Cost of Mobile Phones - Trends among friends

Over dinner & tea we were discussing the exploits and the number of cell phones that each one of us have owned and how much do we spend on the instrument.

Self
- Since 2002 have spent 67500Rs. on buying phones. i.e. about Rs8,000 p.a.
- This is distributed among 8 instruments (4.5,11,10,1.5, 19,6.5,11, 4 = 67.5K)
- My average cost of ownership based on talk time usage has been about Rs0.85 - Rs1/minute of usage.
- 3 phone have been lost but the others have stopped due to technical faults.

Prerna:
-Has spent Rs 39,000 on 4 instruments over the last 5.5 years. i.e. Rs6K p.a.
-1 upgraded, 1 lost, 1 stopped working

Andrew - has spent Rs75K since 2002 on numerous instruments. The most expensive being a Rs 30K iPhone which was stolen from his car. Totally 3 lost.
-On an average having spent Rs 8.5K per year on an instrument.

Lalit has spent Rs53K on his 7 instruments but has sold phones for Rs8-9K hence cost of ownership is Rs44K for 10 Years i.e. 4.4 K per year.

Hence on an statistical basis you find people in the 20-30 year age group in India (upwardly mobile middle class) has spent from Rs 4.5k - Rs8.5K per year on instrument alone.
From an durable perspective the mobile phone stands only 2nd after Laptops in spends on white goods.

Hike 2 - Magalisburg Hills (above Hartbeesspoort Dam)

One more hike on the Magalisburg hills. Back 2 back on 2 weekends.. Yes i loved it..

This time didnt go along with the JHK (Joburg Hiking Club) , but with the PFHC [Pretoria Friends (or French) Hiking Club]. This was a smaller & more concise group and it was more fun.

Met a great bunch of people.. always nice to meet new and interesting people from different walks of life..



[From Left: Stephanine (Agri Economist), Me (Ram gypsy), Christine (French Embassy queen), Aurelie (Social reformist, Education), Luis (Brazilian - Urugian), Duncan (Cape budding Economist)]

Was the usual run of 400+Kms.. 4-5 hrs of hiking.. Peaceful sunday.. lunch atop a hill

Hiking in Magalisberg

Last Saturday i was at home thinking of ways to make the weekend more interesting. Using the power of google i discovered the Johannesburg Hiking Club (http://jhbhiking.org.za). As i have been always a person who loves outdoors & having gone on numerous hikes in India. I took this opportunity.
THe JHK had a good concept called 'Sunday Hikes', i liked this because of the convenience of not having to plan a hike.

Sunday morning i woke up at 5:30 am... quickly packed some lunch & water for the hike in my laptop bag and headed for Joburg (160Kms) with only 1.5 hrs to meet the rendezvous, i had to step on the accelerator. After a couple of wrong turns and realigning myself to the city map i finally made it, but 10 min late. Everyone was packed and were leaving, luckly i met one of the organizer and took him along to the hiking trail. This ride was 70Kms, totaling to 230Kms even before starting the hike.



We were asked to self profile ourselves into group (Slow, Medium minus, Medium plus). Having come with the leader of Medium Plus i choose this group. Bad choice. There was a group of around 8 ppl in this group who were just looking down and clambering up the hill. Halfway up i decided to desert them and join the Medium minus, to get an opportunity to enjoy the scenery, hike peacefully and meet interesting people. This was a larger group with 22 people (70% looked like they were retired in life), whew and i thought that hiking was for the young and energetic.

I met an interesting french group (Olivier, Christine & aurelie), they were a part of the french embassy in pretoria. We spent many hours swapping notes on africa, europe, india.Politics, economics, safety, multicultural integration etc. Time flew by, we had a nice halt for some snacks and later for lunch. tried to get a power nap though, but we got moving too soon.



The terrain was constant for most part, the formation looks predominantly made of wind & water eroded sedimentary rock, interspersed with a lot of ankle to knee high grass. The bright & sunny winter day made it perfect for hiking. I had earlier zipped around these hills in a car and longed to climb it. I was happy that i had got an opportunity to explore these hills.

We finished by around 3:30 pm. And i was back home by 6:15pm.
12 Hrs - 465 kms driving, 6 hrs hiking.... A relaxing day or a hectic one ?? I am choosing the former.

Jaisalmer - A Rendevouz with the Thar Desert

- Contributed by Prerna - 

Totally unexpected and out-of-the blue trip on the 12th and 13th September and thats what made it so much of fun. Jaisalmer has been one of my dream destinations and it was jaisalmer vs. Diu, but then the desert seemed more inviting..The journey was long - 600+ km from Ahmedabad (close to 65 kms form the border india- Pak ) and very uncomfortable to say the least, but still totally worth it. 

It is the golden city ( reminds me of greece where every bulding on the islands was painted white), every building uses sandstone. The fort is the only monument in the world that has people living in it- families and  hotels and havelis. We visited the Jain temples - which had very intricate carvings and staues of Lord mahavira all over. The only other hindu god present was Ganesha. The jeep ride to the camping  place next to the desert was amazing - on both sides there was only barren land with an occasional camel eating on shrubbery. The vastness and the expanse of the land was taking time to absorb in. The sam village( where the camp) was 45 km from the city and once we reached there, we immediately started out on our camels for the sunset on the desert. I cant even begin to express what it was like to be on the silk sands of the desert. We were rolling, running and diving over the sand dunes. Highlight of the evening was the Rajasthani folk music- it was brilliant and i really mean it.  The sky was perfect with the milky way that could be spotted and a candlelight dinner with rajasthani food was as good as it gets. 

Anchetti Ghats..A gruelling day ride

This Sunday (30 Aug 09) , decided to take the whole day off and dedicate it to cycling..

Its been some time since i have done some decent cycling (decent is a relative term and here i mean 100 Kms + rides ). Most of my cycling over the last 6 months have been in the 50-100 kms range.

The trip to Anchetti sounded fantastic and was coordinated by Georg Leuzinger. A trip from bangalore via kanakpura road to a place called Anchetti. The best part of the trip was the back roads / village roads.

Overall the trip was looong -- terrific scenes - awesome group ( around 50 riders ) - lot of rolling hills - lot of uphills.

we had lunch at Anchetti after 111kms and a pleasant morning of cycling. the ride back was more eventful and gruel some. My cycle punctured multiple times (3 in all ,by the time i got home). After completing 130+ kms called it a day and rode a bus to Hosur & then another to bangalore.

The 200 Kms + ride stilll eludes me. Both man and machine need to be in shape for the next attempt.

This time was it a failure of the man / machine ?? well more 100+ rides for the present till the next attempt at 200+

Mid Drive Break Pic

The gang / crowd before the start. About 50-60 riders in all