We had a relaxing evening last night and early back up to our room, I think I,d caught a bit too much sun so today I wore my hst. We've been enjoying pancake stack each for breakfast the oberoi is very good at sweet things. We had the chocolate fondant which was really well presented far better than most attempts in the UK we have experienced over the past year. Tonight I think we may go for the lamb biryani again. Followed by the bread and butter pudding another British great that they turn our so sublimely. I headed off to the spot I'd found yesterday near the port although the container port is many miles away but the Indira dock handles most other goods. I actually found the route in for the heavier lorries but it wasn't very accessable as it was under the expressway. I hope to fill the gaps in kochi. Anyway I got another batch of highly animated shots in this India's largest city. We have made the arrangements for our onwards trip tomorrow which doesn't start until the evening, we'll leave the hotel and travel up to the new station at kudos which isn't the commuter India visited to see the deckers there , thank goodness you here Mandy say. It should be almost accessable for the wheelchair and we've got food and water together to get us through the trip without risking on board consumption remembering what happened to me on the paddle steamer I. Banglsdesh. The tickets don't have to be reconfirmed these days of computerisation. The train is one of anumberof fast ones I. The durknto network getting up to almost 100mph in places and being doubled in places although it's had a Sharkey safety record mainly in the monsoon season with section washed away even with the banks gabioned, that is stones in nets. Well time to get ready for another evening of luxury, we watched a young couple supping champagne by the pool this afternoon., Goodness knows what that cost as the cheapest plonk is thirty quid plus taxesedit.
Click i noticed that despite having spell check it still picks on the wrong spelling sometimes. Anyway we had a kind lay in bed as I didn't wake until nine this mornjng. After breakfast I got the taxi in to Victoria terminus shot off a few scenes of the deckers as the lights rather good earlier I. The dsy. The next thing was to Ollie the old dock yard road which starts at the back of the station and was soon on semi familiar territory which I remembered from my very first Bombay visit. The slums wireless along the main road now but are all there around the many acres of land dedicated to the trucking and goods industry in the area. These days although still rough shacks the slums have toilets at intervals and even the one of banks. I saw one little kid in a school uniform and name badge, they all have I'd cards round their necks at schools in mjmbai. I eventually found a good spot where the eastern freeway starts but on the original road just past the junction I'm going back there tomorrow and hopefully run off a lot more shots. The temperature is climbing it will be forty on Saturday we leave Saturday evening, the big sister station to the commuter station which I travelled up to to see the deckers. the train covers about a thousand miles in well under a day at times reaching almost 100mph an amazing feat on this relatively new line which runs down the coast and suffers each year with damage from the monsoon seasins.here to edit.
A day with the one objective to visit kudos about 35 mine by commuter train. North of Victoria terminus in Mumbai, it was touching 100 in the shade today but still just about in my comfort zkne. I had another good long sleep, a long time now since any pain. Killers were required and internally all is back to normal and even my injured finger has gained movement swelling reduced and bruising fadjng. The breakfast s at the overkill are not world status but anything sweet they do very well so we've stuck with a pancake stack each morning and pastries although I did add a bowl of fruit and last night we had lamb biryani followed by more of their delicious puddjngs. This morning after breakfast I thought I'd best ignore all the hotel concierge advice and do my own thing, as I was travelling opposite the rush hour traffic the queue for ticket was about one minute at Victoria and the platforms were virtually opposite me, a first class return was about three pounds or less.. Theresa's plenty of room in the carriage although it filled abit as we went north, the stations were announced and on ascreen so easy to follow, there was just the one station at kurla. The station was hell to navigate as there were still rush hour or so morning crowds I got out near a taxi Rand and asked for Kula West, it was fairly obvious that the oneby us didn't have d deckers. A taxi driver sent a LSD to show me the bridge over the tracks there as no road crossing or road brighe. The other side of the tracks was kurla West bus station and immediately obvious that I had found my objective. Stinking hot and sweating away I did go up and down from the us station to the main road out but really I think I saw all the routes, one went into town on another road but same buses I got one at the junction under the dual carriageway. I decided that annoying kids and people not withstanding the road into the bus station was as good as light as I would get for film and still shots and highly animated was the scene. A very much traditional perspective a bit like being back with the Bangladesh deckers. A lot of slums and mainly muslemside of town, I wish the children stayed at school longer and out of my way a bit more. on the whole no real hassle at all and great shots, got back on the right platforms all trains called at CST Victoria but much more crowded, passed on the first train as I,dnitbeen quick enough to get to first-class so next train about four mins later I was waiting at the right spot, not empty not crowded though, I would never ever had attempted a we one class carriage even early afternoon it's a rush that never seems to end. Got back to Mandy, taxi from station down to forty rupees must be looking local as I get browner.
Greetings to readers world wide as we commence our coverage of the double deck best buses in Mumbai. Things certainly aren't what they used to be although in places it is slightly better than the lists of DD routes suggest certainly the 103. Route was an extra but I think that at rush hour all sorts of extras can appear. I started with heading south East from the hotel at narriman point and after a lot of walking and asking despite a map supplied by the hotel I eventually tracked it down to a point not that far from that suggested by the map but lost a lot of time in random wandering. It turned out to be an in out through a wall like the old bighorn depot , you could see to the back from the guarded gateway all that would have been interesting was the blue open topped only now used for charter at weekend eveings. Then I tried to find the back bay depot which is at the end of the 128 which almost goes past our hotel, the depot cum bus station is opposite a massive military establishment with no photography. I then followed the route back towards the hotel until l located a corner at lights with the sun in the right direction. It was his gone midday and I'd hardly taken any video or photos. Then I got pulled by the police as I'd been filming there for a kind time, I think they were just being nosey, horrid the Indian police near!T but not quite as bad as Scotland. By this time my feet were sore. The back was holding out, we'd had a great sleep last night, s good job we set the alarm otherwise we may never have stirred. It was low thirties today a bit hotter tomorrow, certainly sweated a lot, picked up a huge blister. I couldn't find any proper shops, all we wanted was tonic water and orange juice to go with our lasrjc bottle of time from Manchester airport. I finished up at Victoria terminus and although it may not be the days of former glories it provided the most varied shots yet and several in the lesser routes although tomorrow I I intend to go north to another clutch of routes which don't reach down and seem centered around the area near the airport so I'll try and get a train from Victoria station, it will be against the rush hour flow and at the start of the journey I think it takes about 35 minutes on a local which have their own section at the station. I tried to get hold of the chap from best but he was out of town but his stand in said give him a call from the depot and her send somebody but we don't know which depot he is at. All very Indian you could say. The restaurant is extortionate even for an overkill, the wine is a killer, we'll try a beer tonight and Mandy a gin and tonic.
greetings to readers world wide on this hot sunny Monday morning in Mumbai. We left Manchester on time Sunday morning on etiad the Abu Dhabi airline which I think it fair to say hastumbledin terms of aircraft and service and the airport itself maintained its shamboloic reputation of under staffed and under whelming. we had Ashley time I the lounge at Abu Dhabi Mandy's wheelchair was in theholdlugguageso had to stick to the airport pushers. They came to collect us from the lounge ages before weneededtobe at the gate and the departures was about ninety minutes late. On arrival at Mumbai the chair was still not at the door they said it would be at the luggage carousel. The airport wheelchair pusher was going too fast and I could hardly keep up, he then hit a plinth across the carpet sending Mandy flying out of the chair. Thankfully she was fine and then the challenge was at immigration for e visas with my broken finger and Mandy's shortness the last though was very helpful and smiled a lot then we came through the oberoi chaffeur was waiting for us and we were checked in the room by about five thirty am. We set the alarm for eleven am and missed breakfast but we weren't hungry. I'll start gathering information and filming tomorrow so far I saw one bus but then it was in the taxi at four am!
The day out in London was generally successful, I managed to get about 4 hours of film done spread between Oxford St, The Strand, Elephant & Castle and then back down Fleet St to St Pauls. The trip down was on the London Midland train, it wasn't a bad journey and seemed to pass very quickly on route to Euston although coming home at night it seemed to drag on forever - the main attraction of this route being the cheap fare although by car to the outskirts and then in by tube is probably a bit easier as at least when you are finished you can just make tracks home. I got through a lot of pain killers as the pain in the back is now all in the facet joint muscle which is worse than the disc being out. I walked from Euston to Piccadilly Circus, about 20 mins then with light drizzle got an hour of film caught a bus as I could be then use the old gits card and headed to Trafalgar Sq and the environs, I ended up at The Strand because bus were being diverted up the side of Trafalgar Sq and I had a tremendous series of vantage points for the second hour, the rain was a little heavier but not a problem other than wiping the lens. Then I caught a No12 from Horse Guards parade to the Elephant which now finished was more or less the layout I encountered last year, also walker up the road towards Waterloo but in the end caught a bus back to Lancaster Gate and surrounding roads, film,ed there as light finally dipped and got up Fleet St to St Pauls, it was now 5.30 and nearly dark. Then trying to finish off I scuttled across Fleet St and slipped on a greasy patch on the road and when flying, landed on my left hand and camera. Thankfully only very minor camera damage not a problem but my finger seems to be fractured , swollen, black , tingling, numb etc. Very kind folk hauled me up picked up camera, got a chair ( two arrived) and only let me go when they were satisfied that I was in one piece, I did then carry on to get the last few minutes of film I needed then caught a bus to Waterloo for a connection back up to Euston station. I had tea in coffee shop then was lucky and found a seat in the station opposite the board, the train left on time platform 7 we had arrived same route platform 17, how foreigners grasp that I've no idea. I got back home about 11pm, I had been amazed how busy Middlewich had been at 4.30am! A cuppa then straight to bed. I'm busy charging up everything and having a go at editing a couple of DVDs. Here are pictures yesterday morning. Well off to India, will blog en route and on the trip in general when we can, should be easy as Oberoi and Taj group hotels. A few orders just arrived in the post, we'll get these to the post office, they'll go on Monday. The Amazon shop is off for the next two weeks, EBay you can order but holiday setting show, the PMP shop remains open all the time but obviously won't get cleared until we return.
The signs for disabled parking have arrived and I've dropped these off with the quiz questions at Jane's. I managed to navigate through the DVLA online system and got the registration I'd bought put on to the Toyota IQ and then popped down to Knutsford and got the plates fitted, when i got back I got the insurance changed to reflect the different number plate, the whole thing took less than an hour to complete. The only problem was in the DVLA system which needs a reference number entering which is the small print unlabelled at the end of a document still I suppose that wasn't as bad as having to fill it in and sent it all off. I got the photos I took at Lymm yesterday filed and am at present uploading to the Smugmug site. I also got all the magazine adverts done as of course we are off to India on Sunday morning just when we'd normally be doing them. I'm more or less sorted, the back problem is not as bad as it could have been but I'm still bent a good bit for most of the time just hobbling around but it won't stop me going off to London tomorrow, I'll have to be up about 4am. I've had a chat with John Bishop, found out that Thamesdown went into receivership last week, it's now Arriva - that's Swindon for the uninitiated! I'll try and get down there as soon as I can after coming back from India, a shame as I used to do their fleet on film every other year. Only 10 municipals left now. I got the two Lymm truck films edited, covers done and on our shop. I'll put the holiday setting on EBay, our own shop o this site you can use and wait until we are back for us to send the DVDs out, it does say that on the news and shop front pages. The Amazon shop I just have to knock off while we aren't here. Well i suppose a few Swindon shots are in order. Thankfully I've recovered quite a bit from my back problem yesterday, certainly not 100% but nearly upright! I felt really out of it last night drugged up to the eyes on painkillers and muscle relaxants but it got me through the meeting which was quite productive although i ended up bringing the minutes back to type and I also landed myself with preparing the quiz night questions ( and answers) plus a photo round. Anyway it's all done but took most of the afternoon. This morning I took the IQ in for it's MOT test, nothing to worry about there as it's only just been services, they thought that the tyres would last for a while yet. While it was in I took the camera around Northwich and did a few minutes on the buses, a pretty boring scene now post GHA through, Arriva and Warrington, Howards the small local firm has picked up some GHA routes but their buses stop for just seconds and shoot off before you can point the camera! Then I popped home as I'd forgotten my still camera and then headed up to Lymm Poplar service station and had about 2 1.2 hours filming, I've been that busy with the fund raising stuff I've not been up to the editing room since I left the files downloading this afternoon so I'll get on with that and in the meantime some shots from Lymm. My usual weak spot the disc went this morning three times and left me on the floor unable to stand. Thankfully I always keep muscle relaxants and pain killers close to hand and by this evening I'm fairly high on Tramadol but standing up quite straight for a while and generally free of immediate pain although the facet joint muscles are already in spasm, fingers crossed for a speedy recovering in light of our trip to India starting early Sunday morning. On a more cheerful note I went to Wilmslow for my AAA scan which covers anourism in your aorta and it is free of that type of pesky thing albeit I didn't even know what it was but comforting to get the all clear on another the the old git specials you cop for when approaching 65, only a few weeks to go and I'm a genuine oap! So a day dominated by all this but we got the post away and tested out the noise cancelling head phones which Mandy will use on the trip as the normal airpline push in trpe hurt her small eardrums, we can order another pair for me we just left it a bit late testing them. My IQ is in for it's MOT test tomorrow morning then I'm hoping to have a short truck session at Lymm assuming it's cloudy and my back is up to the climb to my perch above the roundabout outside Lymm Poplar services. Being fairly static today I got a lot more photos sorted into my archive and loaded to our still photo sales outlet on Smugmu links page on this site gets you there. I'll b starting to put holiday settings on the shops this week but you can of course order and wait until we are back at the end of the month perhaps it will be spring by then, very mild here today and sunny all morning. I have a fund raising meeting this evening, it's not far to drive. Hopefully I'll be OK to go to London on Friday, I've booked the trip and paid for it so finmgers crossed for that. I'll do the central areas and then in March we'll spread out into the suburbs a bit thus catching up our coverage of the capital. I've added the last couple of DVDs to our shop and updated the list on news and shop front pages. I also chatted with Martin on the Balkan trip which should be going ahead and sent an enquiry to Ukraine for the August trip there. Japan is still pencilled in for September but I'm not sure it will happen, watch this space I suppose. Here are a couple of Youtube links to latest releases. Below is an enquiry I got on EBay on a cine film I was selling...the description is underneath Hi, is this film colour or black and white? Thank... Thanks Reply Standard 8 mm Cine Film - INDIA CALCUTTA 1963 STREET SCENES COLOUR SILENT View your listing There are actually screen shots on the page ( in colour as well as the above title) sometimes you wonder if it's all just one big wind up! We got the paperwork for Boyle St, Mandy is going to try and contact the stand organiser as it's so ambiguous the language in the documents sent out, to me it sounds like they are attempting to get double their money on top of prices which were raised to accommodate wider stands, their tables are just 2 foot deep. It already works out more expensive than Showbus. Thankfully I've already decided to attend the Exeter bus station farewell on the Sunday. LOTS sale has now ended, that went to the wall when Jan stopped running it, all these things seem to eventually have a 'sell by' date on them, ditto North Weald et al. I was at Worcester this morning, light was spot on, there were another two enthusiasts there, quite a turn out. These days I rate Worcester very highly on bus content, variety, operators, deckers etc. I called in at Kidderminster on the way back, it was still OK light then but the motorway had two lanes closed near home and then it threw it down but I took the back roads and all was well. No hassles in fact some very friendly drivers except from the chaps somewhat from the far east of Skegness and keep going who carry a heavy chip on their shoulders. |
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