Turbohot

Only one as I say; worshipped in different forms- one can pick and choose, or even create a new one. All accepted without any fuss. Can be a stone on the road side with a bit of a colour and some foil on it, No problem.

Yeah, like India is an entirely a different beast altogether to Africa; well, apart from the heat and some plantation. India is very diverse with too much going on all the time in there. Too much commotion and chaos. Jung springs to mind. There's an orderly cosmos within all that chaos.

No, in Indian winter they'll leave it outside and sit around it to get warmth of it. If it gets washed away with the monsoon rain, they'll have another one inside the hut as per their contingency planning.

They have metal made sigdis that they can move around>



This pic^ is not taken by me, but this internet pic is to show you what these sigdis look like. Usual ones are made of iron and coal is used in them, not wood. They usually don't have these in interior villages, and there they mostly use handmade mud cookers like you see in the previous picture.

Turbohot

Could be taking a mikey, if she likes. She's entitled to perform the choice of her karmas, man.

Dingdongler

Nice pics Swati, feel free to post as many as you want. I haven't been to India for about eight years.

My local sim is working well!

Turbohot

What a coincidence; I hadn't been to India for eight years either, Ding! I spent about a month there, and returned to the UK on the Indian Independence Day. Getting drenched in the warm Monsoon rain was great fun!

How India has progressed all this time, eh! Whatever little gifts I took for my family meant so little when I saw that the country already had everything there. Even the simple living people from villages in double-breasted cotton vests, dhotis and no shoes on are talking on mobile phones with internet on it. Mental!

Shame I missed Shri Krishna Janmashtami and the Independence Day celebrations, but at least I got to tie Raakhi to my brother's wrist this time after 23 years, and attended my Muslim friends' Eid celebrations there. I stood in the awe looking at breathtaking historical monuments; The hair on my neck raised at listening to the hypnotic chants in splendid worship places. The prashaad at the Gurudwara was absolutely delicious, and I got to even try the langar as well! The warmth I absorbed with my whole experience in India is still contained in my skeleton. May it last a little while.

Have an awesome time away, Ding.

hodgy0_2

Mmmm, interesting that Skype does not work

Some countries have regulatory requirements that the PSTN breakout needs to be in the country where the call is originated

I.e, if make a call to someone in another country you are not allowed to have the call traffic go over the Internet and then have the call routed to PSTN in that country too (which obviously makes sense from a cost POV)

India and Russia deffinatly have this requirement

Turbohot

I've eventually downloaded What's App on my iPhone as it happens to be the most popular in India. The worse thing about it was that it accessed all my contacts on phone, which I had to ban; except for my family members abroad. It even sent my status to all my contacts; saying- "Hey! I'm using What's App!" without my permission!

Anyway, What's App is amazingly efficient. It's totally free for a year, sends and receives voice messages and pics superfast, and it's brilliant for immediate communication. I don't know if it costs to make an international call from it, I haven't made any calls from it yet. it may also do video calling that I won't like to use, anyway. Does my head in, that. In my last 4-5 days experience What's App is superb to communicate with your loved ones abroad. We've been saying even good morning and good night to one another on daily basis and getting their responses immediately!

Apparently it will be like .67p annual subscription for What's App from 2015 on. That shouldn't break my bank, I hope.

dpb

Didn't realise you could vid/call someone on it

,we use it for text , and pics, daily

Turbohot

May be not, but I saw my sister in India calling her husband from her tablet on it. I must check it better.http://www.whatsapp.com/

I dunno, but it's the immediate convos I love about What's App, which is different to SMS/texting. You know when they're on line and when they're typing, and they send you voice messages and instant vids. My brother sent me a song on |What's App yesterday. The song was good, and he sang it very well. The best thing was that I found him so close to me by hearing his song that he recorded just moments before! Excellent stuff. All convos are private as well. One sis won't know what I've said to another sis, unless I make it into a group chat. We can slag one another off in privacy that way.

Dingdongler

I think I need to get with the times. Quite a few people have mentioned how good whatsapp is but I've never got around to looking into it.

Turbohot

Really easy to download on your iPhone/iPad/Galaxy tab, Ding. Nothing like FB although it may have been bought by FB by now. You can have your convos as private and 1-to-1 as you can. Real good fun. I've just sent a picture of my today's British brunch to my sister and brother. They'll be asking me what meat rashes are there on my plate. When I tell them it's bacon/pig, they'll go- "Oh! Hare Ram! You eat suar meat like that? "

boxst

WhatsApp doesn't allow calls and it doesn't work very well on a tablet and not at all on an iPad without faffing about.

Skype is quite good for internet -> Landline calls and you can buy a number for people to call you on in a country of your choice.

As mentioned way back in the thread, for O2 the TuGo app is really good. It's a bit flaky at times, but generally works and when someone calls you on your UK mobile it'll ring on your computer or wifi only connected mobile phone. You can make calls over wifi and it will use your allocated UK minutes.