heat. The homeless often had impressively large sandwiches which I presume shopowners hand them when business slows down

I did see one man eat out of a trashcan, but other than that the social fabric seems to cushion the poor surprisingly well.

(I'm a simple man. I see you eating out of the trash, I give you enough cash to eat a few days if I can reach you and have some on me)

Overall, I didn't expect to be this impressed, but Taiwan did impress me. Seemingly solid social fabric, good maintenance, things are planned well. Quite efficient and effective.

There's an impressive level of non-predatory convenience built at least into Taipei. Stuff is where you need it, shops sprinkle the streets, pricing is reasonable.

And if you're a foody.. recommend.

#travelnotes #traveltales

@RichiH
From most of my visits, "homeless" seem to be less formally homeless and more very poor and living in a tiny shed of corrugated roofing. But then again, I'm not a native living there, so I could be missubg stuff.

@RichiH you've just probably seen old people enjoying free Aircon at 7-Eleven, not homeless people. Like with most of Asia, being a homeless is a shame, so it's very hard for the homeless to reach out for help and get out of there. You can go around Taipei Main Station in the evening and you will see homeless people. With the heat and the humidity, I don't think they'll "smell better" that the homeless people you saw elsewhere.

@pieq shame or not, if you don't have a home, you don't have a home. Implying it's some sort of a choice seems quite the mental leap.

There are huge differences in smell between different countries. Some have the ability to wash their clothes and themselves, some do not. The US is worst in this. No one smells of old urine and feces out of their own free will, so my working assumption is that all avenues of compassion have been closed in that case.

Not saying where I am yet. Maybe a good #osint #geolocation #geoguessr challenge...

I am sleeping in the middle of nowhere. Bioluminescent algae randomly appeared.

NB: I can't easily verify on mobile if exif data is stripped. Fair have if it's not, just let me know.

@RichiH Matsu, Taiwan 🫢

@susutw wrong continent, sorry :)

Let's try an actually solvable #osint #geolocation #geoguessr challenge.

This image was taken a few minutes ago.

@RichiH
ohhh nice challenge
Given that I life close to my guess, the time of posting and sunset, I would go with western UK.
What drives me off though, are these few outstanding trees on the left edge, why don't look eurpean forestry to me 🤔

@RichiH you and I have very different definitions of "actually solvable"

@toxision not quite

@RichiH google image search showed me something that looked very very very close at Hill Head Beach, Stubbington. Looking into it it seems at least plausible.

@spacewizard not quite

I am just going to post increasingly revealing photos for #osint #geolocation #geoguessr fun

@RichiH Carrigafoyle castle?

@fubar666 correct. Did you know it already? Or how did you find it?

@RichiH The tower is quite distinctive, so reverse image search was the quickest way to locate it.

Two surprising aspects about #Ireland:
* The roads are tiny, and half the country seems to be in a contest to cultivate the densest and most dangerous growth into the side of the roads. I'm a good driver, and this is one of the most stressful road systems I've ever been on
* Signs everywhere to not litter, and ~zero wastebins; roughly as many as in Japan. We always take all trash with us anyway, but trash bins would do more than signs for other people not to litter..

@RichiH But it was also one of the politest road traffic I have ever encountered

Re the roads, I don't have data, but I presume that this is due to the historically relative poverty of Ireland. It takes money over substantial amounts of time to widen, straighten, and generally improve infrastructure.

@phako it's certainly slower out of necessity

@RichiH yeah, the people in Taiwan are foodies too, always enjoy this when I'm there

Randomly stopping on the side of the road, and realizing everything's thick with #blackberry bushes. 30 minutes later, no one is hungry any more.

Hiking around Gleniff Barytes Mill Site

So. Many. Blackberries.

With the possible exception of fresh #maracuja in #Brazil and #thai oranges, #blackberry is my favorite fruit by far.

For the first time in my life have I been sated with blackberries. Without breakfast, I've eaten so many that I started picking only the nicest ones. So many that I stopped eating them even though there were many, many more and almost every single one near perfect. And then started and stopped eating again several times.

(berries are fruit, no need to discuss in this thread)

Three clear signs they don't get snow or freezing (yet) in #Ireland:

1. Several new houses have their sewage piping running outside(!) of the house. On the outer wall. Never seen this before

2. Wooden steps and walkways have simple chicken wire stapled to them against slippage

3. Some concrete steps are just poured onto the bare floor. Sometimes literally just bounded by random rocks and roots

@RichiH Ireland has one of the highest km/person ratio of public roads, so lots of minor roads are never going to be widened

Main roads have all bar a few exceptions, been improved

@RichiH Our (old) house - in England - has sewage from the top floor on an outside pipe. We do get some ice here but it's rarely deep or long; I don't rememember ever having a frozen sewage pipe.

@ColmDonoghue interesting, thanks! From my German lens, I do wonder what the main roads looked like before the improvements.

Even on the main tourist route (West Atlantic road or so) I've had cases where branches scraped both the left and the right side of the campervan at the same time.

On a minor road today, we were able to touch both side walls of a bridge through the open windows while sitting in the seats normally. It's certainly unusual (and sometimes fun)

@RichiH

> 1. Several new houses have their sewage piping running outside(!) of the house. On the outer wall. Never seen this before

This can also be seen in the Südpfalz (Rheinebene) on old buildings. But our climate here is, very warm as well without heavy winters.

@hikhvar without heavy winters *yet*

@RichiH the Wild Atlantic Way isn't a main road.
It's for tourists to see the west Coast

Why would we pave paradise to put up a parking lot?

@ColmDonoghue I'd argue that narrow and grown-in roads cause more stopping (not parking, though) than a wide road ;)

On a more serious note, it does appear that property shapes and borders are still in their historic position from the times of horse carts, which was the initial point.

N roads also get rather narrow regularly; if they were all like this before I can certainly see the improvement

We took the ferry into #NorthernIreland and the contrasts are interesting..

* No passport checks or anything
* Road surface quality is higher, they are slightly wider, and much straighter
* Road repairs are in long stripes, not random blobs
* Trees are offset back from the road and cut back more; no shrins encroaching visibility
* Three litter bins right at the ferry port

There's a huge army base and prison complex right at the closest point to Ireland; something I found rather English

Generally speaking, all fields, roads, and properties are straighter and larger. Almost as if they hadn't grown organically over a very long time, and instead someone came, killed and subjugated a few people and redistributed everything on a map.

@RichiH Closest point? There's an entire 100s of km of border, right? Or am I misunderstanding which point you're referring to?

@arjjra malligilian point

The small differences between #ireland and #nothernireland are interesting..

* Bottle caps come off in NI; hugely emotional topic for populist reasons
* NI is generally more spacious in all regards. Gardens, streets, cities, etc
* Upkeep, trash removal, and cleaning are better in NI
* Road safety, layout, and design is much, much better in NI
* Two taps for hot & cold water all over NI; though in disabled toilets they have modern mixing batteries

Both places are super nice, of course

@RichiH blackberries are not fruit they're murderous monsters that want to kill me and my whole team

(source: SAR ground pounder who constantly has to slog through swamps and forests overgrown with blackberry brambles looking for missing persons, crime scene evidence, etc)

@RichiH
What's the thing with those two taps? Why?
Also, they are still wide spread all over Ireland

@azonenberg

@azonenberg (not super appropriate, but too fitting to ignore)

@RichiH Lol. You never know what the folks planning our search assignments will come up with.

Just the other day, in the middle of the PNW dry season (keep in mind it hasn't rained substantially in probably two months).

And they managed to find a special present for us! Not quite a swamp (our favorite), but close. On the same mission, in close proximity to each other:
* Mud
* Water up to knee deep
* Dense blackberries
* Swarms of bees
* Swarms of mosquitos
* Sketchy undermined bluffs that look like they'd collapse if you stood in the wrong spot

@azonenberg nice. I can understand the need to train hard and to be time efficient in a volunteer system that saves lives. But yeah, nice.

@RichiH That wasn't training that was an actual mission. But the folks in charge still have to decide where out of the infinity of possible search assignments to send us.

We mostly train in the winter since that's the worst weather the area has to offer (cold, rainy, occasional snow, prolonged darkness).

@RichiH Blackberries, however, know no season. They're out for blood, literally, any time of year.

@azonenberg I can see them being even more dangerous under enough snow to hold your weight for a short time..

@RichiH Luckily we don't get that around here much. At ground level the snow is usually only a light dusting, maybe 10-20cm after a very heavy storm.

Higher up in the mountains it's a different story but by the time you're that high up it's too cold for blackberries to grow.

Plus we don't normally go on missions in that terrain, at that point you're looking at avalanche hazards and potential high angle rope work so we pass the torch off to mountain rescue.

@azonenberg half my extended family was mountain rescue at some point, and yeah.. that can also be fun

@RichiH Yeah it's something i'd like to get into but i would need to do a lot more technical climbing in my off time to keep my skills sharp. It's been years since I've climbed on rock outside a gym and I haven't even done much of that lately.