Beggars belief

I visited India for ten days. I went to a lovely wedding, explored Ludhiana, walked round the Golden Temple at Amritsar and visited Chandigarh. To top it all off I spent two nights in the fabulous Himalayan mountain town of Nainital.

It was quite and amazing experience. So why do I keep questioning if I should be enjoying myself in this exceptional multi-cultural country?

The answer is poverty. Deprivation is not exclusive to India but this country holds a sizeable chunk of the worlds homeless, hungry and humiliated.

India has a fat-growing economy built on industry, particularly manufacturing. But still it harbours huge misery and desperation.

You see it immediately from the train when you leave New Delhi Station heading north. Amongst the litter-strewn wage ground between the track and slums squat dozens of human beings in what acts as their open-air toilets. They shit on the ground.

The stench of the slums, even from 50 metres away in Agra is unbearable. So unbearable I didn’t dare go near.

And the beggars at every street junction and corner, who traipse up and down the trains (first-class excluded) or, like these two girls pictured (above), who relentlessly smile into carriages in the desperate hope of a few rupees.

I gave them a (large) packet of crisps and some biscuits. Does that justify taking the photograph?

Possibly not. But at least writing about it and showing this photo is better than ignoring it. Do I sound like Bono?

Road to hell (yes, it's in India)

I remember Alan Whicker. I’ve seen Clive James. I watch Michael Palin. I knew what to expect in India. So I reckoned anyway. Nothing can prepare you for the stress of the roads.

It’s not so much the hustle and bustle and bump of traffic in the congested cities, it’s the torturous journies between towns that leave your brain battered and bruised.

Imagine travelling from Manchester to Newcastle or London to Leeds on a country road which regularly descends into a dirt track and which is littered with cows, horses and carts, huge trucks, motorcycles, rickshaws and cars all travelling on both sides of the road, often four abreast at 90mph, while oncoming traffic whizzes towards you.

For someone who prides himself on not getting stressed-out this was too stressful to bear.

Ludhiana to Chandigarh. Three hours each way. Nightmare. The booting and braking of my friend Hemant on dusty tracks left me scared of Ford Fusion’s for life. I decided to shut my eyes for almost the entire journey back to Ludhiana.

Ludhiana to Amritsar. Four hours each way. Absolutely horrendous. The Ayrton Senna-style drive to Amritsar was bad enough- we were late for the India/Pakistan border closing ceremony at Wagah. But coming back in the dark was emotionally devastating. Parts of this journey on the famous Grand Trunk Road were on dual carriageways. Unfortunately, dual carriageways do not stop some trucks from driving the wrong way down them. And then there was the Holy Cow! moment when Hemant blackspotted his Fusion’s tyres when Daisy the cow meandered into our 80mph path on a typically unlit piece of carriageway.

Ludhiana to Corbett National park. Fifteen hours in a mini bus. Along some of the bumpiest roads ever misconstructed. This was a nightmare from start to finish. So traumatised I was by this that my final journey, intended to be from Nainital to Delhi in this very same minibus was dumped in favour of the train. A decision I did not live to regret.

India has a huge amount to offer. Temples, mountains, culture by the bucketloads and enough diahorrea to keep everyone busy. But the roads, the speed and the fearless head-on driving give this monumental country it’s own unique selling point.

Caviar, computers and photography

Digital photography is as much as computers as cameras. The problem is that there is a mind-boggling assortment of components to choose from and some have appalling performance and reliability records.

And, almost without exception, there are no easy guides to help photographers choose the best photo-editing software, hard drives, monitors, laptops or portable storage devices.

I make my purchases after mind-numbing internet searches. Often the best-rated pieces are impossible to get hold of in the UK. But, after several exhaustive searches, reviewing reviews and comparing Top 10 lists, sometimes I feel like I know which is the best component to buy.

Internal hard drives

Loads of contradictory information here. I bought the Western Digital Caviar 1000gb (1 terabyte if you're clever)*. Seems to be the most reliable drives around.

Samsung (Spinpoint T Series HD501LJ) and several Hitachi Deskstar's get good reviews. The 7K750 is the highest rated of the lot by pcworld.com but it appears to be unavailable in the UK.

But Western Digital Cavier's perform well in some reviews and very well in others, so that's the one I plumped for.

From my limited knowledge I would have gone for a Seagate drive. They have always had a good reputation. But pcworld do not give them much respect and some message board postings state that the reliability has nosedived since the company acquired rival Maxtor (who again have a poor reputation).

One of my most popular postings on this blog has been a rather long guide to publishing a book through lulu.com. I had such stupifying problems when I first tried to upload my first book that I wrote the blog guide for future reference. This blog is written for the same reasons.

PC protection:

For those of you, like me, too stupid to have bought a Mac, PC protection is essential.
The top-rated free PC protection software I have found. Zone Alarm firewall and Avira anti-virus. Both come recommended by British Consumer Association magazine Which? (though Avira is not a Best Buy). AVG Anti-Virus Free Edition is also very highly-rated by Which?.

And finally, you can use internal hard drives as plug-in data storage machines with the USB/eSATA Cradle from http://www.storagedepot.co.uk/. Costs about £30 after postage, but is it is a much cheaper and faster solution than using caddy's.

* The Western Digital WD10EADS Caviar Green 1tb SATAII 32Mb Cache 3.5 Inch Green Power OEM Internal Hard Drive cost me £89.99 from Amazon.co.uk.

Road to hell (yes, it's in India)

I remember Alan Whicker. I’ve seen Clive James. I watch Michael Palin. I knew what to expect in India. So I reckoned anyway. Nothing can prepare you for the stress of the roads.

It’s not so much the hustle and bustle and bump of traffic in the congested cities, it’s the torturous journies between towns that leave your brain battered and bruised.

Imagine travelling from Manchester to Newcastle or London to Leeds on a country road which regularly descends into a dirt track and which is littered with cows, horses and carts, huge trucks, motorcycles, rickshaws and cars all travelling on both sides of the road, often four abreast at 90mph, while oncoming traffic whizzes towards you.

For someone who prides himself on not getting stressed-out this was too stressful to bear.

Ludhiana to Chandigarh. Three hours each way. Nightmare. The booting and braking of my friend Hemant on dusty tracks left me scared of Ford Fusion’s for life. I decided to shut my eyes for almost the entire journey back to Ludhiana.

Ludhiana to Amritsar. Four hours each way. Absolutely horrendous. The Ayrton Senna-style drive to Amritsar was bad enough- we were late for the India/Pakistan border closing ceremony at Wagah. But coming back in the dark was emotionally devastating. Parts of this journey on the famous Grand Trunk Road were on dual carriageways. Unfortunately, dual carriageways do not stop some trucks from driving the wrong way down them. And then there was the Holy Cow! moment when Hemant blackspotted his Fusion’s tyres when Daisy the cow meandered into our 80mph path on a typically unlit piece of carriageway.

Ludhiana to Corbett National park. Fifteen hours in a mini bus. Along some of the bumpiest roads ever misconstructed. This was a nightmare from start to finish. So traumatised I was by this that my final journey, intended to be from Nainital to Delhi in this very same minibus was dumped in favour of the train. A decision I did not live to regret.

India has a huge amount to offer. Temples, mountains, culture by the bucketloads and enough diahorrea to keep everyone busy. But the roads, the speed and the fearless head-on driving give this monumental country it’s own unique selling point.

Taj Mahal, Agra, India

Mother and son having a rest at the back of the Taj Mahal on Sunday morning May 3, 2009.