shim shim shi-shimla

Once on the mountain, it feels like a different country. The British Raj built their summer home hear to escape the heat of Delhi. They chose well. To help them feel at home a beautiful, super expensive palace/castle was built for everyone to relax. It was also the first Indian president's home. Pakistan/Kashmere peace talks went down in one of the rooms. And Ghandi stopped by! Now it is an institute for learnin'

Christ's Church was the 2nd church built in India and sits in the city center Scandal point.

The real highlight was another monkey temple. We quested up a mountainside to the land of irate apes. All along the way a person is cautioned: don't look them in the eye, don't smile, carry a stick to beat down monkeys that try to attack. I wasn't particularly concerned, but as soon as we sat down an older monkey snatched Gary's specs. The monkeys were scary smart. It did not relinquish his spectacular prize until an entire bag of 'monkey food' was thrown into its hands. The monkey caught it like a football, saluted and ran away. We headed back last night via overnight bus. At last I returned to the ICGEB for a day of science.

The train that took forever - BRIDGES!

In the morning we were hounded by shoe shine men and Gary relinquished his beaten down boots to see what would happen. The results couldn't have been better. They reglued the toe of his shoe sole, sewed the holes together and smeared on a cleaner that looked like snot. For $1, that's a good deal!

The trip between Chandighar and Shimla was a historic trek into the mountains on a train built in 1903. The British put the train there so that they could access their summer home in Shimla. The trip was a feat in civil engineering with 800 bridges and 100 tunnels in 96 km. The train was supposed to arrive at 5 pm, but instead took until 7:30 due to long stops waiting for other trains to pass by. The views and company made the toy train well worth the journey.

We arrived at Shimla in the evening in time to catch a pic of all the lights. Hurray electricity!

Chandigar - Paddles and Rocks

So, the story of Chandighar is that American designers laid out the city. Sidewalks, houses set back on the property, space between buildings! it hardly felt like India.

Chandighar did however have a lake. I jumped on a paddle boat right away to get a better view of this rare chunk of water. I learned something on that lake: Gary hates paddle boats. For 26 minutes I heard non-stop complaining about the whole experience. He was convinced that we were slowing down - that our paddle boat was defective. It turns out he was right. As soon as we returned to the dock we saw a 30 ft net dragging behind us. It was quite a bit of exercise.

A pic of Gary complaining and doing nothing while I paddled.
I mention this instance so thouroughly because this is the only time the whole 7 day trip that Gary complained. Believe me, 7 days with me and he has earned the right.

Next we went to the Chandighar rock gardens. They were huge and sprawling and full of waterfalls. The rock gardens also contained hundreds of statues made of recylced anything you can think of. These ladies are made of bangles I think.

Jaipur Dos

Our second day in Jaipur was even more scenic. For a small bus fare Gary and I rode out north of Jaipur and checked out the super defensible Amber Fort and Jaindighar. We looked around for elephants, but it appeared that the midday summer kept them in hiding.

After walking all over Jaipur, Gary and I ended the day with a tricked out ice cream sunday - we have ice cream at least once a day. Just as we were heading to the rail station for our last overnight train trip I caught sight of this guy.

Jaipur day UNO

This morning we arrived in Jaipur, the capitol of Rajasthan in India. It reminds me of Atlanta.


We are never without people following us, asking where we are from (the overwhelming guess is Holland), if we will buy something, if we will give something, and if we will take a "poto." When they say photo correctly we usually agree to a pic. Usually Indians are more interested in me, but these guys only had eyes for Gary.After a 1 km hike up a mountain we came to the Tiger Fort Palace. It was built in the past 200 years, so the building is in great condition. I used my internet because it was there.
On top of the Sun God Golden Temple. It is not golden and most easily goes by the name Monkey Temple. There are monkeys all over, but they pale in comparison to cobra lady.Coming soon: elephants.

India + Gary + Rupees = Adventure!

So Gary and I started our whirlwind India adventure on the 23rd. We first went to Agra to see the Taj Mahal. It is much bigger than I had imagined. This picture taken by a local is the only thing I got for free.

After an overnight train ride, we arrived in Udaipur - the Venice of India! It is supposed to be a lake city. Unfortunately, like everywhere else in northern India, drought wins and the lake is nearly dry. That actually made getting around easier since we did not need to hire a boat. (in the photo) We walked across the grassy lake from the right above my pierced ear all the way out of the left side of the picture. We then found a gondola type ride up to the top of the ridge we are standing on. Today we are in Jaipur, the pink city.

Swine Flu

So, for some reason I thought this whole swine flu problem had blown over a month ago. Turns out, not true.
87 people have died in the U.S. and 180 worldwide. There are 1,000 new cases in the U.S. every day.

Yesterday, the PI I work for asked me to look up the new cases and deaths caused by swine flu in the U.S. and Mexico on the W.H.O. website. He was hoping to see a rise and then decline in numbers - showing that the worst is over. That scenario seemed to be true for Mexico - but not the U.S. Also, because the U.S. has so many cases and so many people travel through it, that there are about 88 countries with swine flu cases.
This graph shows a trend that Mexican flu deaths are leveling off, but U.S. deaths are starting to pick up speed.

Today there was a relatively uninformative panel discussion at the ICGEB. Dr. Jameel called up all of his governmental big-shot friends and scientists, social workers and journalists answered questions from the scientific community. Though they did not say anything I was not already aware of, the concept that I got to be a part of that discussion was pretty neat. Dr. Jameel gave an intro/background for the Influenza (2009) H1N1 virus, a.k.a. swine flu. Guess what showed up? My graphs! I have broken into the science world of crunching numbers and retelling known data.
If you would like to look at the current case numbers, they are reported daily here:
http://www.who.int/csr/disease/swineflu/updates/en/index.html

Since there have been 44 cases in New Delhi in the past week, I'm starting to think a bit more about this - which is safer India or U.S.? I know the answer that some of you will give.

Anyway, my thinly veiled point is that everyone should wear facemasks. Go on. Do it.

Movement

Hellloooooo!
I have moved. First I'll mention where I was so that you know how excited I am to have a new place.
Since I arrived in India, I have stayed at the ISCCR (don't ask what that stands for) guest house. The room I stayed in was a hotel room: a nice bed and a nice bathroom. This is great for a short visit, but I was desperate to have an actual abode.
Also, $35 a night stacks up pretty quickly!

I have been talking to whoever I encounter at the ICGEB if they have any ideas. Since I don't really know the area, I have had to rely on others to do the grunt work of searching for me. Three days ago, a man who works in the same lab told me that he has a place and a space. His brother had been there, but moved out and left a vacancy that I could fill.

Two days ago I moved in and have been living the good life in a tiny room with a tiny bed and my very own attached bathroom. He has cable that gets CNN and BBC and ESPN as well as a kitchen. I will now pay $150 a month.

Woot! I can finally settle in India.

Sightseeing

Over the weekend, I saw some India. Neha and Kostav had a friend in town, Salman, and the four of us traveled around being touristy. Many sights that we visited would require an entry payment. 10 rupees for Indians and 300 or 250 for foreigners.
Friday evening we went to India gate. It is now a memorial for WWII soldiers. All of the Indians who died have their names carved on the gate.


On Saturday, we stopped at the presidents palace to snap some shots. There are monkeys running around the front yard. This building as well as the parliament buildings are kept in unsurprisingly immaculate condition. It is contrasted by the surrounding city.
Old Delhi! So old, electricity hardly knows what to do with itself their. Despite the street being the width of a driveway, rickshaws, motorcyles and cars will drive up and down it both ways.Jami Masjid. The largest mosque in India. It was quite large. This is a shot from outside - I liked the clouds, it had just rained.

Qutb Minar, the tallest freestanding tower in the world. It is a historic landmark and is used iconically on the metro tokens!
Jantar Mantar is an observatory built in 1724. The structures can do all sorts of astrological measurements like tell time, moon phases, earths axis, height of the sun. Also, sitting on that thing was like sitting on the sun. See, astrological.
Dilli Haat. An extremely pleasant shopping area. With the help of my native compadres, I got some good deals.

Rooftop

Today I continued to do science. Also, I followed Madeeha around all day and discussed Indian culture.

i cannot get over how cool this building's architecture is

A pano of the back of ICGEB from the second floorevening sun from the rooftop. the weather was extremely pleasant. i just hung out there for a while.

part of the long driveway from the gate to the building
this is what i see when i use the facilities.

Priyha

Today I worked independently. Rahul, my postdoc friend has gone off on vacation for a few days. I did not do anything too crazy - it was just nice to work and figure things out.
The people who work nearest to me: Madeeha (Ph.D. student) and her underlings Neha and Costab (post-masters students) helped me figure out where things are and gave advice when I could not remember some basic procedural stuff.
After work, we went to the local hopping hang out Priya. This is a shopping area that has everything one could need. Grocery store, Reebok, McDonalds, movie theatre - lots of clothing and food.Costab had a friend coming to town, so he bought him a shirt. That sounds like a cool culture if you get a shirt when you visit your friend. One thing that everyone took into consideration was what color would look best with a given shade of brown. In the case of Costab's friend, he looks really good in white.
Anyway, it was good to go and look around and be protected from beggars and children by my lab com padres. India is a very pleasant place when beggars do not grab you. The stores are very compact and if they do not have much to sell, like and electronics store or a bank, then the store may only be three or four people deep. About 6 ft from the door to the back wall.
Neha ran into a friend who was visiting India. Her friend was a grad student at SouthernCAL. While at an 'authentic' italian barista her friend gave her a 1$ bill. Everyone was so intrigued by it. I fished in my backpack and gave everyone a quarter, dime, and penny. I had forgotten grabbed a bunch of change on my way out the door to the airport in case anyone in India wanted that instead of rupees. They really liked it.
I told them all about the great american hero george washington. They all knew Lincoln. No one seemed to know about FDR. Oh well, I guess that's why he gets the tiniest of coins.
I plan on bringing back lots of coin rupees - so be prepared if I say I got you a souvenir.

First Impressions

I have been hear for almost 6 days, and now I have internet. So far, I have used the ICGEB servers, but now I have my very own access to facebooks, email, and now blogs.

Let me say what I am doing, in case anyone finds this blog and wants to know:
I applied to the '54 scholarship at VT honors. I proposed to go to India and work with a research scientist named Dr. Shahid Jameel. His research subjects include HIV, hepatitus E, and SARS. He is a head researcher at the International Center for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology (ICGEB). I did not win the scholarship, but the money I did recieve was more than enough to pay for my whole trip.

I arrived around midnight and Dr. Jameel picked me up and dropped me off at a guest house near the ICGEB. I cannot stay at the ICGEB guest house because the U.S. is not an affiliate county with the institute. Just about everyone else is - it is U.N. funded - but the U.S. must not want to cure infectious diseases. The guest house is for all purposes a hotel. I am continuing to search for a better place to stay.

In the morning I lock up my bag, stow all of my electronics in my backpack and walk to the ICGEB. It is safe to assume that it is over 100 degrees F all of the time, but it is so dry, I am fairly comfortable walking around. I have to sign in at the gate with the guards, walk for a few minutes down a shaded drive, and sign in at the front desk with the guards. Once inside, the labs look like every other lab I have encountered. It's kind of homey.

I am very slowly learning everyone's name. Many of them are hard to remember, but I can get it after I see it written down. So far: Rahul, Vivek, Miraj, Moin, Manjusha, Manjula, Dr. Druba, Sef, Abdul, Niha, Sika... getting there. There are 30 people in Dr. Jameel's virology group and many more besides who I have met, heard the name, and quickly forgotten.

Rahul is a post doc with whom I am working. I am getting aquainted with the lab and doing basic science thingys. Also, lots of reading.

I can see a broken New Delhi skyline from the lab. It makes me want to go out and wander this country in the heat of the day. I will try to spend my weekends seeing the local area.

a beginning

Internet in airports is a harsh import. My ride to Detroit was uneventful. The flight to Amsterdam that immediately followed was far too happenin'. I had a center aisle center seat. There was a Swiss man two seats over, a gap, and a Dutch dude to my right. The Swiss guy was really nice and had traveled India several times. I watched the entirely too depressing movie "The Reader." And then the babies started.
There were about 4 babies who took turns crying throughout the flight. They all joined together for the descent and the pressure change hurt their ears.
Night lasted about 4 hours. It was kind of cool to think about how fast we were rocketing around the globe. Unfortunately it is 3:14 EST, but my day has just begun. I feel rumpled.
I never even thought about how exciting it would be to go to Europe. If only for a couple of hours.