Thursday, April 12, 2012

Motorcycles and Electricity

Many of you know that Dan has been a fan of motorcycles since 1968, when we moved to India and he purchased a Jawa, a Czech company that began producing bikes in India in 1960. He sold it to a fellow teacher when we left. When we returned in 1975, he purchased a Royal Enfield Bullet, a British company that had been producing bikes in India since 1949, many of which were used by the Army. Both of these models can still be found. Woodstock's principal has restored an old Jawa which he likes to ride.

A few years ago, Dan was able to get a motor scooter for getting around the area. One of our old friends here saw him on it and couldn't believe it. He decided that he would loan Dan a Bullet that his son had recently replaced with a hotter bike. So while we are here Dan has the use of both a scooter and a motorcycle. The scooter is useful for quick trips to the bazaar for shopping. It is also easier for me to ride with him on the occasions that I am willing to get on!

This past winter our friend's son came up and decided to decorate the bike, which was plain black. He had flames put on the gas tank and fender.

Twice a week Dan goes to Dehradun to help some budding violinists at The Doon School. He loves the excuse to get on the bike. His violin has straps, so he puts it on like a backpack. The blue bag holds any other items he needs to take or pick up along the way. Here he is on Tuesday ready to head down the hill right after lunch.


All of our electronic devices have chargers that work on 110-240v. That is handy for us as we go back and forth so much. Below is a picture of our setup. We have a local power strip. Plugged into it is a USB charger that has a Kindle and iPod attached, a MacBook Air power device, and our Nokia phone charger. One of the ones we brought along burned out, so we were able to get one here that works. This is the first time we have owned phones that are unlocked, so we can put in our Indian SIMs. They work fine and it is much more convenient than having different phones. When we get home all we have to do is switch out the little chip. (Europeans do this all the time, but in North America we tend to be less flexible.)


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