2/3/00 - 2/5/00

The sabbatical adventure continues. After lunch with Vollie, Chris, and Bill and Vickie, I caught the Airport Express as 1:30 PM on Thursday the 3rd of February and began my trip to Pune, India. In Pune I am to present a series of lectures on RAMS to t he Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology (IITM). My host is Parthasarathi Mukhopadhyay, who I call Partha. Partha and I wrote a joint proposal to the US National Science Foundation to perform cooperative research on mesoscale meteorology in India using RAMS. This is the first phase of this project, and it will be followed by more extended visits by Partha to CSU as well as collaborations via the Internet.

The first two legs of my flight were with United Airlines; Denver to Chicago, and Chicago to Frankfurt, Germany. In Frankfurt I connected to Lufthansa for a direct flight to Mombai (formerly called Bombay). The only excitement of the trip was the short connection times in both Chicago and Frankfurt, about 50 minutes each. Now a 50-minute connection in Chicago is not a problem if the weather is fine and there are no other hang-ups. However, even though the flight went smoothly, we still off loaded on Co ncourse B and the departure gate was in Concourse C. This provided some healthy exercise making my way between gates with all my baggage as carry-on. But I made it and found a place to stow my carry-on and off we went to Frankfurt. Arriving in Frankfurt a bout 15 minutes late and having to go from one terminal to another through security, made amounted to a 30 minutes connection quite exciting. Fortunately, Lufthansa had a rather heavy set man meet me and two others to escort us through the labyrinth of w alkways, security (jumping ahead of a line), escalators, and arrived about 2 minutes before departure time. Naturally I couldn't find a place for my bags near my seat in coach, but found one in business class.

I arrived in Mombai at 1:30AM on Saturday, the 5th and after going rapidly through customs, I was met by Partha. Thank goodness, because I sure wouldn't have wanted to make my way to Pune by myself. My guide book said it was a 4-hour train ride, but Pa rtha had arranged for us to take a small bus which departed from the airport and dropped us off directly at the institute in about 4 hours, whereas with the train, one has to make one's way across Mombai to the train station, and then from the train stati on in Pune to the institute, which would take considerably longer than 4 hours. After I found out what the drive was like, however, I plan on suggesting that we take the train back!

The bus was a diesel-powered bus about the size of a really large van or small motor home. Unfortunately, we waited for 1.5 hours for a couple on the same flight to go through customs and baggage claim and join us. Well at least I didn't have to run th e risk of losing my bags on the short connections, but I didn't save any time. Leaving Mombai at 3 in the morning was no problem as there was little traffic, other than a few of the ubiquitous three-wheeled Autu-rickshaws; a two-cycle powered motorcycle e ngine-driven taxi rig generally with soft top and two to four passenger seats. The exhaust is black and very smelly; I think they run on diesel fuel. The sides are open and the driver sits behind a windshield steering with handlebars much like a motorcycl e.

Once in the countryside the roads got "interesting" as they ranged from almost 4-lane divided, to almost two-lane head-on traffic with bumper-to-bumper trucks. It was very dark in the hazy air, reminding me of driving in the hills of Pennsylvania at ni ght. In the four-lane divided sections, the driver had to blow the horn repeatedly when passing the trucks so that they would move fully into their lanes. Eventually the road began the rise over the Western Ghat mountain range and gained about 2000 ft in a narrow, almost two-lane, switchback road. Our driver repeatedly passed the slow-moving trucks with trucks barrowing downhill at us and barely pull in ahead of the truck we were passing before the oncoming truck passed us. Sometimes it was the other way around and we could see the lights of two, side-by-side oncoming trucks heading our way. A few times, our driver had to pull off the lane into the gravel as well as slow down to prevent a head-on collision. In the U.S. this would have led to many episodes of "road rage" and we probably would have gotten shot at! This sort of driving went on for four hours as we bumped along, the partially paved road, lurching forward and backward.

Along the way, we nearly hit one cow, a person who ran from behind a truck and streaked across our headlights, and several bicyclists. The number of near-miss head-on collisions with trucks was too numerous to count! I felt like I would have to clean u p the seat after having the "sh-"" scared out of me so many times. Needless to say, I didn't sleep at all during that drive.

I arrived at the guest facilities at the IITM just in time to have breakfast. It consisted of tea, toast, and noodles with a spicy sauce, boiled eggs, and some rice dumpling-like things. It was pretty good. My room is something like a suite, with two b edrooms, a bath, and a living room. It has poured concrete walls that are crudely painted yucky-green, a concrete/terrazo floor, and beds with netting over them. It took me a while to figure out how to get through that netting to get into bed. Getting out is also a challenge as the opening in the net is in the middle of the side panel, so I have to curl up and slip through the slot in the screen to get out. Now I know why yoga is so popular in India! The bathroom has a shower unit without curtains and is only cold water. Next to the shower are two plastic buckets in which you can pour hot and cold water from faucets just beneath the shower unit. What you do is mix the water in those buckets to get the optimum temperature and use a big scoop to pour the w ater over your head. So much for the shower unit! It is primitive to say the least. The toilet functions but it trickles water all night long.

After breakfast I set my watch for 11:00AM and crawled into the screened bed and slept so soundly that I slept through my alarm. The cook rang my doorbell, which would serve well as a fire alarm, for lunch consisting of rice and a couple of rather mild sauces. I found out later they were preparing my sauces separately from the other people staying in the guest facilities and making them quite bland. I then took a walk around the campus including the main research center and the apartments for the emplo yees. The campus is remarkably similar to the one we lectured at in Kenya. Then I decided to get a layout of the land, map in hand. I marched up a 300 ft hill that overlooked and divided the city. Being the dry season, things looked rather parched in town , but on top of the hillsides, one gets the impression it doesn't rain much even during the "wet". There are few trees or even tall bushes on top, and occasionally there is a small flower, and some very dry grasses. The hill forms a ridgeline, with a grav el road running along most of the ridge. It looks like a place I will try to run during the week.

After breakfast I set my watch for 11:00AM and crawled into the screened bed and slept so soundly that I slept through my alarm. The cook rang my doorbell, which would serve well as a fire alarm, for lunch consisting of rice and a couple of rather mild sauces. I found out later they were preparing my sauces separately from the other people staying in the guest facilities and making them quite bland. I then took a walk around the campus including the main research center and the apartments for the emplo yees. The campus is remarkably similar to the one we lectured at in Kenya. Then I decided to get a layout of the land, map in hand. I marched up a 300 ft hill that overlooked and divided the city. Being the dry season, things looked rather parched in town , but on top of the hillsides, one gets the impression it doesn't rain much even during the "wet". There are few trees or even tall bushes on top, and occasionally there is a small flower, and some very dry grasses. The hill forms a ridgeline, with a grav el road running along most of the ridge. It looks like a place I will try to run during the week.

Before supper I got acquainted with a couple from Nepal, a place I've always wanted to visit. His name is Sharad Adhikary, which I remember because he gave me his business card. A large table was set with many place settings, and the cook informed me ( he doesn't speak English) that my dinner was ready and the Nepalese guy said he wanted to take it up to my room, per instructions from my host. Also I found out then that the food was prepared separately for me and with less spices. I made it known that I 'd prefer to eat with the others, and the Nepalese arranged for me to taste the sauces with normal spices. No problem, it was just like back in the Taj Mahal restaurant in Fort Collins.

Whew, I'm fading fast; I guess I'll go to bed early.

2/6/00

Jet lag got me last night I woke at 1:30AM and couldn't get back to sleep. After breakfast I took advantage of the tendency to be a little sleepy after eating and took a nap for a couple of hours. Then I jogged in the hills near IITM and followed trail s and roads along the ridgeline. Occasional I encountered a walker or a person tending his cow, but it was pretty quiet up there. I did find some flowering trees and bushes amongst the stark landscape. I found out later that the tree/bush without any leav es but bright yellow flowers is called "glyrisidia."

After lunch Partha and his wife, Sumitra, met me with a car they had arranged and we toured Pune and neighboring environs. First we stopped at the Osho Commune Meditation Center where we took a walking tour. Osho had set up a commune in Oregon I believ e, before he died. I gather he has a stronger following outside of India than in. The grounds are very pretty with lots of trees and ponds, tall bamboo, and "quiet". The commune visitors (as opposed to us tourists) all wear a maroon dress. There were plen ty of longhaired hippy types strolling about.

From there we visited a large old English colonial house where Gandhi and his wife were held in house arrest. It is not terribly well maintained considering its historical importance, but it was pleasant.

We dodged autu's, trucks, buses, cars, motorbikes, bicycles, people, cows, goats, and dogs, as we drove out of town to visit a large reservoir/lake that provides hydroelectric power and drinking water to Pune. This was my first opportunity to see the c ountryside in the daylight. I was most fascinated by the oxen pulling heavily loaded wagons. We took a brief powerboat tour of the lake and headed back to Pune, again dodging people and things in the road.

2/7/00
I slept better last night. I woke at 3:00AM but after an hour of reading, I fell on and off asleep.

Today I am fasting but plan on an active day. I have been meeting people at IITM but hope they don't expect me to remember their names. As I walked down the halls I noticed something seemed to be missing. Then I realized none of the office desks have computers on them. They have a shared computer room with only two PCs. It is like walking back in time 30 years! My notebook computer is probably the most powerful PC in the place. They do have some workstations, but I suspect they are heavily over subscr ibed with multiple users.

I met with the director of the institute, Dr C.B. Pant, today along with Partha's immediate supervisor, Dr S.S. Singh. We chatted and then he invited me to lunch with him and another visitor from the University of Arizona, Dr Malcom Hughes. When Malcom and I met here, we looked at each other and both of us had this look like, I've met you somewhere. Then we realized we had dinner together in Tucson a couple of years ago. When I told Dr Pant I was fasting, this didn't faze him in the least, as it is co mmon here. So I went along and had some juice. Towards the end of the lunch I started feeling jet lag, and my eyelids closed a couple of times, and they kidded me. They had all traveled enough to know what I was going through.

Before lunch I presented my first lecture, which was on a general overview of RAMS. There were about 12 scientists attending including Dr Singh. There was good discussion following my talk.

After lunch I went back to my room and took a 45-minute nap and then took a jog along the ridge overlooking town. It was probably about 80F at the time. Then I chatted with the Nepali couple and had my supper of juice. After supper the director of the institute took me and the Nepali couple for a tour of Pune University and also stopped at some shops. I got the impression that the streets at night are reasonably safe, as people seem to be busily going about their business and I didn't see groups of you ths or unsavory looking characters hanging about. I was assured that this was the case here in Pune, but in Mumbai and other big cities one had to be careful of pick pockets but muggings and gun-toting thieves are rare even in those places.

2/8/00

I slept soundly until 4AM and then woke and could not go back to sleep. I read, tossed and turned, and finally got up and wrote in my journal. I hope I don't fade again this afternoon at some inappropriate moment.

My runs have been quite pleasant as I climb up the ridge overlooking the city. I decided to run this morning and started out about 6:30AM just before sunrise. I was surprised to find people climbing the ridge, presumably to view the sunrise, and one jo gger who caught up to me and startled me as I climbed the hill at my snails pace. I did a loop, returning along a dusty dirt road. I'm going to have to clean my jogging shoes before I return home.

I gave my second lecture today, this time on the bulk and bin-resolving microphysics in RAMS. About 4:30PM I decided to take a walk. At the spur of the moment, I decided to flag down an autu and travel across town to visit the Empress Gardens. The traf fic was heavy and thick with smoke and dust from the diesel trucks and autos. I should have brought along a facemask for riding around these roads. It took about 30 minutes to get to the garden and I found it a bit disappointing, as there was no grass or undergrowth to speak of as people could walk most anywhere and as a result the grounds were bare soil. Moreover I saw several women armed with loads of sticks they had picked up on the ground, probably to build a fire for cooking supper. There were some n ice palm trees and banyon trees, but it was hardly worth the trip in the autu through all the pollution. I flagged another autu driver and showed him on my crude map downloaded from a travel agent website where I wanted to go. It was clear he had little i dea where the IITM was located and he asked several other drivers how to get there. I was a little concerned I did not have a better map and with written directions of how to find the place. But off we went spurting fumes into the now very heavy traffic. We slowly made our way and after about 30 minutes he stopped to ask a young motorcycle driver near the agriculture college how to find it. Since he could understand English well, I explained where I wanted to go and he told the driver how to proceed point ing the way. After another 10 minutes, the driver seemed anxious about how to find the place and I spied the hill that I had been running along. So, I pointed that way and off we went. Finally I started recognizing buildings and streets, and directed to h im to the institute. I'm not sure which of us was more relieved. If I do that again, I'd better prepare myself better in terms of being able to describe where I am staying.

2/9/00
Rising just before sunrise I jogged up the ridge behind the institute. This time I headed a bit more west and encountered a surprising number of people hiking in the pre-dawn. There were a few joggers, some families, and numerous individuals. As I went over the ridge top and descended along a well-defined trail, I came to a junction of trails where there were concrete/rock circular slabs, some devises for static exercises and quite a confluence of people. I then turned around and descended along the du sty road. I'll have to wipe off my running shoes before I return.

This was my heavy day as I was scheduled to give two lectures. The first was on realtime forecasting with RAMS and was presented to12 or so scientists in the group I have been visiting. The second was an institute-wide seminar on our work on extreme pr ecipitation estimation. The director of the institute gave a long introduction and even mentioned my digital camera photographs of wild flowers, which he seemed to be very impressed with. He said that was an example of my interest in nature. I think both talks went well and in the institute-wide seminar I had a lot of questions and discussions afterwards. They gave me a bouquet of flowers in honor of my lecture, which I placed on the dinner table at the guesthouse.

I then took a walk up the valley behind the institute in a section where there is a lot of new multi-family and even upscale single-family housing. I shot several pictures illustrating the great contrasts in economic lifestyles, such as squatter shacks in the foreground of new, rather upscale housing in the background. I think this is what India is like, if not today, in the near future. I later found out the squatter shacks were probably where the laborers stayed while constructing those houses and a partments.

2/10/00

I again woke, actually awakened by the loud door buzzer by an attendant who brought in my morning tea, at 6:30AM. I jogged up the ridge along with the many morning walkers. I am frequently greeted and return with the nemasti (sp?) sign. I have only one lecture scheduled today in which I provide an overview of our convective storm modeling. I also keep busy discussing science with several of the young scientists. Sometimes I feel it would be more efficient if they plugged in a socket into my brain and d ownloaded the relevant information.

Dr. Adhikary and his wife from Nepal will be leaving today. I will miss our many discussions about life in Nepal. I am learning almost as much about Nepal as I have about India. I suspect I will be alone in the guesthouse from now on.

My lecture on our convective storm modeling went well and in the afternoon I got a tour of the physics/chemistry/aerosol group's facilities.

I took a brief walk across the road from the institute, past the meteorological service-training center. As I walked along the neighborhood rapidly changed to shacks and stone/brick metal-roofed structures. Goats, donkeys, kids, and adults wandered abo ut and the air did not smell too pleasant. I decided that maybe I don't belong here and turned around and headed out. It is the first time I really felt threatened in Pune.

That evening I took Partha and Sumitra out to dinner. The restaurant was at a nice hotel and the food was very good. The entire bill including tips for the three of us came to $7. Add to that taxi (autu) fare at 50 cents each way, and it was quite an i nexpensive evening.

2/11/00
I woke in the night with severe heartburn. It was either caused by the malaria pill I am supposed to take with meals and took and hour after supper, or 6 days of spicy Indian food is finally getting to me. I again started the day with a sunrise jog and then gave my last lecture on our coupled ocean/convective storm modeling over the tropical western Pacific. This was followed by a meeting with all the senior scientist staff of the institute. It wasn't clear to me what the purpose of the meeting was, ot her than to introduce me to the 25 or so senior scientists. They then gave me my second flower bouquet and a heavy brass casting of one of heir gods. I gave the flowers to Partha's wife, as I wasn't to take them with me on the plane.

Overall, I had numerous discussions with the junior scientists in the mesoscale modeling group and we laid out plans on collaborative studies of mesoscale convective systems, land-falling tropical cyclones, and boundary layer clouds over land.

This time my return was by train to Mombai with poor Partha accompanying me. . Other than being over air-conditioned, it was a smooth ride with no near head-on collisions as with the bus ride to Pune. This was followed by a 30-minute taxi ride through congested and polluted Mombai. It only cost $3.50 for the taxi, which would have cost at least $15 in the U.S.

I had a 5-hour wait for my 3AM departure, now it is 24 hours of sitting in the torture machines and airports.