Strikes

There seem to be a lot of strikes in Nepal, today was no exception - the 2nd day of a transport workers strike. They have called a national level strike because they want the government to compensate them for the damage caused to their vehicals during other strike action by other people.
This means that they block the roads and burn tyres and apparently deflate the tyres of people who try to defy them... tyre burning is a big thing in Nepal. Alas I dont have any photos of my own, however Mel got a great one (from a different strike) which I will attach below!


So, because there was a strike I had to cycle to work It was nice as there was virtually no traffic, which is my main reason for not cycling normally - fear of death by tuktuk/motorbike/Suzuki maruti taxi/land cruiser/bus... oh and fear of killing some cyclist or pedestrian by going too fast! Seriously it was so nice with no traffic that I am really hoping the 'infdefinate' strike will be indefinate so i can cycle everyday... or at least I'll think that until the food starts running out in the shops...
I took my camera with me thinking there would be exciting photos of tyre burnings, rocks on the roads... but alas nothing... just some soot on the ground where tyre burnage occurred yesterday. I think all the excitment was on the other side of town ;o(

I was thinking tho that all this talk on the BBC about British Airways cabin crew protesting could be brought to new levels if they took some tyre burning lessons from here.... How about 'cabin crew burn tyres in British airways planes'? or if that is too much like arson, perhaps they could burn tyres (plane tyres?) on the runways, outside all BA offices, and perhaps on the M25... i mean to say the lesson here is that tyre burning shouldn't just be limited to those directly affected by the issue being protested (which is often unknown)... the objective is to cause as much disruption to as many people as possible. The M25 would be a good start.