Another Vapi Sunday

It's been too hot to do much walking around Vapi this week, so there are only three pictures this week.

A new statue of Shiva has appeared under a peepal tree near the railroad tracks. I've photographed the tree a number of times because it's a favorite place to leave offerings and images.

Only in India. Our favorite ice cream shop was very low on stock today. There's been a transporters strike for several days, and apparently supplies have not come through from Mumbai. But while we were there for our regular Sunday waffle cone, a large shipment came in by tuk-tuk. Only in India would a truck carrying ice cream also possibly be carrying people sleeping on top of the cargo. Of course, I suspect that those who might be sleeping in the back of a truck probably can't read English!

I'd suspected for a long time that Vapi's rain would be quite acidic from all the coal burning and chemical pollution in town. Last spring I brought back some pH strips from the US. We had a rain shower on Friday evening, and I finally remembered to collect a rainwater sample. A pH of 4.0 is quite acidic. "Pure" rainwater should have pH of about 5.6. (It's not a neutral pH 7.0 because rain has a lot of dissolved carbon dioxide in it, which as "carbonic acid", makes rain weakly acidic.)