Statistics rarely give a simple view's Yes/No type answer to the question under analysis. Interpretation often comes down to the level of statistical significance applied to the numbers and often refers to the probability of a value accurately rejecting the null hypothesis (sometimes referred to as the p-value).

In this graph the black line is probability distribution for the test statistic, the critical region is the set of values to the right of the observed data point (observed value of the test statistic) and the p-value is represented by the green area.

The standard approach is to test a null hypothesis against an alternative hypothesis. A critical region is the set of values of the estimator that leads to refuting the null hypothesis. The probability of type I error is therefore the probability that the estimator belongs to the critical region given that null hypothesis is true (statistical significance) and the probability of type II error is the probability that the estimator doesn't belong to the critical region given that the alternative hypothesis is true. The statistical power of a test is the probability that it correctly rejects the null hypothesis when the null hypothesis is false.

Referring to statistical significance does not necessarily mean that the overall result is significant in real world terms. For example, in a large study of a drug it may be shown that the drug has a statistically significant but very small beneficial effect, such that the drug is unlikely to help the patient noticeably.

While in principle the acceptable level of statistical significance may be subject to debate, the p-value is the smallest significance level that allows the test to reject the null hypothesis. This is logically equivalent to saying that the p-value is the probability, assuming the null hypothesis is true, of observing a result at least as extreme as the test statistic. Therefore, the smaller the p-value, the lower the probability of committing type I error.

Some problems are usually associated with this framework (See criticism of hypothesis testing):

A difference that is highly statistically significant can still be of no practical significance, but it is possible to properly formulate tests to account for this. One response involves going beyond reporting only the significance level to include the p-value when reporting whether a hypothesis is rejected or accepted. The p-value, however, does not indicate the size or importance of the observed effect and can also seem to exaggerate the importance of minor differences in large studies. A better and increasingly common approach is to report confidence intervals. Although these are produced from the same calculations as those of hypothesis tests or p-values, they describe both the size of the effect and the uncertainty surrounding it.

Fallacy of the transposed conditional, aka prosecutor's fallacy: criticisms arise because the hypothesis testing approach forces one hypothesis (the null hypothesis) to be favored, since what is being evaluated is probability of the observed result given the null hypothesis and not probability of the null hypothesis given the observed result. An alternative to this approach is offered by Bayesian inference, although it requires establishing a prior probability.

Rejecting the null hypothesis does not automatically prove the alternative hypothesis.

As everything in inferential statistics it relies on sample size, and therefore under fat tails p-values may be seriously mis-computed.

Working from a null hypothesis, two basic forms of error are recognized:

Type I errors where the null hypothesis is falsely rejected giving a "false positive".

Type II errors where the null hypothesis fails to be rejected and an actual difference between populations is missed giving a "false negative".

Standard deviation refers to the extent to which individual observations in a sample differ from a central value, such as the sample or population mean, while Standard error refers to an estimate of difference between sample mean and population mean.

A statistical error is the amount by which an observation differs from its expected value, a residual is the amount an observation differs from the value the estimator of the expected value assumes on a given sample (also called prediction).

Mean squared error is used for obtaining efficient estimators, a widely used class of estimators. Root mean square error is simply the square root of mean squared error.

Misuse of statistics can produce subtle, but serious errors in description and interpretation—subtle in the sense that even experienced professionals make such errors, and serious in the sense that they can lead to devastating decision errors. For instance, social policy, medical practice, and the reliability of structures like bridges all rely on the proper use of statistics.

Even when statistical techniques are correctly applied, the results can be difficult to interpret for those lacking expertise. The statistical significance of a trend in the data—which measures the extent to which a trend could be caused by random variation in the sample—may or may not agree with an intuitive sense of its significance. The set of basic statistical skills (and skepticism) that people need to deal with information in their everyday lives properly is referred to as statistical literacy.

There is a general perception that statistical knowledge is all-too-frequently intentionally misused by finding ways to interpret only the data that are favorable to the presenter.[26] A mistrust and misunderstanding of statistics is associated with the quotation, "There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics". Misuse of statistics can be both inadvertent and intentional, and the book How to Lie with Statistics[26] outlines a range of considerations. In an attempt to shed light on the use and misuse of statistics, reviews of statistical techniques used in particular fields are conducted (e.g. Warne, Lazo, Ramos, and Ritter (2012)).[27]

Ways to avoid misuse of statistics include using proper diagrams and avoiding bias.[28] Misuse can occur when conclusions are overgeneralized and claimed to be representative of more than they really are, often by either deliberately or unconsciously overlooking sampling bias.[29] Bar graphs are arguably the easiest diagrams to use and understand, and they can be made either by hand or with simple computer programs.[28] Unfortunately, most people do not look for bias or errors, so they are not noticed. Thus, people may often believe that something is true even if it is not well represented.[29] To make data gathered from statistics believable and accurate, the sample taken must be representative of the whole.[30] According to Huff, "The dependability of a sample can be destroyed by [bias]... allow yourself some degree of skepticism.

A least squares fit: in red the points to be fitted, in blue the fitted line.

Many statistical methods seek to minimize the residual sum of squares, and these are called "methods of least squares" in contrast to Least absolute deviations. The latter gives equal weight to small and big errors, while the former gives more weight to large errors. Residual sum of squares is also differentiable, which provides a handy property for doing regression. Least squares applied to linear regression is called ordinary least squares method and least squares applied to nonlinear regression is called non-linear least squares. Also in a linear regression model the non deterministic part of the model is called error term, disturbance or more simply noise. Both linear regression and non-linear regression are addressed in polynomial least squares, which also describes the variance in a prediction of the dependent variable (y axis) as a function of the independent variable (x axis) and the deviations (errors, noise, disturbances) from the estimated (fitted) curve.

Measurement processes that generate statistical data are also subject to error. Many of these errors are classified as random (noise) or systematic (bias), but other types of errors (e.g., blunder, such as when an analyst reports incorrect units) can also be important. The presence of missing data or censoring may result in biased estimates and specific techniques have been developed to address these problems.

Statistics is a branch of mathematics dealing with the collection, analysis, interpretation, presentation, and organization of data. In applying statistics to, e.g., a scientific, industrial, or social problem, it is conventional to begin with a statistical population or a statistical model process to be studied. Populations can be diverse topics such as "all people living in a country" or "every atom composing a crystal." Statistics deals with all aspects of data including the planning of data collection in terms of the design of surveys and experiments.When census data cannot be collected, statisticians collect data by developing specific experiment designs and survey samples. Representative sampling assures that inferences and conclusions can reasonably extend from the sample to the population as a whole. An experimental study involves taking measurements of the system under study, manipulating the system, and then taking additional measurements using the same procedure to determine if the manipulation has modified the values of the measurements. In contrast, an observational study does not involve experimental manipulation.Two main statistical methods are used in data analysis: descriptive statistics, which summarize data from a sample using indexes such as the mean or standard deviation, and inferential statistics, which draw conclusions from data that are subject to random variation (e.g., observational errors, sampling variation). Descriptive statistics are most often concerned with two sets of properties of a distribution (sample or population): central tendency (or location) seeks to characterize the distribution's central or typical value, while dispersion (or variability) characterizes the extent to which members of the distribution depart from its center and each other. Inferences on mathematical statistics are made under the framework of probability theory, which deals with the analysis of random phenomena.A standard statistical procedure involves the test of the relationship between two statistical data sets, or a data set and synthetic data drawn from idealized model. A hypothesis is proposed for the statistical relationship between the two data sets, and this is compared as an alternative to an idealized null hypothesis of no relationship between two data sets. Rejecting or disproving the null hypothesis is done using statistical tests that quantify the sense in which the null can be proven false, given the data that are used in the test. Working from a null hypothesis, two basic forms of error are recognized: Type I errors (null hypothesis is falsely rejected giving a "false positive") and Type II errors (null hypothesis fails to be rejected and an actual difference between populations is missed giving a "false negative"). Multiple problems have come to be associated with this framework: ranging from obtaining a sufficient sample size to specifying an adequate null hypothesis.Measurement processes that generate statistical data are also subject to error. Many of these errors are classified as random (noise) or systematic (bias), but other types of errors (e.g., blunder, such as when an analyst reports incorrect units) can also be important. The presence of missing data or censoring may result in biased estimates and specific techniques have been developed to address these problems.In applying statistics to a problem, it is common practice to start with a population or process to be studied. Populations can be diverse topics such as "all persons living in a country" or "every atom composing a crystal".

Ideally, statisticians compile data about the entire population (an operation called census). This may be organized by governmental statistical institutes. Descriptive statistics can be used to summarize the population data. Numerical descriptors include mean and standard deviation for continuous data types (like income), while frequency and percentage are more useful in terms of describing categorical data (like race).

When a census is not feasible, a chosen subset of the population called a sample is studied. Once a sample that is representative of the population is determined, data is collected for the sample members in an observational or experimental setting. Again, descriptive statistics can be used to summarize the sample data. However, the drawing of the sample has been subject to an element of randomness, hence the established numerical descriptors from the sample are also due to uncertainty. To still draw meaningful conclusions about the entire population, inferential statistics is needed. It uses patterns in the sample data to draw inferences about the population represented, accounting for randomness. These inferences may take the form of: answering yes/no questions about the data (hypothesis testing), estimating numerical characteristics of the data (estimation), describing associations within the data (correlation) and modeling relationships within the data (for example, using regression analysis). Inference can extend to forecasting, prediction and estimation of unobserved values either in or associated with the population being studied; it can include extrapolation and interpolation of time series or spatial data, and can also include data mining.When full census data cannot be collected, statisticians collect sample data by developing specific experiment designs and survey samples. Statistics itself also provides tools for prediction and forecasting through statistical models. To use a sample as a guide to an entire population, it is important that it truly represents the overall population. Representative sampling assures that inferences and conclusions can safely extend from the sample to the population as a whole. A major problem lies in determining the extent that the sample chosen is actually representative. Statistics offers methods to estimate and correct for any bias within the sample and data collection procedures. There are also methods of experimental design for experiments that can lessen these issues at the outset of a study, strengthening its capability to discern truths about the population. Sampling theory is part of the mathematical discipline of probability theory. Probability is used in mathematical statistics to study the sampling distributions of sample statistics and, more generally, the properties of statistical procedures. The use of any statistical method is valid when the system or population under consideration satisfies the assumptions of the method. The difference in point of view between classic probability theory and sampling theory is, roughly, that probability theory starts from the given parameters of a total population to deduce probabilities that pertain to samples. Statistical inference, however, moves in the opposite direction—inductively inferring from samples to the parameters of a larger or total population.

The basic steps of a statistical experiment are:

Planning the research, including finding the number of replicates of the study, using the following information: preliminary estimates regarding the size of treatment effects, alternative hypotheses, and the estimated experimental variability. Consideration of the selection of experimental subjects and the ethics of research is necessary. Statisticians recommend that experiments compare (at least) one new treatment with a standard treatment or control, to allow an unbiased estimate of the difference in treatment effects.

Design of experiments, using blocking to reduce the influence of confounding variables, and randomized assignment of treatments to subjects to allow unbiased estimates of treatment effects and experimental error. At this stage, the experimenters and statisticians write the experimental protocol that will guide the performance of the experiment and which specifies the primary analysis of the experimental data.

Performing the experiment following the experimental protocol and analyzing the data following the experimental protocol.

Further examining the data set in secondary analyses, to suggest new hypotheses for future study.

Documenting and presenting the results of the study.

Experiments on human behavior have special concerns. The famous Hawthorne study examined changes to the working environment at the Hawthorne plant of the Western Electric Company. The researchers were interested in determining whether increased illumination would increase the productivity of the assembly line workers. The researchers first measured the productivity in the plant, then modified the illumination in an area of the plant and checked if the changes in illumination affected productivity. It turned out that productivity indeed improved (under the experimental conditions). However, the study is heavily criticized today for errors in experimental procedures, specifically for the lack of a control group and blindness. The Hawthorne effect refers to finding that an outcome (in this case, worker productivity) changed due to observation itself. Those in the Hawthorne study became more productive not because the lighting was changed but because they were being observed.

Observational study

An example of an observational study is one that explores the association between smoking and lung cancer. This type of study typically uses a survey to collect observations about the area of interest and then performs statistical analysis. In this case, the researchers would collect observations of both smokers and non-smokers, perhaps through a cohort study, and then look for the number of cases of lung cancer in each group.[15] A case-control study is another type of observational study in which people with and without the outcome of interest (e.g. lung cancer) are invited to participate and their exposure histories are collected.Various attempts have been made to produce a taxonomy of levels of measurement. The psychophysicist Stanley Smith Stevens defined nominal, ordinal, interval, and ratio scales. Nominal measurements do not have meaningful rank order among values, and permit any one-to-one transformation. Ordinal measurements have imprecise differences between consecutive values, but have a meaningful order to those values, and permit any order-preserving transformation. Interval measurements have meaningful distances between measurements defined, but the zero value is arbitrary (as in the case with longitude and temperature measurements in Celsius or Fahrenheit), and permit any linear transformation. Ratio measurements have both a meaningful zero value and the distances between different measurements defined, and permit any rescaling transformation.

Because variables conforming only to nominal or ordinal measurements cannot be reasonably measured numerically, sometimes they are grouped together as categorical variables, whereas ratio and interval measurements are grouped together as quantitative variables, which can be either discrete or continuous, due to their numerical nature. Such distinctions can often be loosely correlated with data type in computer science, in that dichotomous categorical variables may be represented with the Boolean data type, polytomous categorical variables with arbitrarily assigned integers in the integral data type, and continuous variables with the real data type involving floating point computation. But the mapping of computer science data types to statistical data types depends on which categorization of the latter is being implemented.

Other categorizations have been proposed. For example, Mosteller and Tukey (1977)[distinguished grades, ranks, counted fractions, counts, amounts, and balances. Nelder (1990)[described continuous counts, continuous ratios, count ratios, and categorical modes of data. See also Chrisman (1998), van den Berg (1991). The issue of whether or not it is appropriate to apply different kinds of statistical methods to data obtained from different kinds of measurement procedures is complicated by issues concerning the transformation of variables and the precise interpretation of research questions. "The relationship between the data and what they describe merely reflects the fact that certain kinds of statistical statements may have truth values which are not invariant under some transformations. Whether or not a transformation is sensible to contemplate depends on the question one is trying to answer".Consider independent identically distributed (IID) random variables with a given probability distribution: standard statistical inference and estimation theory defines a random sample as the random vector given by the column vector of these IID variables. The population being examined is described by a probability distribution that may have unknown parameters.

A statistic is a random variable that is a function of the random sample, but not a function of unknown parameters. The probability distribution of the statistic, though, may have unknown parameters.

Consider now a function of the unknown parameter: an estimator is a statistic used to estimate such function. Commonly used estimators include sample mean, unbiased sample variance and sample covariance.

A random variable that is a function of the random sample and of the unknown parameter, but whose probability distribution does not depend on the unknown parameter is called a pivotal quantity or pivot. Widely used pivots include the z-score, the chi square statistic and Student's t-value.

Between two estimators of a given parameter, the one with lower mean squared error is said to be more efficient. Furthermore, an estimator is said to be unbiased if its expected value is equal to the true value of the unknown parameter being estimated, and asymptotically unbiased if its expected value converges at the limit to the true value of such parameter.

Other desirable properties for estimators include: UMVUE estimators that have the lowest variance for all possible values of the parameter to be estimated (this is usually an easier property to verify than efficiency) and consistent estimators which converges in probability to the true value of such parameter.

This still leaves the question of how to obtain estimators in a given situation and carry the computation, several methods have been proposed: the method of moments, the maximum likelihood method, the least squares method and the more recent method of estimating equations.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statistics

The Elm Street Market, Stockbridge, MA. Stockbridge is a town in Berkshire County in Western Massachusetts. It is part of the Pittsfield, Massachusetts, Metropolitan Statistical Area. The population was 1,947 at the 2010 census. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

See the video here: zerodriftmedia.com/%ed%8f%89%ec%b0%bd%ec%a7%91-%eb%b0%b0%...

3DR solo gopro4 black

zerodriftmedia.com/%ed%8f%89%ec%b0%bd%ec%a7%91-%eb%b0%b0%...

I finally made a second issue of my zine "Statistical Analysis of The Things that Happen but Don't Matter and Everything Else"

This time the title is "Updated Report of Observations Which Seem to Reflect Abstractly on Life".

After a few years, reading over my first zine, I find that things have changed. Not incredibly, but things are noticeably different if you look at the stats.

Also, it's a way of me saying things I want to say but never find it appropriate to bring them up in conversation.

28 pages + cover, photocopy on stapled, A4, lilac coloured paper.

This photo appeared in the following ideotrope albums:

Southern Kerala and Tamil Nadu - February 2008 - On the road in India

At Thanksgiving Rudi reminded me of a grim statistic regarding Indian traffic: India has 4% (or is it 5?) of the world's motor vehicles and 25% of the world's traffic fatalities. Even having visited India once before, I couldn't imagine the chaos and frequent danger of being on the road. Of course the conditions we encountered ran the gamut from smooth, quiet country lanes where our tandem was the fastest on the road to unbelievable chaos where it felt like a bit of a miracle to make it through the day.

By the end of five weeks though, we never crashed, and except for one goat I can't even recall that we ran into anything. As in the U.S. the traffic law in India seems to be that if you get there first, you have the right to the road. This law is taken to its logical extreme such that there's really no reason to ever look behind you. Pay attention to what's in front, be ready to brake and avoid sudden turns. In this sense I could see order to it all and certainly enjoyed heavy, slower traffic to the far too common high-speed chicken matches with buses which left us more than once bouncing off the edge of the tarmac. It's no surprise that fatal bus accidents are reported almost daily in the newspaper.

Coastal Kerala

We arrived at the Thiruvananthapuram airport at about 4am and cycled out of the "city" 26 hours later. The city hardly ended. During our first three days of pedaling, I'm not sure that we were ever out of sight of people and buildings. Perhaps we shouldn't have found this surprising. Kerala has the highest population density of any state in India. And within the state the highest density is found in the southern half of the state on the flat strip of land between the sea and the hills - exactly where we rode the first three days. We mostly avoided the fast traffic of the main road, usually riding a road closer to the coast. The network of paved roads is dense. There are many possibilities.

It wasn't always easy to follow these roads, and I can think of three funny incidents from these first three days:

We were on a narrow road with a fair bit of bus traffic. We noticed lighter traffic. Suddenly the road ended, and we looked across 100m of water with no bridge. Thinking we had missed a turn, we backtracked and quickly came to the spot where the buses turn around. Locals directed us back to the water and down a sandy single track where we loaded onto an oversized canoe with a motorcyclist and another bicyclist. Two men poled the craft across, and soon we were on our way again.

Further north on a similar narrow road we somehow managed to miss the main fork. The road continued to narrow and narrow until we were on a three-foot wide dirt track between two walls. Still we continued and cycled right into someone's yard! All found it amusing.</li?

In another section we had been warned that the coastal road was a bit broken in places and we'd have to push the bike so we weren't surprised to come upon a sandy single track. It was surprising to come upon a mahout on his elephant traveling in the opposite direction on this track. It was very sandy off the track and thinking the elephant would have an easier time of it than we would I kept on the track. The mahout hollered at us, and we were quite close before we ducked out of the way!

Cardamom Hills

After three days of riding to Alappuzha we were ready to try anything besides the Kerala coastal strip so we headed east into the hills. In less than 10km we came to the most peaceful, beautiful riding that we'd seen up to that point. Of course it all wasn't like that, but we had made a good choice.

We rode for three days to get to the Kumily/Thekkadi/Periyar tourist area and two more to get to more beautiful, more touristy, and higher Munnar. We climbed a lot on four of those days, but the roads were well-graded and simply by luck rather than any planning we only had a couple climbs that lasted more than 15km. On the other hand after climbing out of Munnar, we descended about 70km down to Kurichikottai. That would have been a brutal climb.

Through the hills and mountains we pedaled in misty, forested areas where all we could hear was the sounds of monkeys and birds. I thought of Jack Zuzack and the sounds he recorded on his 'round the world trip. We also rode through cardamom (these are the Cardamom Hills after all), rubber, tea, coffee, pepper, jackfruit, and coconut. The tea plantations were particularly beautiful as they seem to glow a translucent green.

The Tamil Nadu plains

Along the road from Munnar we met David who invited us to stay with his family in Kurichikottai, our first night in Tamil Nadu. David's from Kerala but came to Tamil Nadu to help the locals with basic health care and sanitation. He explained that most people don't have toilets in their houses in Tamil Nadu and we'd see many people using the side of the roads as a toilet in the morning. We spent the next two weeks riding in Tamil Nadu and indeed that's one thing I'll remember from our early morning riding there.

In spite of that, the riding in Tamil Nadu was more enjoyable than coastal Kerala. There were lots of wide-open spaces, beautiful agriculture areas, good roads, light traffic, compact cities. Also the weather was more comfortable since it was drier than Kerala. (Overall the weather on the whole trip was good. We never wanted a/c at night. Most of the day was warm, but it felt pretty hot from 1-4pm. We'd try not to be riding then.)

We visited a number of temple towns in Tamil Nadu: Palani, Madurai, Sivakasi, Tirunelveli, Tiruchchendur, Kanniyakumari. These places are on the Hindu pilgrimage circuit and except for Sivakasi and Tirunelveli were crowded with pilgrims.

Any place that's popular for Indians to visit is absolutely chaotic on the weekends. We experienced this in Munnar and Kanniyakumari, both places that we stayed a few days. Once the weekend crowds went home, we enjoyed the relative tranquility of these towns.

Sivakasi is famous for being a production center for fireworks. We ended up visiting the city because we met Jack Reed on the grounds of the Ghandi Museum in Madurai. He invited us to Sivakasi. Jack's friend, Sami, managed to arrange a tour of a cracker factory for the four of us. Seeing the workers and the working conditions was the most moving experience of the trip. The "factories" - though there's nothing automated about them - are scattered out on the hot plain away from the city and away from each other. The factory we visited consisted of about 20 small (4mx4mx4m), widely-spaced buildings. Each building has at least four doors which are always opened during work hours. There's no electricity. The design - good ventilation, many escape routes, widely-spaced buildings - is to prevent accidents. The workers are paid by the piece and earn about $3/day for this boring, repetitive, dangerous work. They're in constant contact with the chemicals in the fireworks - though some jobs looked much worse than others - and must fully wash before leaving the premises (to keep the unhealthy, volatile chemicals out of their homes). It was the closest thing I've seen to a sweat shop. Two women asked me to take them to my home, the only time that happened during this trip. That said, the workers appeared to genuinely return our smiles, and I'm afraid they're paid more than the average wage in India, perhaps even double (?).

The culinary journey

During our first trip to India, we spent two months in the north - Rajastan, Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal - and loved the food. Then we spent a month in the Andaman Islands where there is mostly South Indian food. We were introduced to a whole new Indian cuisine, and we loved it! Indeed both of us prefer South Indian food to North Indian. The South Indian food is lighter, less oily, and less rich. It's food that can be eaten every day - not like what's served at the Indian restaurants in Boulder.

For breakfast we'd order a bread or rice dish - often appam in Kerala, idli or pongal in Tamil Nadu. Both states had dosa, puri, porotha, puttu, ottappam as well. The breads are served with curries and chutneys, and in fancier restaurants different breads were served with different sides. Egg curry was a popular breakfast option in Kerala, and many places would offer omelets as well. All except the most basic restaurants would offer tea (chai) and coffee. There wasn't much difference between dinner and breakfast unless we'd go to a fancier restaurant and order specific made-to-order curries.

Lunch is an all-you-can-eat affair based on rice. In Tamil Nadu banana leafs are used as plates, but I don't think we saw that a single time in Kerala. Silverware is not used. The rice comes with a number of vegetable sides, pickled stuff, papadam, and a pudding for dessert. Waiters come by with dal, sambar, and curd to pour over the rice, and they're constantly dumping more vegetables and rices onto your plate. The food was continually tasty. The one complaint would be that it was somewhat repetitive.

Kovalam and Mumbai

20km before completing our loop in Thiruvananthapuram we spent a couple days at the beach resort of Kovalam. I was impressed. The beaches were beautiful and clean with very mellow waves that were easy and fun to bodysurf. The main beach (Lighthouse) is tastefully developed, and there's still fisherman pulling in their catch. I can see why Europeans fly to India just to visit Kovalam.

On our flight home we took advantage of a 10 hour layover in Mumbai to make a quick dash into the city. We went straight to the Gateway of India and barely caught it in the last light of the day. I had hoped to do a little walking tour, but it's hard to appreciate the architecture in the dark. The most memorable part of this excursion will be the incredibly crowded train coming back from Churchgate to Andheri at 10 on a Saturday night. The doors to the trains don't close, and folks hang out the sides. People carry their bags above their heads because there's no room between the packed bodies. There isn't even enough room for everyone's feet on the floor. People stood on my feet, and I stood on other feet. At the stations it's required to jump off while the train is moving to avoid being pushed back on by the mass attemping to squeeze on. Not being experienced jumping off moving trains, Julie and I were a bit nervous when our stop was approaching. I followed the example of the person in front of me, and a helpful passenger gave Julie an arm to help her balance as she stumbled onto the platform. In spite of the chaos everyone was helpful, good-natured, and polite. Farewell, India.

The route: Thiruvananthapuram, Varkala, Karunagappally, Alappuzha, Kanjirappally, Peerumade, Thekkadi, Nedumkandam, Munnar, Kurichikottai, Palani, Kodaikanal Road, Madurai, Sivakasi, Surandai, Tirunelveli, Tiruchchendur, Kanniyakumari, Kovalam, Thiruvananthapuram.

Link to less selective photo album

Kerala and Tamil Nadu - all photos - Link to trip description

This photo appeared in the following ideotrope albums:

Southern Kerala and Tamil Nadu - February 2008 - On the road in India

At Thanksgiving Rudi reminded me of a grim statistic regarding Indian traffic: India has 4% (or is it 5?) of the world's motor vehicles and 25% of the world's traffic fatalities. Even having visited India once before, I couldn't imagine the chaos and frequent danger of being on the road. Of course the conditions we encountered ran the gamut from smooth, quiet country lanes where our tandem was the fastest on the road to unbelievable chaos where it felt like a bit of a miracle to make it through the day.

By the end of five weeks though, we never crashed, and except for one goat I can't even recall that we ran into anything. As in the U.S. the traffic law in India seems to be that if you get there first, you have the right to the road. This law is taken to its logical extreme such that there's really no reason to ever look behind you. Pay attention to what's in front, be ready to brake and avoid sudden turns. In this sense I could see order to it all and certainly enjoyed heavy, slower traffic to the far too common high-speed chicken matches with buses which left us more than once bouncing off the edge of the tarmac. It's no surprise that fatal bus accidents are reported almost daily in the newspaper.

Coastal Kerala

We arrived at the Thiruvananthapuram airport at about 4am and cycled out of the "city" 26 hours later. The city hardly ended. During our first three days of pedaling, I'm not sure that we were ever out of sight of people and buildings. Perhaps we shouldn't have found this surprising. Kerala has the highest population density of any state in India. And within the state the highest density is found in the southern half of the state on the flat strip of land between the sea and the hills - exactly where we rode the first three days. We mostly avoided the fast traffic of the main road, usually riding a road closer to the coast. The network of paved roads is dense. There are many possibilities.

It wasn't always easy to follow these roads, and I can think of three funny incidents from these first three days:

We were on a narrow road with a fair bit of bus traffic. We noticed lighter traffic. Suddenly the road ended, and we looked across 100m of water with no bridge. Thinking we had missed a turn, we backtracked and quickly came to the spot where the buses turn around. Locals directed us back to the water and down a sandy single track where we loaded onto an oversized canoe with a motorcyclist and another bicyclist. Two men poled the craft across, and soon we were on our way again.

Further north on a similar narrow road we somehow managed to miss the main fork. The road continued to narrow and narrow until we were on a three-foot wide dirt track between two walls. Still we continued and cycled right into someone's yard! All found it amusing.</li?

In another section we had been warned that the coastal road was a bit broken in places and we'd have to push the bike so we weren't surprised to come upon a sandy single track. It was surprising to come upon a mahout on his elephant traveling in the opposite direction on this track. It was very sandy off the track and thinking the elephant would have an easier time of it than we would I kept on the track. The mahout hollered at us, and we were quite close before we ducked out of the way!

Cardamom Hills

After three days of riding to Alappuzha we were ready to try anything besides the Kerala coastal strip so we headed east into the hills. In less than 10km we came to the most peaceful, beautiful riding that we'd seen up to that point. Of course it all wasn't like that, but we had made a good choice.

We rode for three days to get to the Kumily/Thekkadi/Periyar tourist area and two more to get to more beautiful, more touristy, and higher Munnar. We climbed a lot on four of those days, but the roads were well-graded and simply by luck rather than any planning we only had a couple climbs that lasted more than 15km. On the other hand after climbing out of Munnar, we descended about 70km down to Kurichikottai. That would have been a brutal climb.

Through the hills and mountains we pedaled in misty, forested areas where all we could hear was the sounds of monkeys and birds. I thought of Jack Zuzack and the sounds he recorded on his 'round the world trip. We also rode through cardamom (these are the Cardamom Hills after all), rubber, tea, coffee, pepper, jackfruit, and coconut. The tea plantations were particularly beautiful as they seem to glow a translucent green.

The Tamil Nadu plains

Along the road from Munnar we met David who invited us to stay with his family in Kurichikottai, our first night in Tamil Nadu. David's from Kerala but came to Tamil Nadu to help the locals with basic health care and sanitation. He explained that most people don't have toilets in their houses in Tamil Nadu and we'd see many people using the side of the roads as a toilet in the morning. We spent the next two weeks riding in Tamil Nadu and indeed that's one thing I'll remember from our early morning riding there.

In spite of that, the riding in Tamil Nadu was more enjoyable than coastal Kerala. There were lots of wide-open spaces, beautiful agriculture areas, good roads, light traffic, compact cities. Also the weather was more comfortable since it was drier than Kerala. (Overall the weather on the whole trip was good. We never wanted a/c at night. Most of the day was warm, but it felt pretty hot from 1-4pm. We'd try not to be riding then.)

We visited a number of temple towns in Tamil Nadu: Palani, Madurai, Sivakasi, Tirunelveli, Tiruchchendur, Kanniyakumari. These places are on the Hindu pilgrimage circuit and except for Sivakasi and Tirunelveli were crowded with pilgrims.

Any place that's popular for Indians to visit is absolutely chaotic on the weekends. We experienced this in Munnar and Kanniyakumari, both places that we stayed a few days. Once the weekend crowds went home, we enjoyed the relative tranquility of these towns.

Sivakasi is famous for being a production center for fireworks. We ended up visiting the city because we met Jack Reed on the grounds of the Ghandi Museum in Madurai. He invited us to Sivakasi. Jack's friend, Sami, managed to arrange a tour of a cracker factory for the four of us. Seeing the workers and the working conditions was the most moving experience of the trip. The "factories" - though there's nothing automated about them - are scattered out on the hot plain away from the city and away from each other. The factory we visited consisted of about 20 small (4mx4mx4m), widely-spaced buildings. Each building has at least four doors which are always opened during work hours. There's no electricity. The design - good ventilation, many escape routes, widely-spaced buildings - is to prevent accidents. The workers are paid by the piece and earn about $3/day for this boring, repetitive, dangerous work. They're in constant contact with the chemicals in the fireworks - though some jobs looked much worse than others - and must fully wash before leaving the premises (to keep the unhealthy, volatile chemicals out of their homes). It was the closest thing I've seen to a sweat shop. Two women asked me to take them to my home, the only time that happened during this trip. That said, the workers appeared to genuinely return our smiles, and I'm afraid they're paid more than the average wage in India, perhaps even double (?).

The culinary journey

During our first trip to India, we spent two months in the north - Rajastan, Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal - and loved the food. Then we spent a month in the Andaman Islands where there is mostly South Indian food. We were introduced to a whole new Indian cuisine, and we loved it! Indeed both of us prefer South Indian food to North Indian. The South Indian food is lighter, less oily, and less rich. It's food that can be eaten every day - not like what's served at the Indian restaurants in Boulder.

For breakfast we'd order a bread or rice dish - often appam in Kerala, idli or pongal in Tamil Nadu. Both states had dosa, puri, porotha, puttu, ottappam as well. The breads are served with curries and chutneys, and in fancier restaurants different breads were served with different sides. Egg curry was a popular breakfast option in Kerala, and many places would offer omelets as well. All except the most basic restaurants would offer tea (chai) and coffee. There wasn't much difference between dinner and breakfast unless we'd go to a fancier restaurant and order specific made-to-order curries.

Lunch is an all-you-can-eat affair based on rice. In Tamil Nadu banana leafs are used as plates, but I don't think we saw that a single time in Kerala. Silverware is not used. The rice comes with a number of vegetable sides, pickled stuff, papadam, and a pudding for dessert. Waiters come by with dal, sambar, and curd to pour over the rice, and they're constantly dumping more vegetables and rices onto your plate. The food was continually tasty. The one complaint would be that it was somewhat repetitive.

Kovalam and Mumbai

20km before completing our loop in Thiruvananthapuram we spent a couple days at the beach resort of Kovalam. I was impressed. The beaches were beautiful and clean with very mellow waves that were easy and fun to bodysurf. The main beach (Lighthouse) is tastefully developed, and there's still fisherman pulling in their catch. I can see why Europeans fly to India just to visit Kovalam.

On our flight home we took advantage of a 10 hour layover in Mumbai to make a quick dash into the city. We went straight to the Gateway of India and barely caught it in the last light of the day. I had hoped to do a little walking tour, but it's hard to appreciate the architecture in the dark. The most memorable part of this excursion will be the incredibly crowded train coming back from Churchgate to Andheri at 10 on a Saturday night. The doors to the trains don't close, and folks hang out the sides. People carry their bags above their heads because there's no room between the packed bodies. There isn't even enough room for everyone's feet on the floor. People stood on my feet, and I stood on other feet. At the stations it's required to jump off while the train is moving to avoid being pushed back on by the mass attemping to squeeze on. Not being experienced jumping off moving trains, Julie and I were a bit nervous when our stop was approaching. I followed the example of the person in front of me, and a helpful passenger gave Julie an arm to help her balance as she stumbled onto the platform. In spite of the chaos everyone was helpful, good-natured, and polite. Farewell, India.

The route: Thiruvananthapuram, Varkala, Karunagappally, Alappuzha, Kanjirappally, Peerumade, Thekkadi, Nedumkandam, Munnar, Kurichikottai, Palani, Kodaikanal Road, Madurai, Sivakasi, Surandai, Tirunelveli, Tiruchchendur, Kanniyakumari, Kovalam, Thiruvananthapuram.

Link to less selective photo album

Kerala and Tamil Nadu - all photos - Link to trip description

Boston is the capital and most populous municipality of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts in the United States. The city proper covers 48 square miles (124 km2) with an estimated population of 685,094 in 2017, making it also the most populous city in the New England region. Boston is the seat of Suffolk County as well, although the county government was disbanded on July 1, 1999. The city is the economic and cultural anchor of a substantially larger metropolitan area known as Greater Boston, a metropolitan statistical area (MSA) home to a census-estimated 4.8 million people in 2016 and ranking as the tenth-largest such area in the country. As a combined statistical area (CSA), this wider commuting region is home to some 8.2 million people, making it the sixth-largest in the United States.

Boston is one of the oldest cities in the United States, founded on the Shawmut Peninsula in 1630 by Puritan settlers from England. It was the scene of several key events of the American Revolution, such as the Boston Massacre, the Boston Tea Party, the Battle of Bunker Hill, and the Siege of Boston. Upon U.S. independence from Great Britain, it continued to be an important port and manufacturing hub as well as a center for education and culture. The city has expanded beyond the original peninsula through land reclamation and municipal annexation. Its rich history attracts many tourists, with Faneuil Hall alone drawing more than 20 million visitors per year. Boston's many firsts include the United States' first public or state school (Boston Latin School, 1635), first subway system (Tremont Street Subway, 1897), and first public park (Boston Common, 1634).

The Boston area's many colleges and universities make it an international center of higher education, including law, medicine, engineering, and business, and the city is considered to be a world leader in innovation and entrepreneurship, with nearly 2,000 startups. Boston's economic base also includes finance, professional and business services, biotechnology, information technology, and government activities. Households in the city claim the highest average rate of philanthropy in the United States; businesses and institutions rank among the top in the country for environmental sustainability and investment. The city has one of the highest costs of living in the United States as it has undergone gentrification, though it remains high on world livability rankings.

Boston's early European settlers had first called the area Trimountaine (after its "three mountains," only traces of which remain today) but later renamed it Boston after Boston, Lincolnshire, England, the origin of several prominent colonists. The renaming on September 7, 1630, (Old Style) was by Puritan colonists from England who had moved over from Charlestown earlier that year in quest of fresh water. Their settlement was initially limited to the Shawmut Peninsula, at that time surrounded by the Massachusetts Bay and Charles River and connected to the mainland by a narrow isthmus. The peninsula is thought to have been inhabited as early as 5000 BC.

In 1629, the Massachusetts Bay Colony's first governor John Winthrop led the signing of the Cambridge Agreement, a key founding document of the city. Puritan ethics and their focus on education influenced its early history; America's first public school was founded in Boston in 1635. Over the next 130 years, the city participated in four French and Indian Wars, until the British defeated the French and their Indian allies in North America.

Boston was the largest town in British America until Philadelphia grew larger in the mid-18th century. Boston's oceanfront location made it a lively port, and the city primarily engaged in shipping and fishing during its colonial days. However, Boston stagnated in the decades prior to the Revolution. By the mid-18th century, New York City and Philadelphia surpassed Boston in wealth. Boston encountered financial difficulties even as other cities in New England grew rapidly.

Revolution and the Siege of Boston

Many of the crucial events of the American Revolution occurred in or near Boston. Boston's penchant for mob action along with the colonists' growing distrust in Britain fostered a revolutionary spirit in the city. When the British government passed the Stamp Act in 1765, a Boston mob ravaged the homes of Andrew Oliver, the official tasked with enforcing the Act, and Thomas Hutchinson, then the Lieutenant Governor of Massachusetts. The British sent two regiments to Boston in 1768 in an attempt to quell the angry colonists. This did not sit well with the colonists. In 1770, during the Boston Massacre, the army killed several people in response to a mob in Boston. The colonists compelled the British to withdraw their troops. The event was widely publicized and fueled a revolutionary movement in America.

In 1773, Britain passed the Tea Act. Many of the colonists saw the act as an attempt to force them to accept the taxes established by the Townshend Acts. The act prompted the Boston Tea Party, where a group of rebels threw an entire shipment of tea sent by the British East India Company into Boston Harbor. The Boston Tea Party was a key event leading up to the revolution, as the British government responded furiously with the Intolerable Acts, demanding compensation for the lost tea from the rebels. This angered the colonists further and led to the American Revolutionary War. The war began in the area surrounding Boston with the Battles of Lexington and Concord.

Boston itself was besieged for almost a year during the Siege of Boston, which began on April 19, 1775. The New England militia impeded the movement of the British Army. William Howe, 5th Viscount Howe, then the commander-in-chief of the British forces in North America, led the British army in the siege. On June 17, the British captured the Charlestown peninsula in Boston, during the Battle of Bunker Hill. The British army outnumbered the militia stationed there, but it was a Pyrrhic victory for the British because their army suffered devastating casualties. It was also a testament to the power and courage of the militia, as their stubborn defending made it difficult for the British to capture Charlestown without losing many troops.

Several weeks later, George Washington took over the militia after the Continental Congress established the Continental Army to unify the revolutionary effort. Both sides faced difficulties and supply shortages in the siege, and the fighting was limited to small-scale raids and skirmishes. On March 4, 1776, Washington commanded his army to fortify Dorchester Heights, an area of Boston. The army placed cannons there to repel a British invasion against their stake in Boston. Washington was confident that the army would be able to resist a small-scale invasion with their fortifications. Howe planned an invasion into Boston, but bad weather delayed their advance. Howe decided to withdraw, because the storm gave Washington's army more time to improve their fortifications. British troops evacuated Boston on March 17, which solidified the revolutionaries' control of the city.

Post Revolution and the War of 1812

After the Revolution, Boston's long seafaring tradition helped make it one of the world's wealthiest international ports, with the slave trade, rum, fish, salt, and tobacco being particularly important. Boston's harbor activity was significantly curtailed by the Embargo Act of 1807 (adopted during the Napoleonic Wars) and the War of 1812. Foreign trade returned after these hostilities, but Boston's merchants had found alternatives for their capital investments in the interim. Manufacturing became an important component of the city's economy, and the city's industrial manufacturing overtook international trade in economic importance by the mid-19th century. Boston remained one of the nation's largest manufacturing centers until the early 20th century, and was known for its garment production and leather-goods industries. A network of small rivers bordering the city and connecting it to the surrounding region facilitated shipment of goods and led to a proliferation of mills and factories. Later, a dense network of railroads furthered the region's industry and commerce.

During this period, Boston flourished culturally, as well, admired for its rarefied literary life and generous artistic patronage, with members of old Boston families—eventually dubbed Boston Brahmins—coming to be regarded as the nation's social and cultural elites.

Boston was an early port of the Atlantic triangular slave trade in the New England colonies, but was soon overtaken by Salem, Massachusetts and Newport, Rhode Island. Boston eventually became a center of the abolitionist movement. The city reacted strongly to the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, contributing to President Franklin Pierce's attempt to make an example of Boston after the Anthony Burns Fugitive Slave Case.

In 1822, the citizens of Boston voted to change the official name from the "Town of Boston" to the "City of Boston", and on March 4, 1822, the people of Boston accepted the charter incorporating the City. At the time Boston was chartered as a city, the population was about 46,226, while the area of the city was only 4.7 square miles (12 km2).

19th Century

In the 1820s, Boston's population grew rapidly, and the city's ethnic composition changed dramatically with the first wave of European immigrants. Irish immigrants dominated the first wave of newcomers during this period, especially following the Irish Potato Famine; by 1850, about 35,000 Irish lived in Boston. In the latter half of the 19th century, the city saw increasing numbers of Irish, Germans, Lebanese, Syrians, French Canadians, and Russian and Polish Jews settling in the city. By the end of the 19th century, Boston's core neighborhoods had become enclaves of ethnically distinct immigrants. Italians inhabited the North End, Irish dominated South Boston and Charlestown, and Russian Jews lived in the West End. Irish and Italian immigrants brought with them Roman Catholicism. Currently, Catholics make up Boston's largest religious community, and the Irish have played a major role in Boston politics since the early 20th century; prominent figures include the Kennedys, Tip O'Neill, and John F. Fitzgerald.

Between 1631 and 1890, the city tripled its area through land reclamation by filling in marshes, mud flats, and gaps between wharves along the waterfront. The largest reclamation efforts took place during the 19th century; beginning in 1807, the crown of Beacon Hill was used to fill in a 50-acre (20 ha) mill pond that later became the Haymarket Square area. The present-day State House sits atop this lowered Beacon Hill. Reclamation projects in the middle of the century created significant parts of the South End, the West End, the Financial District, and Chinatown.

After the Great Boston fire of 1872, workers used building rubble as landfill along the downtown waterfront. During the mid-to-late 19th century, workers filled almost 600 acres (2.4 km2) of brackish Charles River marshlands west of Boston Common with gravel brought by rail from the hills of Needham Heights. The city annexed the adjacent towns of South Boston (1804), East Boston (1836), Roxbury (1868), Dorchester (including present-day Mattapan and a portion of South Boston) (1870), Brighton (including present-day Allston) (1874), West Roxbury (including present-day Jamaica Plain and Roslindale) (1874), Charlestown (1874), and Hyde Park (1912). Other proposals were unsuccessful for the annexation of Brookline, Cambridge, and Chelsea.

20th Century

The city went into decline by the early to mid-20th century, as factories became old and obsolete and businesses moved out of the region for cheaper labor elsewhere. Boston responded by initiating various urban renewal projects, under the direction of the Boston Redevelopment Authority (BRA) established in 1957. In 1958, BRA initiated a project to improve the historic West End neighborhood. Extensive demolition was met with strong public opposition.

The BRA subsequently re-evaluated its approach to urban renewal in its future projects, including the construction of Government Center. In 1965, the Columbia Point Health Center opened in the Dorchester neighborhood, the first Community Health Center in the United States. It mostly served the massive Columbia Point public housing complex adjoining it, which was built in 1953. The health center is still in operation and was rededicated in 1990 as the Geiger-Gibson Community Health Center. The Columbia Point complex itself was redeveloped and revitalized from 1984 to 1990 into a mixed-income residential development called Harbor Point Apartments.

By the 1970s, the city's economy had recovered after 30 years of economic downturn. A large number of high-rises were constructed in the Financial District and in Boston's Back Bay during this period. This boom continued into the mid-1980s and resumed after a few pauses. Hospitals such as Massachusetts General Hospital, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, and Brigham and Women's Hospital lead the nation in medical innovation and patient care. Schools such as Boston College, Boston University, the Harvard Medical School, Tufts University School of Medicine, Northeastern University, Massachusetts College of Art and Design, Wentworth Institute of Technology, Berklee College of Music, and Boston Conservatory attract students to the area. Nevertheless, the city experienced conflict starting in 1974 over desegregation busing, which resulted in unrest and violence around public schools throughout the mid-1970s.

21st Century

Boston is an intellectual, technological, and political center but has lost some important regional institutions, including the loss to mergers and acquisitions of local financial institutions such as FleetBoston Financial, which was acquired by Charlotte-based Bank of America in 2004. Boston-based department stores Jordan Marsh and Filene's have both merged into the Cincinnati–based Macy's. The 1993 acquisition of The Boston Globe by The New York Times was reversed in 2013 when it was re-sold to Boston businessman John W. Henry. In 2016, it was announced that General Electric would be moving its corporate headquarters from Connecticut to the Innovation District in South Boston, joining many other companies in this rapidly developing neighborhood.

Boston has experienced gentrification in the latter half of the 20th century, with housing prices increasing sharply since the 1990s. Living expenses have risen; Boston has one of the highest costs of living in the United States and was ranked the 129th-most expensive major city in the world in a 2011 survey of 214 cities. Despite cost-of-living issues, Boston ranks high on livability ratings, ranking 36th worldwide in quality of living in 2011 in a survey of 221 major cities.

On April 15, 2013, two Chechen Islamist brothers detonated a pair of bombs near the finish line of the Boston Marathon, killing three people and injuring roughly 264.

In 2016, Boston briefly shouldered a bid as the US applicant for the 2024 Summer Olympics. The bid was supported by the mayor and a coalition of business leaders and local philanthropists, but was eventually dropped due to public opposition. The USOC then selected Los Angeles to be the American candidate with Los Angeles ultimately securing the right to host the 2028 Summer Olympics.

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boston

Bitcoin coins photo.

Physical bitcoin statistic coin Antana.

Bitcoin coins photo.

Physical bitcoin statistic coin Antana.

Bitcoin coins photo.

Physical bitcoin statistic coin Antana.

Bitcoin coins photo.

Physical bitcoin statistic coin Antana.

This photo appeared in the following ideotrope albums:

Southern Kerala and Tamil Nadu - February 2008 - On the road in India

At Thanksgiving Rudi reminded me of a grim statistic regarding Indian traffic: India has 4% (or is it 5?) of the world's motor vehicles and 25% of the world's traffic fatalities. Even having visited India once before, I couldn't imagine the chaos and frequent danger of being on the road. Of course the conditions we encountered ran the gamut from smooth, quiet country lanes where our tandem was the fastest on the road to unbelievable chaos where it felt like a bit of a miracle to make it through the day.

By the end of five weeks though, we never crashed, and except for one goat I can't even recall that we ran into anything. As in the U.S. the traffic law in India seems to be that if you get there first, you have the right to the road. This law is taken to its logical extreme such that there's really no reason to ever look behind you. Pay attention to what's in front, be ready to brake and avoid sudden turns. In this sense I could see order to it all and certainly enjoyed heavy, slower traffic to the far too common high-speed chicken matches with buses which left us more than once bouncing off the edge of the tarmac. It's no surprise that fatal bus accidents are reported almost daily in the newspaper.

Coastal Kerala

We arrived at the Thiruvananthapuram airport at about 4am and cycled out of the "city" 26 hours later. The city hardly ended. During our first three days of pedaling, I'm not sure that we were ever out of sight of people and buildings. Perhaps we shouldn't have found this surprising. Kerala has the highest population density of any state in India. And within the state the highest density is found in the southern half of the state on the flat strip of land between the sea and the hills - exactly where we rode the first three days. We mostly avoided the fast traffic of the main road, usually riding a road closer to the coast. The network of paved roads is dense. There are many possibilities.

It wasn't always easy to follow these roads, and I can think of three funny incidents from these first three days:

We were on a narrow road with a fair bit of bus traffic. We noticed lighter traffic. Suddenly the road ended, and we looked across 100m of water with no bridge. Thinking we had missed a turn, we backtracked and quickly came to the spot where the buses turn around. Locals directed us back to the water and down a sandy single track where we loaded onto an oversized canoe with a motorcyclist and another bicyclist. Two men poled the craft across, and soon we were on our way again.

Further north on a similar narrow road we somehow managed to miss the main fork. The road continued to narrow and narrow until we were on a three-foot wide dirt track between two walls. Still we continued and cycled right into someone's yard! All found it amusing.</li?

In another section we had been warned that the coastal road was a bit broken in places and we'd have to push the bike so we weren't surprised to come upon a sandy single track. It was surprising to come upon a mahout on his elephant traveling in the opposite direction on this track. It was very sandy off the track and thinking the elephant would have an easier time of it than we would I kept on the track. The mahout hollered at us, and we were quite close before we ducked out of the way!

Cardamom Hills

After three days of riding to Alappuzha we were ready to try anything besides the Kerala coastal strip so we headed east into the hills. In less than 10km we came to the most peaceful, beautiful riding that we'd seen up to that point. Of course it all wasn't like that, but we had made a good choice.

We rode for three days to get to the Kumily/Thekkadi/Periyar tourist area and two more to get to more beautiful, more touristy, and higher Munnar. We climbed a lot on four of those days, but the roads were well-graded and simply by luck rather than any planning we only had a couple climbs that lasted more than 15km. On the other hand after climbing out of Munnar, we descended about 70km down to Kurichikottai. That would have been a brutal climb.

Through the hills and mountains we pedaled in misty, forested areas where all we could hear was the sounds of monkeys and birds. I thought of Jack Zuzack and the sounds he recorded on his 'round the world trip. We also rode through cardamom (these are the Cardamom Hills after all), rubber, tea, coffee, pepper, jackfruit, and coconut. The tea plantations were particularly beautiful as they seem to glow a translucent green.

The Tamil Nadu plains

Along the road from Munnar we met David who invited us to stay with his family in Kurichikottai, our first night in Tamil Nadu. David's from Kerala but came to Tamil Nadu to help the locals with basic health care and sanitation. He explained that most people don't have toilets in their houses in Tamil Nadu and we'd see many people using the side of the roads as a toilet in the morning. We spent the next two weeks riding in Tamil Nadu and indeed that's one thing I'll remember from our early morning riding there.

In spite of that, the riding in Tamil Nadu was more enjoyable than coastal Kerala. There were lots of wide-open spaces, beautiful agriculture areas, good roads, light traffic, compact cities. Also the weather was more comfortable since it was drier than Kerala. (Overall the weather on the whole trip was good. We never wanted a/c at night. Most of the day was warm, but it felt pretty hot from 1-4pm. We'd try not to be riding then.)

We visited a number of temple towns in Tamil Nadu: Palani, Madurai, Sivakasi, Tirunelveli, Tiruchchendur, Kanniyakumari. These places are on the Hindu pilgrimage circuit and except for Sivakasi and Tirunelveli were crowded with pilgrims.

Any place that's popular for Indians to visit is absolutely chaotic on the weekends. We experienced this in Munnar and Kanniyakumari, both places that we stayed a few days. Once the weekend crowds went home, we enjoyed the relative tranquility of these towns.

Sivakasi is famous for being a production center for fireworks. We ended up visiting the city because we met Jack Reed on the grounds of the Ghandi Museum in Madurai. He invited us to Sivakasi. Jack's friend, Sami, managed to arrange a tour of a cracker factory for the four of us. Seeing the workers and the working conditions was the most moving experience of the trip. The "factories" - though there's nothing automated about them - are scattered out on the hot plain away from the city and away from each other. The factory we visited consisted of about 20 small (4mx4mx4m), widely-spaced buildings. Each building has at least four doors which are always opened during work hours. There's no electricity. The design - good ventilation, many escape routes, widely-spaced buildings - is to prevent accidents. The workers are paid by the piece and earn about $3/day for this boring, repetitive, dangerous work. They're in constant contact with the chemicals in the fireworks - though some jobs looked much worse than others - and must fully wash before leaving the premises (to keep the unhealthy, volatile chemicals out of their homes). It was the closest thing I've seen to a sweat shop. Two women asked me to take them to my home, the only time that happened during this trip. That said, the workers appeared to genuinely return our smiles, and I'm afraid they're paid more than the average wage in India, perhaps even double (?).

The culinary journey

During our first trip to India, we spent two months in the north - Rajastan, Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal - and loved the food. Then we spent a month in the Andaman Islands where there is mostly South Indian food. We were introduced to a whole new Indian cuisine, and we loved it! Indeed both of us prefer South Indian food to North Indian. The South Indian food is lighter, less oily, and less rich. It's food that can be eaten every day - not like what's served at the Indian restaurants in Boulder.

For breakfast we'd order a bread or rice dish - often appam in Kerala, idli or pongal in Tamil Nadu. Both states had dosa, puri, porotha, puttu, ottappam as well. The breads are served with curries and chutneys, and in fancier restaurants different breads were served with different sides. Egg curry was a popular breakfast option in Kerala, and many places would offer omelets as well. All except the most basic restaurants would offer tea (chai) and coffee. There wasn't much difference between dinner and breakfast unless we'd go to a fancier restaurant and order specific made-to-order curries.

Lunch is an all-you-can-eat affair based on rice. In Tamil Nadu banana leafs are used as plates, but I don't think we saw that a single time in Kerala. Silverware is not used. The rice comes with a number of vegetable sides, pickled stuff, papadam, and a pudding for dessert. Waiters come by with dal, sambar, and curd to pour over the rice, and they're constantly dumping more vegetables and rices onto your plate. The food was continually tasty. The one complaint would be that it was somewhat repetitive.

Kovalam and Mumbai

20km before completing our loop in Thiruvananthapuram we spent a couple days at the beach resort of Kovalam. I was impressed. The beaches were beautiful and clean with very mellow waves that were easy and fun to bodysurf. The main beach (Lighthouse) is tastefully developed, and there's still fisherman pulling in their catch. I can see why Europeans fly to India just to visit Kovalam.

On our flight home we took advantage of a 10 hour layover in Mumbai to make a quick dash into the city. We went straight to the Gateway of India and barely caught it in the last light of the day. I had hoped to do a little walking tour, but it's hard to appreciate the architecture in the dark. The most memorable part of this excursion will be the incredibly crowded train coming back from Churchgate to Andheri at 10 on a Saturday night. The doors to the trains don't close, and folks hang out the sides. People carry their bags above their heads because there's no room between the packed bodies. There isn't even enough room for everyone's feet on the floor. People stood on my feet, and I stood on other feet. At the stations it's required to jump off while the train is moving to avoid being pushed back on by the mass attemping to squeeze on. Not being experienced jumping off moving trains, Julie and I were a bit nervous when our stop was approaching. I followed the example of the person in front of me, and a helpful passenger gave Julie an arm to help her balance as she stumbled onto the platform. In spite of the chaos everyone was helpful, good-natured, and polite. Farewell, India.

The route: Thiruvananthapuram, Varkala, Karunagappally, Alappuzha, Kanjirappally, Peerumade, Thekkadi, Nedumkandam, Munnar, Kurichikottai, Palani, Kodaikanal Road, Madurai, Sivakasi, Surandai, Tirunelveli, Tiruchchendur, Kanniyakumari, Kovalam, Thiruvananthapuram.

Link to less selective photo album

Kerala and Tamil Nadu - all photos - Link to trip description

This is a photograph from both of the races in the 8th annual Longwood Village 10KM and 5KM Road Races and Fun Runs which were held in Longwood Village, Longwood, Co. Meath, Ireland on Sunday 22nd October 2017 at 11:00. The races are held annually to support the development of the local GAA club while also supporting local charities. The race has support from Trim AC which sees the race have full AAI premit status. These races have grown steadily over the years and this year almost 400 participants to part in the two races. This is an impressive statistic given that a very large number of local runners will be preparing for the Dublin City marathon 7 days from now. However both races provide marathon runners and all other runners, joggers and walkers with an ideal opportunity to race on a very fair course in a beautiful rural setting. Barry Clarke of Longwood GAA and Trim AC and his very large group of volunteers deserve the highest of praise for the very high standard of organisation immediately apparent to anyone taking part in the race. Overall the whole day was a great success with the hard work put in by the organising committee ensuring that participants enjoyed their race experience. Both routes were accurately measured, kilometer points clearly marked, junctions well stewarded, and electronic timing provided. The event provided many local runners, joggers, fun runners and walkers with a local event to support whilst at the same time providing runners preparing for events such as the Dublin marathon with an opportunity to race a short, fast, distance in the lead up to marathon day. The GAA club provided excellent stewarding and traffic management all around the course. The race had a professional feel to it and it is sure to grow next year given the very positive feedback from many of the participants today. The weather in the week leading up to the race was hardly ideal with both Storm Ophelia and Storm Brian bringing windy and rainy conditions to Ireland all week. The weather for race day was more suitable for running. Dry, with a fresh breeze, the weather remained dry for both races with the sun making an appearance also.

We have an extensive set of photographs from all of the races today in the following Flickr Album: www.flickr.com/photos/peterm7/albums/72157661720601468

Timing and event management was provided by PopUpRaces.ie. Results are available on their website at www.popupraces.ie/

Our photographs from Longwood 5KM and 10KM 2016: www.flickr.com/photos/peterm7/albums/72157672030705623

Our photographs from Longwood 5KM and 10KM 2015: www.flickr.com/photos/peterm7/sets/72157660017638535

Our photographs from Longwood 5KM and 10KM 2014: www.flickr.com/photos/peterm7/sets/72157648845224981/

Our photographs from Longwood 5KM and 10KM 2013: www.flickr.com/photos/peterm7/sets/72157636477484093/

Our photographs from Longwood 5KM 2012: www.flickr.com/photos/peterm7/sets/72157631820426332/

Our photographs from Longwood 5KM 2011: www.flickr.com/photos/peterm7/sets/72157627782257481/

Our photographs from Longwood 5KM 2010: www.flickr.com/photos/peterm7/sets/72157625058772687/

Longwood is a small village in South East Co. Meath and is close to the town of Enfield with access to the M4 Motorway.

5KM Course: The 5KM started in Longwood village. Runners then took a left turn in the Village down St. Oliver's Road. This straight section of road brings runners to a left turn onto a very well maintained boreen road for less than one kilometer. The race then emerges and joins with the 10KM at Stoneyford where the runners take a left and then another left before arriving back at the finish line in Longwood GAA club. Overall this is a very fast and flat 5KM with no hills to speak of.

10KM Course: The 10KM event begins in Longwood Village outside Dargan's Pub and proceeds westward out of the village. There are some interesting points along this part of the course. At the 2KM point the runners will run under the double bridges - an aquaduct for the Royal Canal and a bridge carrying the Dublin Sligo Railway line. The race then enters county Kildare just before the 3km and after taking a right turn at the four-cross roads known locally as Lally's Cross it returns to County Meath on top of the River Boyne Bridge (Ashfield Bridge) which forms the county boundary. The race follows a straight road for the next 2KM until runners encounter Blackshade bridge which is the toughest climb on the route. As a point of interest Blackshade bridge brings runners back over the Royal Canal and the Railway line. The race then crosses the River Boyne again at Stoneyford before taking a right which will bring runners on a testing two kilometer stretch with some short hills. The 10KM course then joins with the 5Km course for the final 1.5KM back to Longwood GAA club for the finish.

Can I use these photographs directly from Flickr on my social media account(s)?

Yes - of course you can! Flickr provides several ways to share this and other photographs in this Flickr set. You can share directly to: email, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, Twitter, Tumblr, LiveJournal, and Wordpress and Blogger blog sites. Your mobile, tablet, or desktop device will also offer you several different options for sharing this photo page on your social media outlets.

BUT..... Wait there a minute....

We take these photographs as a hobby and as a contribution to the running community in Ireland. We do not charge for our photographs. Our only "cost" is that we request that if you are using these images: (1) on social media sites such as Facebook, Tumblr, Pinterest, Twitter,LinkedIn, Google+, VK.com, Vine, Meetup, Tagged, Ask.fm,etc or (2) other websites, blogs, web multimedia, commercial/promotional material that you must provide a link back to our Flickr page to attribute us or acknowledge us as the original photographers.

This also extends to the use of these images for Facebook profile pictures. In these cases please make a separate wall or blog post with a link to our Flickr page. If you do not know how this should be done for Facebook or other social media please email us and we will be happy to help suggest how to link to us.

I want to download these pictures to my computer or device?

You can download this photographic image here directly to your computer or device. This version is the low resolution web-quality image. How to download will vary slight from device to device and from browser to browser. Have a look for a down-arrow symbol or the link to 'View/Download' all sizes. When you click on either of these you will be presented with the option to download the image. Remember just doing a right-click and "save target as" will not work on Flickr.

I want get full resolution, print-quality, copies of these photographs?

If you just need these photographs for online usage then they can be used directly once you respect their Creative Commons license and provide a link back to our Flickr set if you use them. For offline usage and printing all of the photographs posted here on this Flickr set are available free, at no cost, at full image resolution.

Please email petermooney78 AT gmail DOT com with the links to the photographs you would like to obtain a full resolution copy of. We also ask race organisers, media, etc to ask for permission before use of our images for flyers, posters, etc. We reserve the right to refuse a request.

In summary please remember when requesting photographs from us - If you are using the photographs online all we ask is for you to provide a link back to our Flickr set or Flickr pages. You will find the link above clearly outlined in the description text which accompanies this photograph. Taking these photographs and preparing them for online posting takes a significant effort and time. We are not posting photographs to Flickr for commercial reasons. If you really like what we do please spread the link around your social media, send us an email, leave a comment beside the photographs, send us a Flickr email, etc. If you are using the photographs in newspapers or magazines we ask that you mention where the original photograph came from.

I would like to contribute something for your photograph(s)?

Many people offer payment for our photographs. As stated above we do not charge for these photographs. We take these photographs as our contribution to the running community in Ireland. If you feel that the photograph(s) you request are good enough that you would consider paying for their purchase from other photographic providers or in other circumstances we would suggest that you can provide a donation to any of the great charities in Ireland who do work for Cancer Care or Cancer Research in Ireland.

Let's get a bit technical: We use Creative Commons Licensing for these photographs

We use the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License for all our photographs here in this photograph set. What does this mean in reality?

The explaination is very simple.

Attribution- anyone using our photographs gives us an appropriate credit for it. This ensures that people aren't taking our photographs and passing them off as their own. This usually just mean putting a link to our photographs somewhere on your website, blog, or Facebook where other people can see it.

ShareAlike – anyone can use these photographs, and make changes if they like, or incorporate them into a bigger project, but they must make those changes available back to the community under the same terms.

Above all what Creative Commons aims to do is to encourage creative sharing. See some examples of Creative Commons photographs on Flickr: www.flickr.com/creativecommons/

I ran in the race - but my photograph doesn't appear here in your Flickr set! What gives?

As mentioned above we take these photographs as a hobby and as a voluntary contribution to the running community in Ireland. Very often we have actually ran in the same race and then switched to photographer mode after we finished the race. Consequently, we feel that we have no obligations to capture a photograph of every participant in the race. However, we do try our very best to capture as many participants as possible. But this is sometimes not possible for a variety of reasons:

     ►You were hidden behind another participant as you passed our camera

     ►Weather or lighting conditions meant that we had some photographs with blurry content which we did not upload to our Flickr set

     ►There were too many people - some races attract thousands of participants and as amateur photographs we cannot hope to capture photographs of everyone

     ►We simply missed you - sorry about that - we did our best!

You can email us petermooney78 AT gmail DOT com to enquire if we have a photograph of you which didn't make the final Flickr selection for the race. But we cannot promise that there will be photograph there. As alternatives we advise you to contact the race organisers to enquire if there were (1) other photographs taking photographs at the race event or if (2) there were professional commercial sports photographers taking photographs which might have some photographs of you available for purchase. You might find some links for further information above.

Don't like your photograph here?

That's OK! We understand!

If, for any reason, you are not happy or comfortable with your picture appearing here in this photoset on Flickr then please email us at petermooney78 AT gmail DOT com and we will remove it as soon as possible. We give careful consideration to each photograph before uploading.

I want to tell people about these great photographs!

Great! Thank you! The best link to spread the word around is probably http://www.flickr.com/peterm7/sets

Boston is the capital and most populous municipality of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts in the United States. The city proper covers 48 square miles (124 km2) with an estimated population of 685,094 in 2017, making it also the most populous city in the New England region. Boston is the seat of Suffolk County as well, although the county government was disbanded on July 1, 1999. The city is the economic and cultural anchor of a substantially larger metropolitan area known as Greater Boston, a metropolitan statistical area (MSA) home to a census-estimated 4.8 million people in 2016 and ranking as the tenth-largest such area in the country. As a combined statistical area (CSA), this wider commuting region is home to some 8.2 million people, making it the sixth-largest in the United States.

Boston is one of the oldest cities in the United States, founded on the Shawmut Peninsula in 1630 by Puritan settlers from England. It was the scene of several key events of the American Revolution, such as the Boston Massacre, the Boston Tea Party, the Battle of Bunker Hill, and the Siege of Boston. Upon U.S. independence from Great Britain, it continued to be an important port and manufacturing hub as well as a center for education and culture. The city has expanded beyond the original peninsula through land reclamation and municipal annexation. Its rich history attracts many tourists, with Faneuil Hall alone drawing more than 20 million visitors per year. Boston's many firsts include the United States' first public or state school (Boston Latin School, 1635), first subway system (Tremont Street Subway, 1897), and first public park (Boston Common, 1634).

The Boston area's many colleges and universities make it an international center of higher education, including law, medicine, engineering, and business, and the city is considered to be a world leader in innovation and entrepreneurship, with nearly 2,000 startups. Boston's economic base also includes finance, professional and business services, biotechnology, information technology, and government activities. Households in the city claim the highest average rate of philanthropy in the United States; businesses and institutions rank among the top in the country for environmental sustainability and investment. The city has one of the highest costs of living in the United States as it has undergone gentrification, though it remains high on world livability rankings.

Boston's early European settlers had first called the area Trimountaine (after its "three mountains," only traces of which remain today) but later renamed it Boston after Boston, Lincolnshire, England, the origin of several prominent colonists. The renaming on September 7, 1630, (Old Style) was by Puritan colonists from England who had moved over from Charlestown earlier that year in quest of fresh water. Their settlement was initially limited to the Shawmut Peninsula, at that time surrounded by the Massachusetts Bay and Charles River and connected to the mainland by a narrow isthmus. The peninsula is thought to have been inhabited as early as 5000 BC.

In 1629, the Massachusetts Bay Colony's first governor John Winthrop led the signing of the Cambridge Agreement, a key founding document of the city. Puritan ethics and their focus on education influenced its early history; America's first public school was founded in Boston in 1635. Over the next 130 years, the city participated in four French and Indian Wars, until the British defeated the French and their Indian allies in North America.

Boston was the largest town in British America until Philadelphia grew larger in the mid-18th century. Boston's oceanfront location made it a lively port, and the city primarily engaged in shipping and fishing during its colonial days. However, Boston stagnated in the decades prior to the Revolution. By the mid-18th century, New York City and Philadelphia surpassed Boston in wealth. Boston encountered financial difficulties even as other cities in New England grew rapidly.

Revolution and the Siege of Boston

Many of the crucial events of the American Revolution occurred in or near Boston. Boston's penchant for mob action along with the colonists' growing distrust in Britain fostered a revolutionary spirit in the city. When the British government passed the Stamp Act in 1765, a Boston mob ravaged the homes of Andrew Oliver, the official tasked with enforcing the Act, and Thomas Hutchinson, then the Lieutenant Governor of Massachusetts. The British sent two regiments to Boston in 1768 in an attempt to quell the angry colonists. This did not sit well with the colonists. In 1770, during the Boston Massacre, the army killed several people in response to a mob in Boston. The colonists compelled the British to withdraw their troops. The event was widely publicized and fueled a revolutionary movement in America.

In 1773, Britain passed the Tea Act. Many of the colonists saw the act as an attempt to force them to accept the taxes established by the Townshend Acts. The act prompted the Boston Tea Party, where a group of rebels threw an entire shipment of tea sent by the British East India Company into Boston Harbor. The Boston Tea Party was a key event leading up to the revolution, as the British government responded furiously with the Intolerable Acts, demanding compensation for the lost tea from the rebels. This angered the colonists further and led to the American Revolutionary War. The war began in the area surrounding Boston with the Battles of Lexington and Concord.

Boston itself was besieged for almost a year during the Siege of Boston, which began on April 19, 1775. The New England militia impeded the movement of the British Army. William Howe, 5th Viscount Howe, then the commander-in-chief of the British forces in North America, led the British army in the siege. On June 17, the British captured the Charlestown peninsula in Boston, during the Battle of Bunker Hill. The British army outnumbered the militia stationed there, but it was a Pyrrhic victory for the British because their army suffered devastating casualties. It was also a testament to the power and courage of the militia, as their stubborn defending made it difficult for the British to capture Charlestown without losing many troops.

Several weeks later, George Washington took over the militia after the Continental Congress established the Continental Army to unify the revolutionary effort. Both sides faced difficulties and supply shortages in the siege, and the fighting was limited to small-scale raids and skirmishes. On March 4, 1776, Washington commanded his army to fortify Dorchester Heights, an area of Boston. The army placed cannons there to repel a British invasion against their stake in Boston. Washington was confident that the army would be able to resist a small-scale invasion with their fortifications. Howe planned an invasion into Boston, but bad weather delayed their advance. Howe decided to withdraw, because the storm gave Washington's army more time to improve their fortifications. British troops evacuated Boston on March 17, which solidified the revolutionaries' control of the city.

Post Revolution and the War of 1812

After the Revolution, Boston's long seafaring tradition helped make it one of the world's wealthiest international ports, with the slave trade, rum, fish, salt, and tobacco being particularly important. Boston's harbor activity was significantly curtailed by the Embargo Act of 1807 (adopted during the Napoleonic Wars) and the War of 1812. Foreign trade returned after these hostilities, but Boston's merchants had found alternatives for their capital investments in the interim. Manufacturing became an important component of the city's economy, and the city's industrial manufacturing overtook international trade in economic importance by the mid-19th century. Boston remained one of the nation's largest manufacturing centers until the early 20th century, and was known for its garment production and leather-goods industries. A network of small rivers bordering the city and connecting it to the surrounding region facilitated shipment of goods and led to a proliferation of mills and factories. Later, a dense network of railroads furthered the region's industry and commerce.

During this period, Boston flourished culturally, as well, admired for its rarefied literary life and generous artistic patronage, with members of old Boston families—eventually dubbed Boston Brahmins—coming to be regarded as the nation's social and cultural elites.

Boston was an early port of the Atlantic triangular slave trade in the New England colonies, but was soon overtaken by Salem, Massachusetts and Newport, Rhode Island. Boston eventually became a center of the abolitionist movement. The city reacted strongly to the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, contributing to President Franklin Pierce's attempt to make an example of Boston after the Anthony Burns Fugitive Slave Case.

In 1822, the citizens of Boston voted to change the official name from the "Town of Boston" to the "City of Boston", and on March 4, 1822, the people of Boston accepted the charter incorporating the City. At the time Boston was chartered as a city, the population was about 46,226, while the area of the city was only 4.7 square miles (12 km2).

19th Century

In the 1820s, Boston's population grew rapidly, and the city's ethnic composition changed dramatically with the first wave of European immigrants. Irish immigrants dominated the first wave of newcomers during this period, especially following the Irish Potato Famine; by 1850, about 35,000 Irish lived in Boston. In the latter half of the 19th century, the city saw increasing numbers of Irish, Germans, Lebanese, Syrians, French Canadians, and Russian and Polish Jews settling in the city. By the end of the 19th century, Boston's core neighborhoods had become enclaves of ethnically distinct immigrants. Italians inhabited the North End, Irish dominated South Boston and Charlestown, and Russian Jews lived in the West End. Irish and Italian immigrants brought with them Roman Catholicism. Currently, Catholics make up Boston's largest religious community, and the Irish have played a major role in Boston politics since the early 20th century; prominent figures include the Kennedys, Tip O'Neill, and John F. Fitzgerald.

Between 1631 and 1890, the city tripled its area through land reclamation by filling in marshes, mud flats, and gaps between wharves along the waterfront. The largest reclamation efforts took place during the 19th century; beginning in 1807, the crown of Beacon Hill was used to fill in a 50-acre (20 ha) mill pond that later became the Haymarket Square area. The present-day State House sits atop this lowered Beacon Hill. Reclamation projects in the middle of the century created significant parts of the South End, the West End, the Financial District, and Chinatown.

After the Great Boston fire of 1872, workers used building rubble as landfill along the downtown waterfront. During the mid-to-late 19th century, workers filled almost 600 acres (2.4 km2) of brackish Charles River marshlands west of Boston Common with gravel brought by rail from the hills of Needham Heights. The city annexed the adjacent towns of South Boston (1804), East Boston (1836), Roxbury (1868), Dorchester (including present-day Mattapan and a portion of South Boston) (1870), Brighton (including present-day Allston) (1874), West Roxbury (including present-day Jamaica Plain and Roslindale) (1874), Charlestown (1874), and Hyde Park (1912). Other proposals were unsuccessful for the annexation of Brookline, Cambridge, and Chelsea.

20th Century

The city went into decline by the early to mid-20th century, as factories became old and obsolete and businesses moved out of the region for cheaper labor elsewhere. Boston responded by initiating various urban renewal projects, under the direction of the Boston Redevelopment Authority (BRA) established in 1957. In 1958, BRA initiated a project to improve the historic West End neighborhood. Extensive demolition was met with strong public opposition.

The BRA subsequently re-evaluated its approach to urban renewal in its future projects, including the construction of Government Center. In 1965, the Columbia Point Health Center opened in the Dorchester neighborhood, the first Community Health Center in the United States. It mostly served the massive Columbia Point public housing complex adjoining it, which was built in 1953. The health center is still in operation and was rededicated in 1990 as the Geiger-Gibson Community Health Center. The Columbia Point complex itself was redeveloped and revitalized from 1984 to 1990 into a mixed-income residential development called Harbor Point Apartments.

By the 1970s, the city's economy had recovered after 30 years of economic downturn. A large number of high-rises were constructed in the Financial District and in Boston's Back Bay during this period. This boom continued into the mid-1980s and resumed after a few pauses. Hospitals such as Massachusetts General Hospital, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, and Brigham and Women's Hospital lead the nation in medical innovation and patient care. Schools such as Boston College, Boston University, the Harvard Medical School, Tufts University School of Medicine, Northeastern University, Massachusetts College of Art and Design, Wentworth Institute of Technology, Berklee College of Music, and Boston Conservatory attract students to the area. Nevertheless, the city experienced conflict starting in 1974 over desegregation busing, which resulted in unrest and violence around public schools throughout the mid-1970s.

21st Century

Boston is an intellectual, technological, and political center but has lost some important regional institutions, including the loss to mergers and acquisitions of local financial institutions such as FleetBoston Financial, which was acquired by Charlotte-based Bank of America in 2004. Boston-based department stores Jordan Marsh and Filene's have both merged into the Cincinnati–based Macy's. The 1993 acquisition of The Boston Globe by The New York Times was reversed in 2013 when it was re-sold to Boston businessman John W. Henry. In 2016, it was announced that General Electric would be moving its corporate headquarters from Connecticut to the Innovation District in South Boston, joining many other companies in this rapidly developing neighborhood.

Boston has experienced gentrification in the latter half of the 20th century, with housing prices increasing sharply since the 1990s. Living expenses have risen; Boston has one of the highest costs of living in the United States and was ranked the 129th-most expensive major city in the world in a 2011 survey of 214 cities. Despite cost-of-living issues, Boston ranks high on livability ratings, ranking 36th worldwide in quality of living in 2011 in a survey of 221 major cities.

On April 15, 2013, two Chechen Islamist brothers detonated a pair of bombs near the finish line of the Boston Marathon, killing three people and injuring roughly 264.

In 2016, Boston briefly shouldered a bid as the US applicant for the 2024 Summer Olympics. The bid was supported by the mayor and a coalition of business leaders and local philanthropists, but was eventually dropped due to public opposition. The USOC then selected Los Angeles to be the American candidate with Los Angeles ultimately securing the right to host the 2028 Summer Olympics.

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boston

Boston is the capital and most populous municipality of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts in the United States. The city proper covers 48 square miles (124 km2) with an estimated population of 685,094 in 2017, making it also the most populous city in the New England region. Boston is the seat of Suffolk County as well, although the county government was disbanded on July 1, 1999. The city is the economic and cultural anchor of a substantially larger metropolitan area known as Greater Boston, a metropolitan statistical area (MSA) home to a census-estimated 4.8 million people in 2016 and ranking as the tenth-largest such area in the country. As a combined statistical area (CSA), this wider commuting region is home to some 8.2 million people, making it the sixth-largest in the United States.

Boston is one of the oldest cities in the United States, founded on the Shawmut Peninsula in 1630 by Puritan settlers from England. It was the scene of several key events of the American Revolution, such as the Boston Massacre, the Boston Tea Party, the Battle of Bunker Hill, and the Siege of Boston. Upon U.S. independence from Great Britain, it continued to be an important port and manufacturing hub as well as a center for education and culture. The city has expanded beyond the original peninsula through land reclamation and municipal annexation. Its rich history attracts many tourists, with Faneuil Hall alone drawing more than 20 million visitors per year. Boston's many firsts include the United States' first public or state school (Boston Latin School, 1635), first subway system (Tremont Street Subway, 1897), and first public park (Boston Common, 1634).

The Boston area's many colleges and universities make it an international center of higher education, including law, medicine, engineering, and business, and the city is considered to be a world leader in innovation and entrepreneurship, with nearly 2,000 startups. Boston's economic base also includes finance, professional and business services, biotechnology, information technology, and government activities. Households in the city claim the highest average rate of philanthropy in the United States; businesses and institutions rank among the top in the country for environmental sustainability and investment. The city has one of the highest costs of living in the United States as it has undergone gentrification, though it remains high on world livability rankings.

Boston's early European settlers had first called the area Trimountaine (after its "three mountains," only traces of which remain today) but later renamed it Boston after Boston, Lincolnshire, England, the origin of several prominent colonists. The renaming on September 7, 1630, (Old Style) was by Puritan colonists from England who had moved over from Charlestown earlier that year in quest of fresh water. Their settlement was initially limited to the Shawmut Peninsula, at that time surrounded by the Massachusetts Bay and Charles River and connected to the mainland by a narrow isthmus. The peninsula is thought to have been inhabited as early as 5000 BC.

In 1629, the Massachusetts Bay Colony's first governor John Winthrop led the signing of the Cambridge Agreement, a key founding document of the city. Puritan ethics and their focus on education influenced its early history; America's first public school was founded in Boston in 1635. Over the next 130 years, the city participated in four French and Indian Wars, until the British defeated the French and their Indian allies in North America.

Boston was the largest town in British America until Philadelphia grew larger in the mid-18th century. Boston's oceanfront location made it a lively port, and the city primarily engaged in shipping and fishing during its colonial days. However, Boston stagnated in the decades prior to the Revolution. By the mid-18th century, New York City and Philadelphia surpassed Boston in wealth. Boston encountered financial difficulties even as other cities in New England grew rapidly.

Revolution and the Siege of Boston

Many of the crucial events of the American Revolution occurred in or near Boston. Boston's penchant for mob action along with the colonists' growing distrust in Britain fostered a revolutionary spirit in the city. When the British government passed the Stamp Act in 1765, a Boston mob ravaged the homes of Andrew Oliver, the official tasked with enforcing the Act, and Thomas Hutchinson, then the Lieutenant Governor of Massachusetts. The British sent two regiments to Boston in 1768 in an attempt to quell the angry colonists. This did not sit well with the colonists. In 1770, during the Boston Massacre, the army killed several people in response to a mob in Boston. The colonists compelled the British to withdraw their troops. The event was widely publicized and fueled a revolutionary movement in America.

In 1773, Britain passed the Tea Act. Many of the colonists saw the act as an attempt to force them to accept the taxes established by the Townshend Acts. The act prompted the Boston Tea Party, where a group of rebels threw an entire shipment of tea sent by the British East India Company into Boston Harbor. The Boston Tea Party was a key event leading up to the revolution, as the British government responded furiously with the Intolerable Acts, demanding compensation for the lost tea from the rebels. This angered the colonists further and led to the American Revolutionary War. The war began in the area surrounding Boston with the Battles of Lexington and Concord.

Boston itself was besieged for almost a year during the Siege of Boston, which began on April 19, 1775. The New England militia impeded the movement of the British Army. William Howe, 5th Viscount Howe, then the commander-in-chief of the British forces in North America, led the British army in the siege. On June 17, the British captured the Charlestown peninsula in Boston, during the Battle of Bunker Hill. The British army outnumbered the militia stationed there, but it was a Pyrrhic victory for the British because their army suffered devastating casualties. It was also a testament to the power and courage of the militia, as their stubborn defending made it difficult for the British to capture Charlestown without losing many troops.

Several weeks later, George Washington took over the militia after the Continental Congress established the Continental Army to unify the revolutionary effort. Both sides faced difficulties and supply shortages in the siege, and the fighting was limited to small-scale raids and skirmishes. On March 4, 1776, Washington commanded his army to fortify Dorchester Heights, an area of Boston. The army placed cannons there to repel a British invasion against their stake in Boston. Washington was confident that the army would be able to resist a small-scale invasion with their fortifications. Howe planned an invasion into Boston, but bad weather delayed their advance. Howe decided to withdraw, because the storm gave Washington's army more time to improve their fortifications. British troops evacuated Boston on March 17, which solidified the revolutionaries' control of the city.

Post Revolution and the War of 1812

After the Revolution, Boston's long seafaring tradition helped make it one of the world's wealthiest international ports, with the slave trade, rum, fish, salt, and tobacco being particularly important. Boston's harbor activity was significantly curtailed by the Embargo Act of 1807 (adopted during the Napoleonic Wars) and the War of 1812. Foreign trade returned after these hostilities, but Boston's merchants had found alternatives for their capital investments in the interim. Manufacturing became an important component of the city's economy, and the city's industrial manufacturing overtook international trade in economic importance by the mid-19th century. Boston remained one of the nation's largest manufacturing centers until the early 20th century, and was known for its garment production and leather-goods industries. A network of small rivers bordering the city and connecting it to the surrounding region facilitated shipment of goods and led to a proliferation of mills and factories. Later, a dense network of railroads furthered the region's industry and commerce.

During this period, Boston flourished culturally, as well, admired for its rarefied literary life and generous artistic patronage, with members of old Boston families—eventually dubbed Boston Brahmins—coming to be regarded as the nation's social and cultural elites.

Boston was an early port of the Atlantic triangular slave trade in the New England colonies, but was soon overtaken by Salem, Massachusetts and Newport, Rhode Island. Boston eventually became a center of the abolitionist movement. The city reacted strongly to the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, contributing to President Franklin Pierce's attempt to make an example of Boston after the Anthony Burns Fugitive Slave Case.

In 1822, the citizens of Boston voted to change the official name from the "Town of Boston" to the "City of Boston", and on March 4, 1822, the people of Boston accepted the charter incorporating the City. At the time Boston was chartered as a city, the population was about 46,226, while the area of the city was only 4.7 square miles (12 km2).

19th Century

In the 1820s, Boston's population grew rapidly, and the city's ethnic composition changed dramatically with the first wave of European immigrants. Irish immigrants dominated the first wave of newcomers during this period, especially following the Irish Potato Famine; by 1850, about 35,000 Irish lived in Boston. In the latter half of the 19th century, the city saw increasing numbers of Irish, Germans, Lebanese, Syrians, French Canadians, and Russian and Polish Jews settling in the city. By the end of the 19th century, Boston's core neighborhoods had become enclaves of ethnically distinct immigrants. Italians inhabited the North End, Irish dominated South Boston and Charlestown, and Russian Jews lived in the West End. Irish and Italian immigrants brought with them Roman Catholicism. Currently, Catholics make up Boston's largest religious community, and the Irish have played a major role in Boston politics since the early 20th century; prominent figures include the Kennedys, Tip O'Neill, and John F. Fitzgerald.

Between 1631 and 1890, the city tripled its area through land reclamation by filling in marshes, mud flats, and gaps between wharves along the waterfront. The largest reclamation efforts took place during the 19th century; beginning in 1807, the crown of Beacon Hill was used to fill in a 50-acre (20 ha) mill pond that later became the Haymarket Square area. The present-day State House sits atop this lowered Beacon Hill. Reclamation projects in the middle of the century created significant parts of the South End, the West End, the Financial District, and Chinatown.

After the Great Boston fire of 1872, workers used building rubble as landfill along the downtown waterfront. During the mid-to-late 19th century, workers filled almost 600 acres (2.4 km2) of brackish Charles River marshlands west of Boston Common with gravel brought by rail from the hills of Needham Heights. The city annexed the adjacent towns of South Boston (1804), East Boston (1836), Roxbury (1868), Dorchester (including present-day Mattapan and a portion of South Boston) (1870), Brighton (including present-day Allston) (1874), West Roxbury (including present-day Jamaica Plain and Roslindale) (1874), Charlestown (1874), and Hyde Park (1912). Other proposals were unsuccessful for the annexation of Brookline, Cambridge, and Chelsea.

20th Century

The city went into decline by the early to mid-20th century, as factories became old and obsolete and businesses moved out of the region for cheaper labor elsewhere. Boston responded by initiating various urban renewal projects, under the direction of the Boston Redevelopment Authority (BRA) established in 1957. In 1958, BRA initiated a project to improve the historic West End neighborhood. Extensive demolition was met with strong public opposition.

The BRA subsequently re-evaluated its approach to urban renewal in its future projects, including the construction of Government Center. In 1965, the Columbia Point Health Center opened in the Dorchester neighborhood, the first Community Health Center in the United States. It mostly served the massive Columbia Point public housing complex adjoining it, which was built in 1953. The health center is still in operation and was rededicated in 1990 as the Geiger-Gibson Community Health Center. The Columbia Point complex itself was redeveloped and revitalized from 1984 to 1990 into a mixed-income residential development called Harbor Point Apartments.

By the 1970s, the city's economy had recovered after 30 years of economic downturn. A large number of high-rises were constructed in the Financial District and in Boston's Back Bay during this period. This boom continued into the mid-1980s and resumed after a few pauses. Hospitals such as Massachusetts General Hospital, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, and Brigham and Women's Hospital lead the nation in medical innovation and patient care. Schools such as Boston College, Boston University, the Harvard Medical School, Tufts University School of Medicine, Northeastern University, Massachusetts College of Art and Design, Wentworth Institute of Technology, Berklee College of Music, and Boston Conservatory attract students to the area. Nevertheless, the city experienced conflict starting in 1974 over desegregation busing, which resulted in unrest and violence around public schools throughout the mid-1970s.

21st Century

Boston is an intellectual, technological, and political center but has lost some important regional institutions, including the loss to mergers and acquisitions of local financial institutions such as FleetBoston Financial, which was acquired by Charlotte-based Bank of America in 2004. Boston-based department stores Jordan Marsh and Filene's have both merged into the Cincinnati–based Macy's. The 1993 acquisition of The Boston Globe by The New York Times was reversed in 2013 when it was re-sold to Boston businessman John W. Henry. In 2016, it was announced that General Electric would be moving its corporate headquarters from Connecticut to the Innovation District in South Boston, joining many other companies in this rapidly developing neighborhood.

Boston has experienced gentrification in the latter half of the 20th century, with housing prices increasing sharply since the 1990s. Living expenses have risen; Boston has one of the highest costs of living in the United States and was ranked the 129th-most expensive major city in the world in a 2011 survey of 214 cities. Despite cost-of-living issues, Boston ranks high on livability ratings, ranking 36th worldwide in quality of living in 2011 in a survey of 221 major cities.

On April 15, 2013, two Chechen Islamist brothers detonated a pair of bombs near the finish line of the Boston Marathon, killing three people and injuring roughly 264.

In 2016, Boston briefly shouldered a bid as the US applicant for the 2024 Summer Olympics. The bid was supported by the mayor and a coalition of business leaders and local philanthropists, but was eventually dropped due to public opposition. The USOC then selected Los Angeles to be the American candidate with Los Angeles ultimately securing the right to host the 2028 Summer Olympics.

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boston

Bitcoin coins photo.

Physical bitcoin statistic coin Antana.

Bitcoin coins photo.

Physical bitcoin statistic coin Antana.

Bitcoin coins photo.

Physical bitcoin statistic coin Antana.

This photo appeared in the following ideotrope albums:

Southern Kerala and Tamil Nadu - February 2008 - On the road in India

At Thanksgiving Rudi reminded me of a grim statistic regarding Indian traffic: India has 4% (or is it 5?) of the world's motor vehicles and 25% of the world's traffic fatalities. Even having visited India once before, I couldn't imagine the chaos and frequent danger of being on the road. Of course the conditions we encountered ran the gamut from smooth, quiet country lanes where our tandem was the fastest on the road to unbelievable chaos where it felt like a bit of a miracle to make it through the day.

By the end of five weeks though, we never crashed, and except for one goat I can't even recall that we ran into anything. As in the U.S. the traffic law in India seems to be that if you get there first, you have the right to the road. This law is taken to its logical extreme such that there's really no reason to ever look behind you. Pay attention to what's in front, be ready to brake and avoid sudden turns. In this sense I could see order to it all and certainly enjoyed heavy, slower traffic to the far too common high-speed chicken matches with buses which left us more than once bouncing off the edge of the tarmac. It's no surprise that fatal bus accidents are reported almost daily in the newspaper.

Coastal Kerala

We arrived at the Thiruvananthapuram airport at about 4am and cycled out of the "city" 26 hours later. The city hardly ended. During our first three days of pedaling, I'm not sure that we were ever out of sight of people and buildings. Perhaps we shouldn't have found this surprising. Kerala has the highest population density of any state in India. And within the state the highest density is found in the southern half of the state on the flat strip of land between the sea and the hills - exactly where we rode the first three days. We mostly avoided the fast traffic of the main road, usually riding a road closer to the coast. The network of paved roads is dense. There are many possibilities.

It wasn't always easy to follow these roads, and I can think of three funny incidents from these first three days:

We were on a narrow road with a fair bit of bus traffic. We noticed lighter traffic. Suddenly the road ended, and we looked across 100m of water with no bridge. Thinking we had missed a turn, we backtracked and quickly came to the spot where the buses turn around. Locals directed us back to the water and down a sandy single track where we loaded onto an oversized canoe with a motorcyclist and another bicyclist. Two men poled the craft across, and soon we were on our way again.

Further north on a similar narrow road we somehow managed to miss the main fork. The road continued to narrow and narrow until we were on a three-foot wide dirt track between two walls. Still we continued and cycled right into someone's yard! All found it amusing.</li?

In another section we had been warned that the coastal road was a bit broken in places and we'd have to push the bike so we weren't surprised to come upon a sandy single track. It was surprising to come upon a mahout on his elephant traveling in the opposite direction on this track. It was very sandy off the track and thinking the elephant would have an easier time of it than we would I kept on the track. The mahout hollered at us, and we were quite close before we ducked out of the way!

Cardamom Hills

After three days of riding to Alappuzha we were ready to try anything besides the Kerala coastal strip so we headed east into the hills. In less than 10km we came to the most peaceful, beautiful riding that we'd seen up to that point. Of course it all wasn't like that, but we had made a good choice.

We rode for three days to get to the Kumily/Thekkadi/Periyar tourist area and two more to get to more beautiful, more touristy, and higher Munnar. We climbed a lot on four of those days, but the roads were well-graded and simply by luck rather than any planning we only had a couple climbs that lasted more than 15km. On the other hand after climbing out of Munnar, we descended about 70km down to Kurichikottai. That would have been a brutal climb.

Through the hills and mountains we pedaled in misty, forested areas where all we could hear was the sounds of monkeys and birds. I thought of Jack Zuzack and the sounds he recorded on his 'round the world trip. We also rode through cardamom (these are the Cardamom Hills after all), rubber, tea, coffee, pepper, jackfruit, and coconut. The tea plantations were particularly beautiful as they seem to glow a translucent green.

The Tamil Nadu plains

Along the road from Munnar we met David who invited us to stay with his family in Kurichikottai, our first night in Tamil Nadu. David's from Kerala but came to Tamil Nadu to help the locals with basic health care and sanitation. He explained that most people don't have toilets in their houses in Tamil Nadu and we'd see many people using the side of the roads as a toilet in the morning. We spent the next two weeks riding in Tamil Nadu and indeed that's one thing I'll remember from our early morning riding there.

In spite of that, the riding in Tamil Nadu was more enjoyable than coastal Kerala. There were lots of wide-open spaces, beautiful agriculture areas, good roads, light traffic, compact cities. Also the weather was more comfortable since it was drier than Kerala. (Overall the weather on the whole trip was good. We never wanted a/c at night. Most of the day was warm, but it felt pretty hot from 1-4pm. We'd try not to be riding then.)

We visited a number of temple towns in Tamil Nadu: Palani, Madurai, Sivakasi, Tirunelveli, Tiruchchendur, Kanniyakumari. These places are on the Hindu pilgrimage circuit and except for Sivakasi and Tirunelveli were crowded with pilgrims.

Any place that's popular for Indians to visit is absolutely chaotic on the weekends. We experienced this in Munnar and Kanniyakumari, both places that we stayed a few days. Once the weekend crowds went home, we enjoyed the relative tranquility of these towns.

Sivakasi is famous for being a production center for fireworks. We ended up visiting the city because we met Jack Reed on the grounds of the Ghandi Museum in Madurai. He invited us to Sivakasi. Jack's friend, Sami, managed to arrange a tour of a cracker factory for the four of us. Seeing the workers and the working conditions was the most moving experience of the trip. The "factories" - though there's nothing automated about them - are scattered out on the hot plain away from the city and away from each other. The factory we visited consisted of about 20 small (4mx4mx4m), widely-spaced buildings. Each building has at least four doors which are always opened during work hours. There's no electricity. The design - good ventilation, many escape routes, widely-spaced buildings - is to prevent accidents. The workers are paid by the piece and earn about $3/day for this boring, repetitive, dangerous work. They're in constant contact with the chemicals in the fireworks - though some jobs looked much worse than others - and must fully wash before leaving the premises (to keep the unhealthy, volatile chemicals out of their homes). It was the closest thing I've seen to a sweat shop. Two women asked me to take them to my home, the only time that happened during this trip. That said, the workers appeared to genuinely return our smiles, and I'm afraid they're paid more than the average wage in India, perhaps even double (?).

The culinary journey

During our first trip to India, we spent two months in the north - Rajastan, Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal - and loved the food. Then we spent a month in the Andaman Islands where there is mostly South Indian food. We were introduced to a whole new Indian cuisine, and we loved it! Indeed both of us prefer South Indian food to North Indian. The South Indian food is lighter, less oily, and less rich. It's food that can be eaten every day - not like what's served at the Indian restaurants in Boulder.

For breakfast we'd order a bread or rice dish - often appam in Kerala, idli or pongal in Tamil Nadu. Both states had dosa, puri, porotha, puttu, ottappam as well. The breads are served with curries and chutneys, and in fancier restaurants different breads were served with different sides. Egg curry was a popular breakfast option in Kerala, and many places would offer omelets as well. All except the most basic restaurants would offer tea (chai) and coffee. There wasn't much difference between dinner and breakfast unless we'd go to a fancier restaurant and order specific made-to-order curries.

Lunch is an all-you-can-eat affair based on rice. In Tamil Nadu banana leafs are used as plates, but I don't think we saw that a single time in Kerala. Silverware is not used. The rice comes with a number of vegetable sides, pickled stuff, papadam, and a pudding for dessert. Waiters come by with dal, sambar, and curd to pour over the rice, and they're constantly dumping more vegetables and rices onto your plate. The food was continually tasty. The one complaint would be that it was somewhat repetitive.

Kovalam and Mumbai

20km before completing our loop in Thiruvananthapuram we spent a couple days at the beach resort of Kovalam. I was impressed. The beaches were beautiful and clean with very mellow waves that were easy and fun to bodysurf. The main beach (Lighthouse) is tastefully developed, and there's still fisherman pulling in their catch. I can see why Europeans fly to India just to visit Kovalam.

On our flight home we took advantage of a 10 hour layover in Mumbai to make a quick dash into the city. We went straight to the Gateway of India and barely caught it in the last light of the day. I had hoped to do a little walking tour, but it's hard to appreciate the architecture in the dark. The most memorable part of this excursion will be the incredibly crowded train coming back from Churchgate to Andheri at 10 on a Saturday night. The doors to the trains don't close, and folks hang out the sides. People carry their bags above their heads because there's no room between the packed bodies. There isn't even enough room for everyone's feet on the floor. People stood on my feet, and I stood on other feet. At the stations it's required to jump off while the train is moving to avoid being pushed back on by the mass attemping to squeeze on. Not being experienced jumping off moving trains, Julie and I were a bit nervous when our stop was approaching. I followed the example of the person in front of me, and a helpful passenger gave Julie an arm to help her balance as she stumbled onto the platform. In spite of the chaos everyone was helpful, good-natured, and polite. Farewell, India.

The route: Thiruvananthapuram, Varkala, Karunagappally, Alappuzha, Kanjirappally, Peerumade, Thekkadi, Nedumkandam, Munnar, Kurichikottai, Palani, Kodaikanal Road, Madurai, Sivakasi, Surandai, Tirunelveli, Tiruchchendur, Kanniyakumari, Kovalam, Thiruvananthapuram.

Link to less selective photo album

Kerala and Tamil Nadu - all photos - Link to trip description

Bitcoin coins photo.

Physical bitcoin statistic coin Antana.

Bitcoin coins photo.

Physical bitcoin statistic coin Antana.

Bitcoin coins photo.

Physical bitcoin statistic coin Antana.

Bitcoin coins photo.

Physical bitcoin statistic coin Antana.

Bitcoin coins photo.

Physical bitcoin statistic coin Antana.

Bitcoin coins photo.

Physical bitcoin statistic coin Antana.

This gentleman worked at the lighthouse and welcomed us in off the street where we were trying to hide from the crowds.

This photo appeared in the following ideotrope albums:

Southern Kerala and Tamil Nadu - February 2008 - On the road in India

At Thanksgiving Rudi reminded me of a grim statistic regarding Indian traffic: India has 4% (or is it 5?) of the world's motor vehicles and 25% of the world's traffic fatalities. Even having visited India once before, I couldn't imagine the chaos and frequent danger of being on the road. Of course the conditions we encountered ran the gamut from smooth, quiet country lanes where our tandem was the fastest on the road to unbelievable chaos where it felt like a bit of a miracle to make it through the day.

By the end of five weeks though, we never crashed, and except for one goat I can't even recall that we ran into anything. As in the U.S. the traffic law in India seems to be that if you get there first, you have the right to the road. This law is taken to its logical extreme such that there's really no reason to ever look behind you. Pay attention to what's in front, be ready to brake and avoid sudden turns. In this sense I could see order to it all and certainly enjoyed heavy, slower traffic to the far too common high-speed chicken matches with buses which left us more than once bouncing off the edge of the tarmac. It's no surprise that fatal bus accidents are reported almost daily in the newspaper.

Coastal Kerala

We arrived at the Thiruvananthapuram airport at about 4am and cycled out of the "city" 26 hours later. The city hardly ended. During our first three days of pedaling, I'm not sure that we were ever out of sight of people and buildings. Perhaps we shouldn't have found this surprising. Kerala has the highest population density of any state in India. And within the state the highest density is found in the southern half of the state on the flat strip of land between the sea and the hills - exactly where we rode the first three days. We mostly avoided the fast traffic of the main road, usually riding a road closer to the coast. The network of paved roads is dense. There are many possibilities.

It wasn't always easy to follow these roads, and I can think of three funny incidents from these first three days:

We were on a narrow road with a fair bit of bus traffic. We noticed lighter traffic. Suddenly the road ended, and we looked across 100m of water with no bridge. Thinking we had missed a turn, we backtracked and quickly came to the spot where the buses turn around. Locals directed us back to the water and down a sandy single track where we loaded onto an oversized canoe with a motorcyclist and another bicyclist. Two men poled the craft across, and soon we were on our way again.

Further north on a similar narrow road we somehow managed to miss the main fork. The road continued to narrow and narrow until we were on a three-foot wide dirt track between two walls. Still we continued and cycled right into someone's yard! All found it amusing.</li?

In another section we had been warned that the coastal road was a bit broken in places and we'd have to push the bike so we weren't surprised to come upon a sandy single track. It was surprising to come upon a mahout on his elephant traveling in the opposite direction on this track. It was very sandy off the track and thinking the elephant would have an easier time of it than we would I kept on the track. The mahout hollered at us, and we were quite close before we ducked out of the way!

Cardamom Hills

After three days of riding to Alappuzha we were ready to try anything besides the Kerala coastal strip so we headed east into the hills. In less than 10km we came to the most peaceful, beautiful riding that we'd seen up to that point. Of course it all wasn't like that, but we had made a good choice.

We rode for three days to get to the Kumily/Thekkadi/Periyar tourist area and two more to get to more beautiful, more touristy, and higher Munnar. We climbed a lot on four of those days, but the roads were well-graded and simply by luck rather than any planning we only had a couple climbs that lasted more than 15km. On the other hand after climbing out of Munnar, we descended about 70km down to Kurichikottai. That would have been a brutal climb.

Through the hills and mountains we pedaled in misty, forested areas where all we could hear was the sounds of monkeys and birds. I thought of Jack Zuzack and the sounds he recorded on his 'round the world trip. We also rode through cardamom (these are the Cardamom Hills after all), rubber, tea, coffee, pepper, jackfruit, and coconut. The tea plantations were particularly beautiful as they seem to glow a translucent green.

The Tamil Nadu plains

Along the road from Munnar we met David who invited us to stay with his family in Kurichikottai, our first night in Tamil Nadu. David's from Kerala but came to Tamil Nadu to help the locals with basic health care and sanitation. He explained that most people don't have toilets in their houses in Tamil Nadu and we'd see many people using the side of the roads as a toilet in the morning. We spent the next two weeks riding in Tamil Nadu and indeed that's one thing I'll remember from our early morning riding there.

In spite of that, the riding in Tamil Nadu was more enjoyable than coastal Kerala. There were lots of wide-open spaces, beautiful agriculture areas, good roads, light traffic, compact cities. Also the weather was more comfortable since it was drier than Kerala. (Overall the weather on the whole trip was good. We never wanted a/c at night. Most of the day was warm, but it felt pretty hot from 1-4pm. We'd try not to be riding then.)

We visited a number of temple towns in Tamil Nadu: Palani, Madurai, Sivakasi, Tirunelveli, Tiruchchendur, Kanniyakumari. These places are on the Hindu pilgrimage circuit and except for Sivakasi and Tirunelveli were crowded with pilgrims.

Any place that's popular for Indians to visit is absolutely chaotic on the weekends. We experienced this in Munnar and Kanniyakumari, both places that we stayed a few days. Once the weekend crowds went home, we enjoyed the relative tranquility of these towns.

Sivakasi is famous for being a production center for fireworks. We ended up visiting the city because we met Jack Reed on the grounds of the Ghandi Museum in Madurai. He invited us to Sivakasi. Jack's friend, Sami, managed to arrange a tour of a cracker factory for the four of us. Seeing the workers and the working conditions was the most moving experience of the trip. The "factories" - though there's nothing automated about them - are scattered out on the hot plain away from the city and away from each other. The factory we visited consisted of about 20 small (4mx4mx4m), widely-spaced buildings. Each building has at least four doors which are always opened during work hours. There's no electricity. The design - good ventilation, many escape routes, widely-spaced buildings - is to prevent accidents. The workers are paid by the piece and earn about $3/day for this boring, repetitive, dangerous work. They're in constant contact with the chemicals in the fireworks - though some jobs looked much worse than others - and must fully wash before leaving the premises (to keep the unhealthy, volatile chemicals out of their homes). It was the closest thing I've seen to a sweat shop. Two women asked me to take them to my home, the only time that happened during this trip. That said, the workers appeared to genuinely return our smiles, and I'm afraid they're paid more than the average wage in India, perhaps even double (?).

The culinary journey

During our first trip to India, we spent two months in the north - Rajastan, Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal - and loved the food. Then we spent a month in the Andaman Islands where there is mostly South Indian food. We were introduced to a whole new Indian cuisine, and we loved it! Indeed both of us prefer South Indian food to North Indian. The South Indian food is lighter, less oily, and less rich. It's food that can be eaten every day - not like what's served at the Indian restaurants in Boulder.

For breakfast we'd order a bread or rice dish - often appam in Kerala, idli or pongal in Tamil Nadu. Both states had dosa, puri, porotha, puttu, ottappam as well. The breads are served with curries and chutneys, and in fancier restaurants different breads were served with different sides. Egg curry was a popular breakfast option in Kerala, and many places would offer omelets as well. All except the most basic restaurants would offer tea (chai) and coffee. There wasn't much difference between dinner and breakfast unless we'd go to a fancier restaurant and order specific made-to-order curries.

Lunch is an all-you-can-eat affair based on rice. In Tamil Nadu banana leafs are used as plates, but I don't think we saw that a single time in Kerala. Silverware is not used. The rice comes with a number of vegetable sides, pickled stuff, papadam, and a pudding for dessert. Waiters come by with dal, sambar, and curd to pour over the rice, and they're constantly dumping more vegetables and rices onto your plate. The food was continually tasty. The one complaint would be that it was somewhat repetitive.

Kovalam and Mumbai

20km before completing our loop in Thiruvananthapuram we spent a couple days at the beach resort of Kovalam. I was impressed. The beaches were beautiful and clean with very mellow waves that were easy and fun to bodysurf. The main beach (Lighthouse) is tastefully developed, and there's still fisherman pulling in their catch. I can see why Europeans fly to India just to visit Kovalam.

On our flight home we took advantage of a 10 hour layover in Mumbai to make a quick dash into the city. We went straight to the Gateway of India and barely caught it in the last light of the day. I had hoped to do a little walking tour, but it's hard to appreciate the architecture in the dark. The most memorable part of this excursion will be the incredibly crowded train coming back from Churchgate to Andheri at 10 on a Saturday night. The doors to the trains don't close, and folks hang out the sides. People carry their bags above their heads because there's no room between the packed bodies. There isn't even enough room for everyone's feet on the floor. People stood on my feet, and I stood on other feet. At the stations it's required to jump off while the train is moving to avoid being pushed back on by the mass attemping to squeeze on. Not being experienced jumping off moving trains, Julie and I were a bit nervous when our stop was approaching. I followed the example of the person in front of me, and a helpful passenger gave Julie an arm to help her balance as she stumbled onto the platform. In spite of the chaos everyone was helpful, good-natured, and polite. Farewell, India.

The route: Thiruvananthapuram, Varkala, Karunagappally, Alappuzha, Kanjirappally, Peerumade, Thekkadi, Nedumkandam, Munnar, Kurichikottai, Palani, Kodaikanal Road, Madurai, Sivakasi, Surandai, Tirunelveli, Tiruchchendur, Kanniyakumari, Kovalam, Thiruvananthapuram.

Link to less selective photo album

Kerala and Tamil Nadu - all photos - Link to trip description

I was walking around Kumily when this woman's neighbor waved me over to her house. We had some tea, and I met a lot of neighbors and relatives.

This photo appeared in the following ideotrope albums:

Southern Kerala and Tamil Nadu - February 2008 - On the road in India

At Thanksgiving Rudi reminded me of a grim statistic regarding Indian traffic: India has 4% (or is it 5?) of the world's motor vehicles and 25% of the world's traffic fatalities. Even having visited India once before, I couldn't imagine the chaos and frequent danger of being on the road. Of course the conditions we encountered ran the gamut from smooth, quiet country lanes where our tandem was the fastest on the road to unbelievable chaos where it felt like a bit of a miracle to make it through the day.

By the end of five weeks though, we never crashed, and except for one goat I can't even recall that we ran into anything. As in the U.S. the traffic law in India seems to be that if you get there first, you have the right to the road. This law is taken to its logical extreme such that there's really no reason to ever look behind you. Pay attention to what's in front, be ready to brake and avoid sudden turns. In this sense I could see order to it all and certainly enjoyed heavy, slower traffic to the far too common high-speed chicken matches with buses which left us more than once bouncing off the edge of the tarmac. It's no surprise that fatal bus accidents are reported almost daily in the newspaper.

Coastal Kerala

We arrived at the Thiruvananthapuram airport at about 4am and cycled out of the "city" 26 hours later. The city hardly ended. During our first three days of pedaling, I'm not sure that we were ever out of sight of people and buildings. Perhaps we shouldn't have found this surprising. Kerala has the highest population density of any state in India. And within the state the highest density is found in the southern half of the state on the flat strip of land between the sea and the hills - exactly where we rode the first three days. We mostly avoided the fast traffic of the main road, usually riding a road closer to the coast. The network of paved roads is dense. There are many possibilities.

It wasn't always easy to follow these roads, and I can think of three funny incidents from these first three days:

We were on a narrow road with a fair bit of bus traffic. We noticed lighter traffic. Suddenly the road ended, and we looked across 100m of water with no bridge. Thinking we had missed a turn, we backtracked and quickly came to the spot where the buses turn around. Locals directed us back to the water and down a sandy single track where we loaded onto an oversized canoe with a motorcyclist and another bicyclist. Two men poled the craft across, and soon we were on our way again.

Further north on a similar narrow road we somehow managed to miss the main fork. The road continued to narrow and narrow until we were on a three-foot wide dirt track between two walls. Still we continued and cycled right into someone's yard! All found it amusing.</li?

In another section we had been warned that the coastal road was a bit broken in places and we'd have to push the bike so we weren't surprised to come upon a sandy single track. It was surprising to come upon a mahout on his elephant traveling in the opposite direction on this track. It was very sandy off the track and thinking the elephant would have an easier time of it than we would I kept on the track. The mahout hollered at us, and we were quite close before we ducked out of the way!

Cardamom Hills

After three days of riding to Alappuzha we were ready to try anything besides the Kerala coastal strip so we headed east into the hills. In less than 10km we came to the most peaceful, beautiful riding that we'd seen up to that point. Of course it all wasn't like that, but we had made a good choice.

We rode for three days to get to the Kumily/Thekkadi/Periyar tourist area and two more to get to more beautiful, more touristy, and higher Munnar. We climbed a lot on four of those days, but the roads were well-graded and simply by luck rather than any planning we only had a couple climbs that lasted more than 15km. On the other hand after climbing out of Munnar, we descended about 70km down to Kurichikottai. That would have been a brutal climb.

Through the hills and mountains we pedaled in misty, forested areas where all we could hear was the sounds of monkeys and birds. I thought of Jack Zuzack and the sounds he recorded on his 'round the world trip. We also rode through cardamom (these are the Cardamom Hills after all), rubber, tea, coffee, pepper, jackfruit, and coconut. The tea plantations were particularly beautiful as they seem to glow a translucent green.

The Tamil Nadu plains

Along the road from Munnar we met David who invited us to stay with his family in Kurichikottai, our first night in Tamil Nadu. David's from Kerala but came to Tamil Nadu to help the locals with basic health care and sanitation. He explained that most people don't have toilets in their houses in Tamil Nadu and we'd see many people using the side of the roads as a toilet in the morning. We spent the next two weeks riding in Tamil Nadu and indeed that's one thing I'll remember from our early morning riding there.

In spite of that, the riding in Tamil Nadu was more enjoyable than coastal Kerala. There were lots of wide-open spaces, beautiful agriculture areas, good roads, light traffic, compact cities. Also the weather was more comfortable since it was drier than Kerala. (Overall the weather on the whole trip was good. We never wanted a/c at night. Most of the day was warm, but it felt pretty hot from 1-4pm. We'd try not to be riding then.)

We visited a number of temple towns in Tamil Nadu: Palani, Madurai, Sivakasi, Tirunelveli, Tiruchchendur, Kanniyakumari. These places are on the Hindu pilgrimage circuit and except for Sivakasi and Tirunelveli were crowded with pilgrims.

Any place that's popular for Indians to visit is absolutely chaotic on the weekends. We experienced this in Munnar and Kanniyakumari, both places that we stayed a few days. Once the weekend crowds went home, we enjoyed the relative tranquility of these towns.

Sivakasi is famous for being a production center for fireworks. We ended up visiting the city because we met Jack Reed on the grounds of the Ghandi Museum in Madurai. He invited us to Sivakasi. Jack's friend, Sami, managed to arrange a tour of a cracker factory for the four of us. Seeing the workers and the working conditions was the most moving experience of the trip. The "factories" - though there's nothing automated about them - are scattered out on the hot plain away from the city and away from each other. The factory we visited consisted of about 20 small (4mx4mx4m), widely-spaced buildings. Each building has at least four doors which are always opened during work hours. There's no electricity. The design - good ventilation, many escape routes, widely-spaced buildings - is to prevent accidents. The workers are paid by the piece and earn about $3/day for this boring, repetitive, dangerous work. They're in constant contact with the chemicals in the fireworks - though some jobs looked much worse than others - and must fully wash before leaving the premises (to keep the unhealthy, volatile chemicals out of their homes). It was the closest thing I've seen to a sweat shop. Two women asked me to take them to my home, the only time that happened during this trip. That said, the workers appeared to genuinely return our smiles, and I'm afraid they're paid more than the average wage in India, perhaps even double (?).

The culinary journey

During our first trip to India, we spent two months in the north - Rajastan, Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal - and loved the food. Then we spent a month in the Andaman Islands where there is mostly South Indian food. We were introduced to a whole new Indian cuisine, and we loved it! Indeed both of us prefer South Indian food to North Indian. The South Indian food is lighter, less oily, and less rich. It's food that can be eaten every day - not like what's served at the Indian restaurants in Boulder.

For breakfast we'd order a bread or rice dish - often appam in Kerala, idli or pongal in Tamil Nadu. Both states had dosa, puri, porotha, puttu, ottappam as well. The breads are served with curries and chutneys, and in fancier restaurants different breads were served with different sides. Egg curry was a popular breakfast option in Kerala, and many places would offer omelets as well. All except the most basic restaurants would offer tea (chai) and coffee. There wasn't much difference between dinner and breakfast unless we'd go to a fancier restaurant and order specific made-to-order curries.

Lunch is an all-you-can-eat affair based on rice. In Tamil Nadu banana leafs are used as plates, but I don't think we saw that a single time in Kerala. Silverware is not used. The rice comes with a number of vegetable sides, pickled stuff, papadam, and a pudding for dessert. Waiters come by with dal, sambar, and curd to pour over the rice, and they're constantly dumping more vegetables and rices onto your plate. The food was continually tasty. The one complaint would be that it was somewhat repetitive.

Kovalam and Mumbai

20km before completing our loop in Thiruvananthapuram we spent a couple days at the beach resort of Kovalam. I was impressed. The beaches were beautiful and clean with very mellow waves that were easy and fun to bodysurf. The main beach (Lighthouse) is tastefully developed, and there's still fisherman pulling in their catch. I can see why Europeans fly to India just to visit Kovalam.

On our flight home we took advantage of a 10 hour layover in Mumbai to make a quick dash into the city. We went straight to the Gateway of India and barely caught it in the last light of the day. I had hoped to do a little walking tour, but it's hard to appreciate the architecture in the dark. The most memorable part of this excursion will be the incredibly crowded train coming back from Churchgate to Andheri at 10 on a Saturday night. The doors to the trains don't close, and folks hang out the sides. People carry their bags above their heads because there's no room between the packed bodies. There isn't even enough room for everyone's feet on the floor. People stood on my feet, and I stood on other feet. At the stations it's required to jump off while the train is moving to avoid being pushed back on by the mass attemping to squeeze on. Not being experienced jumping off moving trains, Julie and I were a bit nervous when our stop was approaching. I followed the example of the person in front of me, and a helpful passenger gave Julie an arm to help her balance as she stumbled onto the platform. In spite of the chaos everyone was helpful, good-natured, and polite. Farewell, India.

The route: Thiruvananthapuram, Varkala, Karunagappally, Alappuzha, Kanjirappally, Peerumade, Thekkadi, Nedumkandam, Munnar, Kurichikottai, Palani, Kodaikanal Road, Madurai, Sivakasi, Surandai, Tirunelveli, Tiruchchendur, Kanniyakumari, Kovalam, Thiruvananthapuram.

Link to less selective photo album

Kerala and Tamil Nadu - all photos - Link to trip description

Bitcoin coins photo.

Physical bitcoin statistic coin Antana.

Bitcoin coins photo.

Physical bitcoin statistic coin Antana.

Statistic Source: The 2013 PDK/Gallup Poll

bit.ly/Gallup2013

Slide by Bill Ferriter

The Tempered Radical

blog.williamferriter.com

@plugusin

This photo appeared in the following ideotrope albums:

Southern Kerala and Tamil Nadu - February 2008 - On the road in India

At Thanksgiving Rudi reminded me of a grim statistic regarding Indian traffic: India has 4% (or is it 5?) of the world's motor vehicles and 25% of the world's traffic fatalities. Even having visited India once before, I couldn't imagine the chaos and frequent danger of being on the road. Of course the conditions we encountered ran the gamut from smooth, quiet country lanes where our tandem was the fastest on the road to unbelievable chaos where it felt like a bit of a miracle to make it through the day.

By the end of five weeks though, we never crashed, and except for one goat I can't even recall that we ran into anything. As in the U.S. the traffic law in India seems to be that if you get there first, you have the right to the road. This law is taken to its logical extreme such that there's really no reason to ever look behind you. Pay attention to what's in front, be ready to brake and avoid sudden turns. In this sense I could see order to it all and certainly enjoyed heavy, slower traffic to the far too common high-speed chicken matches with buses which left us more than once bouncing off the edge of the tarmac. It's no surprise that fatal bus accidents are reported almost daily in the newspaper.

Coastal Kerala

We arrived at the Thiruvananthapuram airport at about 4am and cycled out of the "city" 26 hours later. The city hardly ended. During our first three days of pedaling, I'm not sure that we were ever out of sight of people and buildings. Perhaps we shouldn't have found this surprising. Kerala has the highest population density of any state in India. And within the state the highest density is found in the southern half of the state on the flat strip of land between the sea and the hills - exactly where we rode the first three days. We mostly avoided the fast traffic of the main road, usually riding a road closer to the coast. The network of paved roads is dense. There are many possibilities.

It wasn't always easy to follow these roads, and I can think of three funny incidents from these first three days:

We were on a narrow road with a fair bit of bus traffic. We noticed lighter traffic. Suddenly the road ended, and we looked across 100m of water with no bridge. Thinking we had missed a turn, we backtracked and quickly came to the spot where the buses turn around. Locals directed us back to the water and down a sandy single track where we loaded onto an oversized canoe with a motorcyclist and another bicyclist. Two men poled the craft across, and soon we were on our way again.

Further north on a similar narrow road we somehow managed to miss the main fork. The road continued to narrow and narrow until we were on a three-foot wide dirt track between two walls. Still we continued and cycled right into someone's yard! All found it amusing.</li?

In another section we had been warned that the coastal road was a bit broken in places and we'd have to push the bike so we weren't surprised to come upon a sandy single track. It was surprising to come upon a mahout on his elephant traveling in the opposite direction on this track. It was very sandy off the track and thinking the elephant would have an easier time of it than we would I kept on the track. The mahout hollered at us, and we were quite close before we ducked out of the way!

Cardamom Hills

After three days of riding to Alappuzha we were ready to try anything besides the Kerala coastal strip so we headed east into the hills. In less than 10km we came to the most peaceful, beautiful riding that we'd seen up to that point. Of course it all wasn't like that, but we had made a good choice.

We rode for three days to get to the Kumily/Thekkadi/Periyar tourist area and two more to get to more beautiful, more touristy, and higher Munnar. We climbed a lot on four of those days, but the roads were well-graded and simply by luck rather than any planning we only had a couple climbs that lasted more than 15km. On the other hand after climbing out of Munnar, we descended about 70km down to Kurichikottai. That would have been a brutal climb.

Through the hills and mountains we pedaled in misty, forested areas where all we could hear was the sounds of monkeys and birds. I thought of Jack Zuzack and the sounds he recorded on his 'round the world trip. We also rode through cardamom (these are the Cardamom Hills after all), rubber, tea, coffee, pepper, jackfruit, and coconut. The tea plantations were particularly beautiful as they seem to glow a translucent green.

The Tamil Nadu plains

Along the road from Munnar we met David who invited us to stay with his family in Kurichikottai, our first night in Tamil Nadu. David's from Kerala but came to Tamil Nadu to help the locals with basic health care and sanitation. He explained that most people don't have toilets in their houses in Tamil Nadu and we'd see many people using the side of the roads as a toilet in the morning. We spent the next two weeks riding in Tamil Nadu and indeed that's one thing I'll remember from our early morning riding there.

In spite of that, the riding in Tamil Nadu was more enjoyable than coastal Kerala. There were lots of wide-open spaces, beautiful agriculture areas, good roads, light traffic, compact cities. Also the weather was more comfortable since it was drier than Kerala. (Overall the weather on the whole trip was good. We never wanted a/c at night. Most of the day was warm, but it felt pretty hot from 1-4pm. We'd try not to be riding then.)

We visited a number of temple towns in Tamil Nadu: Palani, Madurai, Sivakasi, Tirunelveli, Tiruchchendur, Kanniyakumari. These places are on the Hindu pilgrimage circuit and except for Sivakasi and Tirunelveli were crowded with pilgrims.

Any place that's popular for Indians to visit is absolutely chaotic on the weekends. We experienced this in Munnar and Kanniyakumari, both places that we stayed a few days. Once the weekend crowds went home, we enjoyed the relative tranquility of these towns.

Sivakasi is famous for being a production center for fireworks. We ended up visiting the city because we met Jack Reed on the grounds of the Ghandi Museum in Madurai. He invited us to Sivakasi. Jack's friend, Sami, managed to arrange a tour of a cracker factory for the four of us. Seeing the workers and the working conditions was the most moving experience of the trip. The "factories" - though there's nothing automated about them - are scattered out on the hot plain away from the city and away from each other. The factory we visited consisted of about 20 small (4mx4mx4m), widely-spaced buildings. Each building has at least four doors which are always opened during work hours. There's no electricity. The design - good ventilation, many escape routes, widely-spaced buildings - is to prevent accidents. The workers are paid by the piece and earn about $3/day for this boring, repetitive, dangerous work. They're in constant contact with the chemicals in the fireworks - though some jobs looked much worse than others - and must fully wash before leaving the premises (to keep the unhealthy, volatile chemicals out of their homes). It was the closest thing I've seen to a sweat shop. Two women asked me to take them to my home, the only time that happened during this trip. That said, the workers appeared to genuinely return our smiles, and I'm afraid they're paid more than the average wage in India, perhaps even double (?).

The culinary journey

During our first trip to India, we spent two months in the north - Rajastan, Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal - and loved the food. Then we spent a month in the Andaman Islands where there is mostly South Indian food. We were introduced to a whole new Indian cuisine, and we loved it! Indeed both of us prefer South Indian food to North Indian. The South Indian food is lighter, less oily, and less rich. It's food that can be eaten every day - not like what's served at the Indian restaurants in Boulder.

For breakfast we'd order a bread or rice dish - often appam in Kerala, idli or pongal in Tamil Nadu. Both states had dosa, puri, porotha, puttu, ottappam as well. The breads are served with curries and chutneys, and in fancier restaurants different breads were served with different sides. Egg curry was a popular breakfast option in Kerala, and many places would offer omelets as well. All except the most basic restaurants would offer tea (chai) and coffee. There wasn't much difference between dinner and breakfast unless we'd go to a fancier restaurant and order specific made-to-order curries.

Lunch is an all-you-can-eat affair based on rice. In Tamil Nadu banana leafs are used as plates, but I don't think we saw that a single time in Kerala. Silverware is not used. The rice comes with a number of vegetable sides, pickled stuff, papadam, and a pudding for dessert. Waiters come by with dal, sambar, and curd to pour over the rice, and they're constantly dumping more vegetables and rices onto your plate. The food was continually tasty. The one complaint would be that it was somewhat repetitive.

Kovalam and Mumbai

20km before completing our loop in Thiruvananthapuram we spent a couple days at the beach resort of Kovalam. I was impressed. The beaches were beautiful and clean with very mellow waves that were easy and fun to bodysurf. The main beach (Lighthouse) is tastefully developed, and there's still fisherman pulling in their catch. I can see why Europeans fly to India just to visit Kovalam.

On our flight home we took advantage of a 10 hour layover in Mumbai to make a quick dash into the city. We went straight to the Gateway of India and barely caught it in the last light of the day. I had hoped to do a little walking tour, but it's hard to appreciate the architecture in the dark. The most memorable part of this excursion will be the incredibly crowded train coming back from Churchgate to Andheri at 10 on a Saturday night. The doors to the trains don't close, and folks hang out the sides. People carry their bags above their heads because there's no room between the packed bodies. There isn't even enough room for everyone's feet on the floor. People stood on my feet, and I stood on other feet. At the stations it's required to jump off while the train is moving to avoid being pushed back on by the mass attemping to squeeze on. Not being experienced jumping off moving trains, Julie and I were a bit nervous when our stop was approaching. I followed the example of the person in front of me, and a helpful passenger gave Julie an arm to help her balance as she stumbled onto the platform. In spite of the chaos everyone was helpful, good-natured, and polite. Farewell, India.

The route: Thiruvananthapuram, Varkala, Karunagappally, Alappuzha, Kanjirappally, Peerumade, Thekkadi, Nedumkandam, Munnar, Kurichikottai, Palani, Kodaikanal Road, Madurai, Sivakasi, Surandai, Tirunelveli, Tiruchchendur, Kanniyakumari, Kovalam, Thiruvananthapuram.

Link to less selective photo album

Kerala and Tamil Nadu - all photos - Link to trip description

Hong Kong (香港; "Fragrant Harbour"), officially Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China, is an autonomous territory on the southern coast of China at the Pearl River Estuary and the South China Sea. Hong Kong is known for its skyline and deep natural harbour. It has an area of 1104 km2 and shares its northern border with the Guangdong Province of Mainland China. With around 7.2 million Hongkongers of various nationalities, Hong Kong is one of the world's most densely populated metropolises.

After the First Opium War (1839–42), Hong Kong became a British colony with the perpetual cession of Hong Kong Island, followed by Kowloon Peninsula in 1860 and a 99-year lease of the New Territories from 1898. Hong Kong remained under British control for about a century until the Second World War, when Japan occupied the colony from December 1941 to August 1945. After the Surrender of Japan, the British resumed control. In the 1980s, negotiations between the United Kingdom and the People's Republic of China resulted in the 1984 Sino-British Joint Declaration, which provided for the transfer of sovereignty of Hong Kong on 30 June 1997. The territory became a special administrative region of China with a high degree of autonomy on 1 July 1997 under the principle of one country, two systems. Disputes over the perceived misapplication of this principle have contributed to popular protests, including the 2014 Umbrella Revolution.

In the late 1970s, Hong Kong became a major entrepôt in Asia-Pacific. The territory has developed into a major global trade hub and financial centre. The 44th-largest economy in the world, Hong Kong ranks top 10 in GDP (PPP) per capita, but also has the most severe income inequality among advanced economies. Hong Kong is one of the three most important financial centres alongside New York and London, and the world's number one tourist destination city. The territory has been named the freest market economy. The service economy, characterised by free trade and low taxation, has been regarded as one of the world's most laissez-faire economic policies, and the currency, the Hong Kong dollar, is the 13th most traded currency in the world.

The Hong Kong Basic Law empowers the region to develop relations and make agreements directly with foreign states and regions, as well as international organizations, in a broad range of appropriate fields. It is an independent member of APEC, the IMF, WTO, FIFA and International Olympic Committee among others.

Limited land created a dense infrastructure and the territory became a centre of modern architecture, and one of the world's most vertical cities. Hong Kong has a highly developed public transportation network covering 90 per cent of the population, the highest in the world, and relies on mass transit by road or rail. Air pollution remains a serious problem. Loose emissions standards have resulted in a high level of atmospheric particulates. Nevertheless, Hongkongers enjoy the world's longest or second longest life expectancies.

NAME

It is not known who was responsible for the Romanisation of the name "Hong Kong" but it is generally believed to be an early imprecise phonetic rendering of the pronunciation of the spoken Cantonese or Hakka name 香港, meaning "Fragrant Harbour". Before 1842, the name referred to a small inlet—now Aberdeen Harbour (香港仔, Sidney Lau: heung1gong2 jai2, Jyutping: hoeng1gong2 zai2, or Hiong1gong3 zai3 in a form of Hakka, literally means "Little Hong Kong")—between Aberdeen Island and the south side of Hong Kong Island, which was one of the first points of contact between British sailors and local fishermen. As those early contacts are likely to have been with Hong Kong's early inhabitants, the Tankas (水上人), it is equally probable that the early Romanisation was a faithful execution of their speech, i.e. hong1, not heung1. Detailed and accurate Romanisation systems for Cantonese were available and in use at the time.

The reference to fragrance may refer to the sweet taste of the harbour's fresh water estuarine influx of the Pearl River, or to the incense from factories, lining the coast to the north of Kowloon, which was stored near Aberdeen Harbour for export before the development of the Victoria Harbour.

In 1842, the Treaty of Nanking was signed and the name, Hong Kong, was first recorded on official documents to encompass the entirety of the island.

The name had often been written as the single word Hongkong until the government adopted the current form in 1926. Nevertheless, a number of century-old institutions still retain the single-word form, such as the Hongkong Post, Hongkong Electric and the Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation.

The full official name, after 1997, is "Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China". This is the official title as mentioned in the Hong Kong Basic Law and the Hong Kong Government's website; however, "Hong Kong Special Administrative Region" and "Hong Kong" are widely accepted.

Hong Kong has carried many nicknames: the most famous among those is the "Pearl of the Orient", which reflected the impressive night-view of the city's light decorations on the skyscrapers along both sides of the Victoria Harbour. The territory is also known as "Asia's World City".

HISTORY

PRE-BRITISH

Archaeological studies support human presence in the Chek Lap Kok area (now Hong Kong International Airport) from 35,000 to 39,000 years ago and on Sai Kung Peninsula from 6,000 years ago.

Wong Tei Tung and Three Fathoms Cove are the earliest sites of human habitation in Hong Kong during the Paleolithic Period. It is believed that the Three Fathom Cove was a river-valley settlement and Wong Tei Tung was a lithic manufacturing site. Excavated Neolithic artefacts suggested cultural differences from the Longshan culture of northern China and settlement by the Che people, prior to the migration of the Baiyue (Viets) to Hong Kong. Eight petroglyphs, which dated to the Shang dynasty in China, were discovered on the surrounding islands.

ANCIENT CHINA

In 214 BC, Qin Shi Huang, the first emperor of China, conquered the Baiyue tribes in Jiaozhi (modern Liangguang region and Vietnam) and incorporated the territory into imperial China for the first time. Modern Hong Kong was assigned to the Nanhai commandery (modern Nanhai District), near the commandery's capital city Panyu. In Qin dynasty, the territory was ruled by Panyu County(番禺縣) up till Jin Dynasty.

The area of Hong Kong was consolidated under the kingdom of Nanyue (Southern Viet), founded by general Zhao Tuo in 204 BC after the collapse of the short-lived Qin dynasty. When the kingdom of Nanyue was conquered by the Han Dynasty in 111 BC, Hong Kong was assigned to the Jiaozhi commandery. Archaeological evidence indicates that the population increased and early salt production flourished in this time period. Lei Cheng Uk Han Tomb on the Kowloon Peninsula is believed to have been built during the Han dynasty.

IMPERIAL CHINA

Started from Jin dynasty to early period of Tang dynasty, the territory that now comprises Hong Kong was governed by Bao'an County (寶安縣). In Tang dynasty, the Guangdong region flourished as an international trading center. The Tuen Mun region in what is now Hong Kong's New Territories served as a port, naval base, salt production centre and later, base for the exploitation of pearls. Lantau Island was also a salt production centre, where the salt smugglers riots broke out against the government.

Under the Tang dynasty, the Guangdong (Canton) region flourished as a regional trading centre. In 736 AD, the first Emperor of Tang established a military stronghold in Tuen Mun in western Hong Kong to defend the coastal area of the region. The first village school, Li Ying College, was established around 1075 AD in the modern-day New Territories under the Northern Song dynasty. After their defeat by the Mongols, the Southern Song court briefly moved to modern-day Kowloon City (the Sung Wong Toi site), before its final defeat at the Battle of Yamen.

From the mid-Tang dynasty to early Ming dynasty, the territory that now comprises Hong Kong was governed by Dongguan County (東莞縣/ 東官縣). In Ming dynasty, the area was governed by Xin'an County (新安縣) before it was colonized by the British government. The indigenous inhabitants of what is now Hong Kong are identified with several ethnicities, including Punti, Hakka, Tanka) and Hoklo.

The earliest European visitor on record was Jorge Álvares, a Portuguese explorer who arrived in 1513. Having founded an establishment in Macau by 1557, Portuguese merchants began trading in southern China. However, subsequent military clashes between China and Portugal led to the expulsion of all Portuguese merchants from the rest of China.

In the mid-16th century, the Haijin order (closed-door, isolation policy) was enforced and it strictly forbade all maritime activities in order to prevent contact from foreigners by sea. From 1661 to 1669, Hong Kong was directly affected by the Great Clearance of the Kangxi Emperor, who required the evacuation of coastal areas of Guangdong. About 16,000 people from Hong Kong and Bao'an County were forced to emigrate inland; 1,648 of those who evacuated were said to have returned after the evacuation was rescinded in 1669.

BRITSH CROWN COLONY 1842–1941

In 1839, the refusal of Qing authorities to support opium imports caused the outbreak of the First Opium War between the British Empire and the Qing Empire. Qing's defeat resulted in the occupation of Hong Kong Island by British forces on 20 January 1841. It was initially ceded under the Convention of Chuenpee, as part of a ceasefire agreement between Captain Charles Elliot and Governor Qishan. While a dispute between high-ranking officials of both countries led to the failure of the treaty's ratification, on 29 August 1842, Hong Kong Island was formally ceded in perpetuity to the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland under the Treaty of Nanking. The British officially established a Crown colony and founded the City of Victoria in the following year.

The population of Hong Kong Island was 7,450 when the Union Flag raised over Possession Point on 26 January 1841. It mostly consisted of Tanka fishermen and Hakka charcoal burners, whose settlements scattered along several coastal hamlets. In the 1850s, a large number of Chinese immigrants crossed the then-free border to escape from the Taiping Rebellion. Other natural disasters, such as flooding, typhoons and famine in mainland China would play a role in establishing Hong Kong as a place for safe shelter.

Further conflicts over the opium trade between Britain and Qing quickly escalated into the Second Opium War. Following the Anglo-French victory, the Crown Colony was expanded to include Kowloon Peninsula (south of Boundary Street) and Stonecutter's Island, both of which were ceded to the British in perpetuity under the Convention of Beijing in 1860.

In 1898, Britain obtained a 99-year lease from Qing under the Convention for the Extension of Hong Kong Territory, in which Hong Kong obtained a 99-year lease of the Lantau Island, the area north of Boundary Street in Kowloon up to Shenzhen River and over 200 other outlying islands.

Hong Kong soon became a major entrepôt thanks to its free port status, attracting new immigrants to settle from both China and Europe alike. The society, however, remained racially segregated and polarised under British colonial policies. Despite the rise of a British-educated Chinese upper-class by the late-19th century, race laws such as the Peak Reservation Ordinance prevented ethnic Chinese in Hong Kong from acquiring houses in reserved areas, such as the Victoria Peak. At this time, the majority of the Chinese population in Hong Kong had no political representation in the British colonial government. There were, however, a small number of Chinese elites whom the British governors relied on, such as Sir Kai Ho and Robert Hotung, who served as communicators and mediators between the government and local population.

Hong Kong continued to experience modest growth during the first half of the 20th century. The University of Hong Kong was established in 1911 as the territory's oldest higher education institute. While there was an exodus of 60,000 residents for fear of a German attack on the British colony during the First World War, Hong Kong remained peaceful. Its population increased from 530,000 in 1916 to 725,000 in 1925 and reached 1.6 million by 1941.

In 1925, Cecil Clementi became the 17th Governor of Hong Kong. Fluent in Cantonese and without a need for translator, Clementi introduced the first ethnic Chinese, Shouson Chow, into the Executive Council as an unofficial member. Under his tenure, Kai Tak Airport entered operation as RAF Kai Tak and several aviation clubs. In 1937, the Second Sino-Japanese War broke out when the Japanese Empire expanded its territories from northeastern China into the mainland proper. To safeguard Hong Kong as a freeport, Governor Geoffry Northcote declared the Crown Colony as a neutral zone.

JAPANESE OCCUPATION 1941–45

As part of its military campaign in Southeast Asia during Second World War, the Japanese army moved south from Guangzhou of mainland China and attacked Hong Kong on 8 December 1941. The Battle of Hong Kong ended with the British and Canadian defenders surrendering control of Hong Kong to Japan on 25 December 1941 in what was regarded by locals as Black Christmas.

During the Japanese occupation of Hong Kong, the Japanese army committed atrocities against civilians and POWs, such as the St. Stephen's College massacre. Local residents also suffered widespread food shortages, limited rationing and hyper-inflation arising from the forced exchange of currency from Hong Kong Dollars to Japanese military banknotes. The initial ratio of 2:1 was gradually devalued to 4:1 and ownership of Hong Kong Dollars was declared illegal and punishable by harsh torture. Due to starvation and forced deportation for slave labour to mainland China, the population of Hong Kong had dwindled from 1.6 million in 1941 to 600,000 in 1945, when Britain resumed control of the colony on 30 August 1945.

ECONOMY

As one of the world's leading international financial centres, Hong Kong has a major capitalist service economy characterised by low taxation and free trade. The currency, Hong Kong dollar, is the eighth most traded currency in the world as of 2010. Hong Kong was once described by Milton Friedman as the world's greatest experiment in laissez-faire capitalism, but has since instituted a regime of regulations including a minimum wage. It maintains a highly developed capitalist economy, ranked the freest in the world by the Index of Economic Freedom every year since 1995. It is an important centre for international finance and trade, with one of the greatest concentrations of corporate headquarters in the Asia-Pacific region, and is known as one of the Four Asian Tigers for its high growth rates and rapid development from the 1960s to the 1990s. Between 1961 and 1997 Hong Kong's gross domestic product grew 180 times while per-capita GDP increased 87 times over.

The Hong Kong Stock Exchange is the seventh largest in the world and has a market capitalisation of US$2.3 trillion as of December 2009. In that year, Hong Kong raised 22 percent of worldwide initial public offering (IPO) capital, making it the largest centre of IPOs in the world and the easiest place to raise capital. The Hong Kong dollar has been pegged to the US dollar since 1983.

The Hong Kong Government has traditionally played a mostly passive role in the economy, with little by way of industrial policy and almost no import or export controls. Market forces and the private sector were allowed to determine practical development. Under the official policy of "positive non-interventionism", Hong Kong is often cited as an example of laissez-faire capitalism. Following the Second World War, Hong Kong industrialised rapidly as a manufacturing centre driven by exports, and then underwent a rapid transition to a service-based economy in the 1980s. Since then, it has grown to become a leading centre for management, financial, IT, business consultation and professional services.

Hong Kong matured to become a financial centre in the 1990s, but was greatly affected by the Asian financial crisis in 1998, and again in 2003 by the SARS outbreak. A revival of external and domestic demand has led to a strong recovery, as cost decreases strengthened the competitiveness of Hong Kong exports and a long deflationary period ended. Government intervention, initiated by the later colonial governments and continued since 1997, has steadily increased, with the introduction of export credit guarantees, a compulsory pension scheme, a minimum wage, anti-discrimination laws, and a state mortgage backer.

The territory has little arable land and few natural resources, so it imports most of its food and raw materials. Imports account for more than 90% of Hong Kong's food supply, including nearly all of the meat and rice available there. Agricultural activity - relatively unimportant to Hong Kong's economy and contributing just 0.1% of its GDP - primarily consists of growing premium food and flower varieties. Hong Kong is the world's eleventh largest trading entity, with the total value of imports and exports exceeding its gross domestic product. It is the world's largest re-export centre. Much of Hong Kong's exports consist of re-exports, which are products made outside of the territory, especially in mainland China, and distributed via Hong Kong. Its physical location has allowed the city to establish a transportation and logistics infrastructure that includes the world's second busiest container port and the world's busiest airport for international cargo. Even before the transfer of sovereignty, Hong Kong had established extensive trade and investment ties with the mainland, which now enable it to serve as a point of entry for investment flowing into the mainland. At the end of 2007, there were 3.46 million people employed full-time, with the unemployment rate averaging 4.1% for the fourth straight year of decline. Hong Kong's economy is dominated by the service sector, which accounts for over 90% of its GDP, while industry constitutes 9%. Inflation was at 2.5% in 2007. Hong Kong's largest export markets are mainland China, the United States, and Japan.

As of 2010 Hong Kong is the eighth most expensive city for expatriates, falling from fifth position in the previous year. Hong Kong is ranked fourth in terms of the highest percentage of millionaire households, behind Switzerland, Qatar, and Singapore with 8.5 percent of all households owning at least one million US dollars. Hong Kong is also ranked second in the world by the most billionaires per capita (one per 132,075 people), behind Monaco. In 2011, Hong Kong was ranked second in the Ease of Doing Business Index, behind Singapore.

Hong Kong is ranked No. 1 in the world in the Crony Capitalism Index by the Economist.

In 2014, Hong Kong was the eleventh most popular destination for international tourists among countries and territories worldwide, with a total of 27.8 million visitors contributing a total of US$38,376 million in international tourism receipts. Hong Kong is also the most popular city for tourists, nearly two times of its nearest competitor Macau.

DEMOGRAPHICS

The territory's population in mid-2015 is 7.30 million, with an average annual growth rate of 0.8% over the previous 5 years. The current population of Hong Kong comprises 91% ethnic Chinese. A major part of Hong Kong's Cantonese-speaking majority originated from the neighbouring Guangdong province, from where many fled during the Second Sino-Japanese War, the Chinese Civil War, and the communist rule in China.

Residents of the Mainland do not automatically receive the Right of Abode, and many may not enter the territory freely. Like other non-natives, they may apply for the Right of Abode after seven years of continuous residency. Some of the rights may also be acquired by marriage (e.g., the right to work), but these do not include the right to vote or stand for office. However, the influx of immigrants from mainland China, approximating 45,000 per year, is a significant contributor to its population growth – a daily quota of 150 Mainland Chinese with family ties in Hong Kong are granted a "one way permit". Life expectancy in Hong Kong is 81.2 years for males and 86.9 years for females as of 2014, making it the highest life expectancy in the world.

About 91% of the people of Hong Kong are of Chinese descent, the majority of whom are Taishanese, Chiu Chow, other Cantonese people, and Hakka. Hong Kong's Han majority originate mainly from the Guangzhou and Taishan regions in Guangdong province. The remaining 6.9% of the population is composed of non-ethnic Chinese. There is a South Asian population of Indians, Pakistanis and Nepalese; some Vietnamese refugees have become permanent residents of Hong Kong. There are also Britons, Americans, Canadians, Japanese, and Koreans working in the city's commercial and financial sector. In 2011, 133,377 foreign domestic helpers from Indonesia and 132,935 from the Philippines were working in Hong Kong.

Hong Kong's de facto official language is Cantonese, a variety of Chinese originating from Guangdong province to the north of Hong Kong. English is also an official language, and according to a 1996 by-census is spoken by 3.1 percent of the population as an everyday language and by 34.9 percent of the population as a second language. Signs displaying both Chinese and English are common throughout the territory. Since the 1997 Handover, an increase in immigrants from communist China and greater interaction with the mainland's economy have brought an increasing number of Mandarin speakers to Hong Kong.

RELIGION

A majority of residents of Hong Kong have no religious affiliation, professing a form of agnosticism or atheism. According to the US Department of State 43 percent of the population practices some form of religion. Some figures put it higher, according to a Gallup poll, 64% of Hong Kong residents do not believe in any religion, and possibly 80% of Hong Kong claim no religion. In Hong Kong teaching evolution won out in curriculum dispute about whether to teach other explanations, and that creationism and intelligent design will form no part of the senior secondary biology curriculum.

Hong Kong enjoys a high degree of religious freedom, guaranteed by the Basic Law. Hong Kong's main religions are Buddhism, Taoism and Confucianism; a local religious scholar in contact with major denominations estimates there are approximately 1.5 million Buddhists and Taoists. A Christian community of around 833,000 forms about 11.7% of the total population; Protestants forms a larger number than Roman Catholics at a rate of 4:3, although smaller Christian communities exist, including the Latter-day Saints and Jehovah's Witnesses. The Anglican and Roman Catholic churches each freely appoint their own bishops, unlike in mainland China. There are also Sikh, Muslim, Jewish, Hindu and Bahá'í communities. The practice of Falun Gong is tolerated.

PERSONAL INCOME

Statistically Hong Kong's income gap is the greatest in Asia Pacific. According to a report by the United Nations Human Settlements Programme in 2008, Hong Kong's Gini coefficient, at 0.53, was the highest in Asia and "relatively high by international standards". However, the government has stressed that income disparity does not equate to worsening of the poverty situation, and that the Gini coefficient is not strictly comparable between regions. The government has named economic restructuring, changes in household sizes, and the increase of high-income jobs as factors that have skewed the Gini coefficient.

WIKIPEDIA

Bitcoin coins photo.

Physical bitcoin statistic coin Antana.

Bitcoin coins photo.

Physical bitcoin statistic coin Antana.

Bitcoin coins photo.

Physical bitcoin statistic coin Antana.

Y6D297

Since January 1st 2010, I have been taking and uploading one square picture each day to:

square365.blogspot.com

Bitcoin coins photo.

Physical bitcoin statistic coin Antana.

Bitcoin coins photo.

Physical bitcoin statistic coin Antana.

Bitcoin coins photo.

Physical bitcoin statistic coin Antana.

Bitcoin coins photo.

Physical bitcoin statistic coin Antana.

Ryan M. Farquhar is a chef from the bay area whoes picture i took for his website and an upcoming artical. Check out his site at www.avantgardeculinaryindustries.com.

www.another-statistic.com

Strobist: Used a VAL to hold a sun shade to block the nasty 12 o'clock sun. Then I brought in my 550EX @ 1/4th power shot through a 16" soft box.

~*Photography Originally Taken By: www.CrossTrips.Com Under God*~

Virginia City is an unincorporated community that is the county seat of Storey County, Nevada, United States. It is part of the Reno–Sparks Metropolitan Statistical Area.

Geography

Virginia City is located at [show location on an interactive map] 39°18′37″N, 119°38′57″W[1].

History

Virginia City is one of the oldest established cities in Nevada. Like many cities and towns in the state, Virginia City was a mining boomtown; in fact it is one of the most famous boomtowns in the Old West as it virtually appeared overnight as a result of the Comstock Lode silver strike of 1859. During its peak, Virginia City had a population of nearly 30,000 residents. When the Comstock Lode ended in 1898, the city's population declined sharply.

Virginia City could be considered the birthplace of Mark Twain, as it was here in 1863 that writer Samuel Clemens, then a reporter on the local Territorial Enterprise newspaper, first used his famous pen name.[citation needed]

Historical data in The Virginia City Historical documents, point out that newspaper writer Samuel Clemens, was "mugged" one night as he walked over the hill from the south while returning to Virginia City (probably after consuming alcoholic beverages at the home of friends.) The evidence shown points out that this was one of the reasons that persuaded him to relocate elsewhere. The highwaymen with the common "Stand and deliver!" relieved Mr. Clemens of his watch and money he had with him. This evidence is found in the newspaper office and the veracity of the robbery is likely valid as it is reported as a crime in the (period)newspaper. As a motivation for his leaving, it is just speculation since the date of the robbery is prior but close to his leaving and beginning his writing career in earnest at a more developed city. This robbery (10 Nov 1863) turns out to have been a practical joke played on Sam Clemens by his "friends", to give him "material" to write about!. He did not appreciate the joke, but at least he got his belongings back, especially his gold watch worth $300), which had great "sentimental" value to him. (Reference:page 167, Ch.16 "Mark Twain - A Life" Ron Powers 2005, Free Press, 722pp hardback). Sam Clemens also mentions the incident in his own book "Roughing It", (published Feb 1872) - and he was still sore about it(Ibid)!

Virginia City had the first elevator between California and Chicago.[citation needed]

In the 1950s, two Virginia City neighbors got into a dispute.[2] When one of the men built a new house, the other bought the lot next to it and built a house less than twelve inches from his neighbor's house in spite to deprive the neighbor of both view and breeze.[2] The Virginia City Spite House still is standing and occupied.[2]

Film history

Virginia City is near the site of the fictional Ponderosa Ranch on the Western television drama Bonanza. As such, the show's characters made visits to the town regularly -- or at least to the flat Hollywood backlot town.

It was the locale of a 1940 Errol Flynn movie set during the Civil War.

Elmar Bartlmae (Dir.): Virginia City und die wahre Geschichte des Wilden Westens. Dokumentation, France 2007, Arte-TV, May 26th, 2007 (the real history...; French, German)

Scary...But True, a paranormal TV series, featured Virginia City in one episode. Many of the inhabitants of Virginia City claimed on camera that the whole city is haunted by spirits.

Virginia City Historic District

Virginia City was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1961.[3]name="nrhpinv2">Charles Snell and Marilynn Larew (April 21, 1978), National Register of Historic Places Inventory-Nomination: Virginia City Historic DistrictPDF (1.01 MiB), National Park Service and Accompanying 50 or so photos from 1968, 1971, 1978 and other dates.PDF (4.82 MiB) This in effect created a Virginia City Historic District.

Today, Virginia City is but a shadow of its former glory, however, it still draws over 2 million visitors per year. It is one of the nation's larger[citation needed] National Historic Landmarks and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Keeping with tradition, Virginia City does not have any chain stores or fast food restaurants.[citation needed]

Virginia City Locals

Virginia city consists of a population of 1,000 people in the town and 4,000 in Storey County. It has 1 elementary school, 1 middle school, and 1 high school. Many locals work at the shops in town that cater to tourists, while others seek jobs in the surrounding cities. Popular hangouts for teens include the swimming pool and restaurants. Basketball is very popular, with the high school possessing the most state championship titles in Nevada. The middle school is passing on the tradition by winning four league titles in two years between the varsity and junior varsity teams. Most of the population leaves during the winter.

Virginia City Hillclimb

There is an annual hillclimb that runs from Silver City to Virginia City via Highway 341 (a truck route) that is put on jointly between the Ferrari Club of America Pacific Region and the Northern California Shelby Club. Originally the event was put on by the SCCA and took a totally different route; before the truck route was constructed cars would run up Highway 342, past the Gold Hill Hotel and other landmarks. Highway 342 is now the return route for cars that have completed their runs up Highway 341. The hillclimb covers 5.2 miles, climbing 1260 feet and passing through 21 corners.

Darcy Farrow

Darcy Farrow, a folk song written by Steve Gillette and Tom Campbell mentions Virginia City and other places and landmarks in the area (including Yerington, the Carson Valley, and the Truckee River). The most popular version was performed by John Denver.

This photo appeared in the following ideotrope albums:

Southern Kerala and Tamil Nadu - February 2008 - On the road in India

At Thanksgiving Rudi reminded me of a grim statistic regarding Indian traffic: India has 4% (or is it 5?) of the world's motor vehicles and 25% of the world's traffic fatalities. Even having visited India once before, I couldn't imagine the chaos and frequent danger of being on the road. Of course the conditions we encountered ran the gamut from smooth, quiet country lanes where our tandem was the fastest on the road to unbelievable chaos where it felt like a bit of a miracle to make it through the day.

By the end of five weeks though, we never crashed, and except for one goat I can't even recall that we ran into anything. As in the U.S. the traffic law in India seems to be that if you get there first, you have the right to the road. This law is taken to its logical extreme such that there's really no reason to ever look behind you. Pay attention to what's in front, be ready to brake and avoid sudden turns. In this sense I could see order to it all and certainly enjoyed heavy, slower traffic to the far too common high-speed chicken matches with buses which left us more than once bouncing off the edge of the tarmac. It's no surprise that fatal bus accidents are reported almost daily in the newspaper.

Coastal Kerala

We arrived at the Thiruvananthapuram airport at about 4am and cycled out of the "city" 26 hours later. The city hardly ended. During our first three days of pedaling, I'm not sure that we were ever out of sight of people and buildings. Perhaps we shouldn't have found this surprising. Kerala has the highest population density of any state in India. And within the state the highest density is found in the southern half of the state on the flat strip of land between the sea and the hills - exactly where we rode the first three days. We mostly avoided the fast traffic of the main road, usually riding a road closer to the coast. The network of paved roads is dense. There are many possibilities.

It wasn't always easy to follow these roads, and I can think of three funny incidents from these first three days:

We were on a narrow road with a fair bit of bus traffic. We noticed lighter traffic. Suddenly the road ended, and we looked across 100m of water with no bridge. Thinking we had missed a turn, we backtracked and quickly came to the spot where the buses turn around. Locals directed us back to the water and down a sandy single track where we loaded onto an oversized canoe with a motorcyclist and another bicyclist. Two men poled the craft across, and soon we were on our way again.

Further north on a similar narrow road we somehow managed to miss the main fork. The road continued to narrow and narrow until we were on a three-foot wide dirt track between two walls. Still we continued and cycled right into someone's yard! All found it amusing.</li?

In another section we had been warned that the coastal road was a bit broken in places and we'd have to push the bike so we weren't surprised to come upon a sandy single track. It was surprising to come upon a mahout on his elephant traveling in the opposite direction on this track. It was very sandy off the track and thinking the elephant would have an easier time of it than we would I kept on the track. The mahout hollered at us, and we were quite close before we ducked out of the way!

Cardamom Hills

After three days of riding to Alappuzha we were ready to try anything besides the Kerala coastal strip so we headed east into the hills. In less than 10km we came to the most peaceful, beautiful riding that we'd seen up to that point. Of course it all wasn't like that, but we had made a good choice.

We rode for three days to get to the Kumily/Thekkadi/Periyar tourist area and two more to get to more beautiful, more touristy, and higher Munnar. We climbed a lot on four of those days, but the roads were well-graded and simply by luck rather than any planning we only had a couple climbs that lasted more than 15km. On the other hand after climbing out of Munnar, we descended about 70km down to Kurichikottai. That would have been a brutal climb.

Through the hills and mountains we pedaled in misty, forested areas where all we could hear was the sounds of monkeys and birds. I thought of Jack Zuzack and the sounds he recorded on his 'round the world trip. We also rode through cardamom (these are the Cardamom Hills after all), rubber, tea, coffee, pepper, jackfruit, and coconut. The tea plantations were particularly beautiful as they seem to glow a translucent green.

The Tamil Nadu plains

Along the road from Munnar we met David who invited us to stay with his family in Kurichikottai, our first night in Tamil Nadu. David's from Kerala but came to Tamil Nadu to help the locals with basic health care and sanitation. He explained that most people don't have toilets in their houses in Tamil Nadu and we'd see many people using the side of the roads as a toilet in the morning. We spent the next two weeks riding in Tamil Nadu and indeed that's one thing I'll remember from our early morning riding there.

In spite of that, the riding in Tamil Nadu was more enjoyable than coastal Kerala. There were lots of wide-open spaces, beautiful agriculture areas, good roads, light traffic, compact cities. Also the weather was more comfortable since it was drier than Kerala. (Overall the weather on the whole trip was good. We never wanted a/c at night. Most of the day was warm, but it felt pretty hot from 1-4pm. We'd try not to be riding then.)

We visited a number of temple towns in Tamil Nadu: Palani, Madurai, Sivakasi, Tirunelveli, Tiruchchendur, Kanniyakumari. These places are on the Hindu pilgrimage circuit and except for Sivakasi and Tirunelveli were crowded with pilgrims.

Any place that's popular for Indians to visit is absolutely chaotic on the weekends. We experienced this in Munnar and Kanniyakumari, both places that we stayed a few days. Once the weekend crowds went home, we enjoyed the relative tranquility of these towns.

Sivakasi is famous for being a production center for fireworks. We ended up visiting the city because we met Jack Reed on the grounds of the Ghandi Museum in Madurai. He invited us to Sivakasi. Jack's friend, Sami, managed to arrange a tour of a cracker factory for the four of us. Seeing the workers and the working conditions was the most moving experience of the trip. The "factories" - though there's nothing automated about them - are scattered out on the hot plain away from the city and away from each other. The factory we visited consisted of about 20 small (4mx4mx4m), widely-spaced buildings. Each building has at least four doors which are always opened during work hours. There's no electricity. The design - good ventilation, many escape routes, widely-spaced buildings - is to prevent accidents. The workers are paid by the piece and earn about $3/day for this boring, repetitive, dangerous work. They're in constant contact with the chemicals in the fireworks - though some jobs looked much worse than others - and must fully wash before leaving the premises (to keep the unhealthy, volatile chemicals out of their homes). It was the closest thing I've seen to a sweat shop. Two women asked me to take them to my home, the only time that happened during this trip. That said, the workers appeared to genuinely return our smiles, and I'm afraid they're paid more than the average wage in India, perhaps even double (?).

The culinary journey

During our first trip to India, we spent two months in the north - Rajastan, Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal - and loved the food. Then we spent a month in the Andaman Islands where there is mostly South Indian food. We were introduced to a whole new Indian cuisine, and we loved it! Indeed both of us prefer South Indian food to North Indian. The South Indian food is lighter, less oily, and less rich. It's food that can be eaten every day - not like what's served at the Indian restaurants in Boulder.

For breakfast we'd order a bread or rice dish - often appam in Kerala, idli or pongal in Tamil Nadu. Both states had dosa, puri, porotha, puttu, ottappam as well. The breads are served with curries and chutneys, and in fancier restaurants different breads were served with different sides. Egg curry was a popular breakfast option in Kerala, and many places would offer omelets as well. All except the most basic restaurants would offer tea (chai) and coffee. There wasn't much difference between dinner and breakfast unless we'd go to a fancier restaurant and order specific made-to-order curries.

Lunch is an all-you-can-eat affair based on rice. In Tamil Nadu banana leafs are used as plates, but I don't think we saw that a single time in Kerala. Silverware is not used. The rice comes with a number of vegetable sides, pickled stuff, papadam, and a pudding for dessert. Waiters come by with dal, sambar, and curd to pour over the rice, and they're constantly dumping more vegetables and rices onto your plate. The food was continually tasty. The one complaint would be that it was somewhat repetitive.

Kovalam and Mumbai

20km before completing our loop in Thiruvananthapuram we spent a couple days at the beach resort of Kovalam. I was impressed. The beaches were beautiful and clean with very mellow waves that were easy and fun to bodysurf. The main beach (Lighthouse) is tastefully developed, and there's still fisherman pulling in their catch. I can see why Europeans fly to India just to visit Kovalam.

On our flight home we took advantage of a 10 hour layover in Mumbai to make a quick dash into the city. We went straight to the Gateway of India and barely caught it in the last light of the day. I had hoped to do a little walking tour, but it's hard to appreciate the architecture in the dark. The most memorable part of this excursion will be the incredibly crowded train coming back from Churchgate to Andheri at 10 on a Saturday night. The doors to the trains don't close, and folks hang out the sides. People carry their bags above their heads because there's no room between the packed bodies. There isn't even enough room for everyone's feet on the floor. People stood on my feet, and I stood on other feet. At the stations it's required to jump off while the train is moving to avoid being pushed back on by the mass attemping to squeeze on. Not being experienced jumping off moving trains, Julie and I were a bit nervous when our stop was approaching. I followed the example of the person in front of me, and a helpful passenger gave Julie an arm to help her balance as she stumbled onto the platform. In spite of the chaos everyone was helpful, good-natured, and polite. Farewell, India.

The route: Thiruvananthapuram, Varkala, Karunagappally, Alappuzha, Kanjirappally, Peerumade, Thekkadi, Nedumkandam, Munnar, Kurichikottai, Palani, Kodaikanal Road, Madurai, Sivakasi, Surandai, Tirunelveli, Tiruchchendur, Kanniyakumari, Kovalam, Thiruvananthapuram.

Link to less selective photo album

Kerala and Tamil Nadu - all photos - Link to trip description

This couple ran the restaurant where we ate breakfast.

This photo appeared in the following ideotrope albums:

Southern Kerala and Tamil Nadu - February 2008 - On the road in India

At Thanksgiving Rudi reminded me of a grim statistic regarding Indian traffic: India has 4% (or is it 5?) of the world's motor vehicles and 25% of the world's traffic fatalities. Even having visited India once before, I couldn't imagine the chaos and frequent danger of being on the road. Of course the conditions we encountered ran the gamut from smooth, quiet country lanes where our tandem was the fastest on the road to unbelievable chaos where it felt like a bit of a miracle to make it through the day.

By the end of five weeks though, we never crashed, and except for one goat I can't even recall that we ran into anything. As in the U.S. the traffic law in India seems to be that if you get there first, you have the right to the road. This law is taken to its logical extreme such that there's really no reason to ever look behind you. Pay attention to what's in front, be ready to brake and avoid sudden turns. In this sense I could see order to it all and certainly enjoyed heavy, slower traffic to the far too common high-speed chicken matches with buses which left us more than once bouncing off the edge of the tarmac. It's no surprise that fatal bus accidents are reported almost daily in the newspaper.

Coastal Kerala

We arrived at the Thiruvananthapuram airport at about 4am and cycled out of the "city" 26 hours later. The city hardly ended. During our first three days of pedaling, I'm not sure that we were ever out of sight of people and buildings. Perhaps we shouldn't have found this surprising. Kerala has the highest population density of any state in India. And within the state the highest density is found in the southern half of the state on the flat strip of land between the sea and the hills - exactly where we rode the first three days. We mostly avoided the fast traffic of the main road, usually riding a road closer to the coast. The network of paved roads is dense. There are many possibilities.

It wasn't always easy to follow these roads, and I can think of three funny incidents from these first three days:

We were on a narrow road with a fair bit of bus traffic. We noticed lighter traffic. Suddenly the road ended, and we looked across 100m of water with no bridge. Thinking we had missed a turn, we backtracked and quickly came to the spot where the buses turn around. Locals directed us back to the water and down a sandy single track where we loaded onto an oversized canoe with a motorcyclist and another bicyclist. Two men poled the craft across, and soon we were on our way again.

Further north on a similar narrow road we somehow managed to miss the main fork. The road continued to narrow and narrow until we were on a three-foot wide dirt track between two walls. Still we continued and cycled right into someone's yard! All found it amusing.</li?

In another section we had been warned that the coastal road was a bit broken in places and we'd have to push the bike so we weren't surprised to come upon a sandy single track. It was surprising to come upon a mahout on his elephant traveling in the opposite direction on this track. It was very sandy off the track and thinking the elephant would have an easier time of it than we would I kept on the track. The mahout hollered at us, and we were quite close before we ducked out of the way!

Cardamom Hills

After three days of riding to Alappuzha we were ready to try anything besides the Kerala coastal strip so we headed east into the hills. In less than 10km we came to the most peaceful, beautiful riding that we'd seen up to that point. Of course it all wasn't like that, but we had made a good choice.

We rode for three days to get to the Kumily/Thekkadi/Periyar tourist area and two more to get to more beautiful, more touristy, and higher Munnar. We climbed a lot on four of those days, but the roads were well-graded and simply by luck rather than any planning we only had a couple climbs that lasted more than 15km. On the other hand after climbing out of Munnar, we descended about 70km down to Kurichikottai. That would have been a brutal climb.

Through the hills and mountains we pedaled in misty, forested areas where all we could hear was the sounds of monkeys and birds. I thought of Jack Zuzack and the sounds he recorded on his 'round the world trip. We also rode through cardamom (these are the Cardamom Hills after all), rubber, tea, coffee, pepper, jackfruit, and coconut. The tea plantations were particularly beautiful as they seem to glow a translucent green.

The Tamil Nadu plains

Along the road from Munnar we met David who invited us to stay with his family in Kurichikottai, our first night in Tamil Nadu. David's from Kerala but came to Tamil Nadu to help the locals with basic health care and sanitation. He explained that most people don't have toilets in their houses in Tamil Nadu and we'd see many people using the side of the roads as a toilet in the morning. We spent the next two weeks riding in Tamil Nadu and indeed that's one thing I'll remember from our early morning riding there.

In spite of that, the riding in Tamil Nadu was more enjoyable than coastal Kerala. There were lots of wide-open spaces, beautiful agriculture areas, good roads, light traffic, compact cities. Also the weather was more comfortable since it was drier than Kerala. (Overall the weather on the whole trip was good. We never wanted a/c at night. Most of the day was warm, but it felt pretty hot from 1-4pm. We'd try not to be riding then.)

We visited a number of temple towns in Tamil Nadu: Palani, Madurai, Sivakasi, Tirunelveli, Tiruchchendur, Kanniyakumari. These places are on the Hindu pilgrimage circuit and except for Sivakasi and Tirunelveli were crowded with pilgrims.

Any place that's popular for Indians to visit is absolutely chaotic on the weekends. We experienced this in Munnar and Kanniyakumari, both places that we stayed a few days. Once the weekend crowds went home, we enjoyed the relative tranquility of these towns.

Sivakasi is famous for being a production center for fireworks. We ended up visiting the city because we met Jack Reed on the grounds of the Ghandi Museum in Madurai. He invited us to Sivakasi. Jack's friend, Sami, managed to arrange a tour of a cracker factory for the four of us. Seeing the workers and the working conditions was the most moving experience of the trip. The "factories" - though there's nothing automated about them - are scattered out on the hot plain away from the city and away from each other. The factory we visited consisted of about 20 small (4mx4mx4m), widely-spaced buildings. Each building has at least four doors which are always opened during work hours. There's no electricity. The design - good ventilation, many escape routes, widely-spaced buildings - is to prevent accidents. The workers are paid by the piece and earn about $3/day for this boring, repetitive, dangerous work. They're in constant contact with the chemicals in the fireworks - though some jobs looked much worse than others - and must fully wash before leaving the premises (to keep the unhealthy, volatile chemicals out of their homes). It was the closest thing I've seen to a sweat shop. Two women asked me to take them to my home, the only time that happened during this trip. That said, the workers appeared to genuinely return our smiles, and I'm afraid they're paid more than the average wage in India, perhaps even double (?).

The culinary journey

During our first trip to India, we spent two months in the north - Rajastan, Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal - and loved the food. Then we spent a month in the Andaman Islands where there is mostly South Indian food. We were introduced to a whole new Indian cuisine, and we loved it! Indeed both of us prefer South Indian food to North Indian. The South Indian food is lighter, less oily, and less rich. It's food that can be eaten every day - not like what's served at the Indian restaurants in Boulder.

For breakfast we'd order a bread or rice dish - often appam in Kerala, idli or pongal in Tamil Nadu. Both states had dosa, puri, porotha, puttu, ottappam as well. The breads are served with curries and chutneys, and in fancier restaurants different breads were served with different sides. Egg curry was a popular breakfast option in Kerala, and many places would offer omelets as well. All except the most basic restaurants would offer tea (chai) and coffee. There wasn't much difference between dinner and breakfast unless we'd go to a fancier restaurant and order specific made-to-order curries.

Lunch is an all-you-can-eat affair based on rice. In Tamil Nadu banana leafs are used as plates, but I don't think we saw that a single time in Kerala. Silverware is not used. The rice comes with a number of vegetable sides, pickled stuff, papadam, and a pudding for dessert. Waiters come by with dal, sambar, and curd to pour over the rice, and they're constantly dumping more vegetables and rices onto your plate. The food was continually tasty. The one complaint would be that it was somewhat repetitive.

Kovalam and Mumbai

20km before completing our loop in Thiruvananthapuram we spent a couple days at the beach resort of Kovalam. I was impressed. The beaches were beautiful and clean with very mellow waves that were easy and fun to bodysurf. The main beach (Lighthouse) is tastefully developed, and there's still fisherman pulling in their catch. I can see why Europeans fly to India just to visit Kovalam.

On our flight home we took advantage of a 10 hour layover in Mumbai to make a quick dash into the city. We went straight to the Gateway of India and barely caught it in the last light of the day. I had hoped to do a little walking tour, but it's hard to appreciate the architecture in the dark. The most memorable part of this excursion will be the incredibly crowded train coming back from Churchgate to Andheri at 10 on a Saturday night. The doors to the trains don't close, and folks hang out the sides. People carry their bags above their heads because there's no room between the packed bodies. There isn't even enough room for everyone's feet on the floor. People stood on my feet, and I stood on other feet. At the stations it's required to jump off while the train is moving to avoid being pushed back on by the mass attemping to squeeze on. Not being experienced jumping off moving trains, Julie and I were a bit nervous when our stop was approaching. I followed the example of the person in front of me, and a helpful passenger gave Julie an arm to help her balance as she stumbled onto the platform. In spite of the chaos everyone was helpful, good-natured, and polite. Farewell, India.

The route: Thiruvananthapuram, Varkala, Karunagappally, Alappuzha, Kanjirappally, Peerumade, Thekkadi, Nedumkandam, Munnar, Kurichikottai, Palani, Kodaikanal Road, Madurai, Sivakasi, Surandai, Tirunelveli, Tiruchchendur, Kanniyakumari, Kovalam, Thiruvananthapuram.

Link to less selective photo album

Kerala and Tamil Nadu - all photos - Link to trip description

Bitcoin coins photo.

Physical bitcoin statistic coin Antana.

Bitcoin coins photo.

Physical bitcoin statistic coin Antana.

Bitcoin coins photo.

Physical bitcoin statistic coin Antana.

Bitcoin coins photo.

Physical bitcoin statistic coin Antana.

Bitcoin coins photo.

Physical bitcoin statistic coin Antana.

The building was erected no later than September 1892, per this Sanborn fire insurance map, wherein the building is labeled "Clark Opera Ho."

-----------------------

In downtown Toronto, Ohio, on December 23rd, 2009, the backside of a building (formerly known as the Clark Opera House, Nolan Opera House, Nolan Theatre, Nolan's Threatre, and/or Nolan Building, among others names maybe?) at the southeast corner of Main Street and South 4th Street.

-----------------------

Getty Thesaurus of Geographic Names terms:

• Jefferson (county) (1002519)

• Toronto (2082248)

Art & Architecture Thesaurus terms:

• apartment houses (300005707)

• back views (300264745)

• brick (clay material) (300010463)

• brick red (color) (300311462)

• evening (300343633)

• fire escapes (300003262)

• opera houses (300007104)

• rear (300010287)

• satellite home antennas (300189671)

• snow (precipitation) (300055381)

• winter (300133101)

• wood (plant material) (300011914)

Wikidata items:

• 23 December 2009 (Q12965972)

• 19th-century architecture (Q69595903)

• 2009–10 North American winter (Q25344884)

• December 23 (Q2676)

• December 2009 (Q276448)

• Pittsburgh-New Castle-Weirton, PA-OH-WV Combined Statistical Area (Q55641455)

• satellite dish (Q253843)

• Treaty of Greenville (Q767317)

• Weirton–Steubenville metropolitan area (Q7980367)

Library of Congress Subject Headings:

• Apartment houses—Ohio (sh99002604)

• Theaters—Ohio (sh98000898)