Himalayas from the Air on a clear day

I am really kicking myself now because I forgot my camera on the most beautiful trip I have had since coming to India. Last night I was telling Karen I would need my camera since I hadn't been to this city before and it was over towards the Himalayas. Well, I got up and my driver was early and so I was in a hurry and when we got levelled at 41,000 feet I was just so sick to my stomach because I didn't have my good camera and telephoto lense. As we levelled I looked out the window at the most unbelieveable sight I have ever seen. Just hundreds of miles of the most beautiful mountains I have ever seen. At, even though we were 41,000 feet above sea level, we were only 12,000 feet above some of these peaks. My eyes could barely take it all in. For awhile I was just completely filled with awe and almost unable to do my job up there. I was so distracted for about 30 minutes. It was just a mind bogglingly religious experience. To have had the camera to really show you would have completed my day. It was clear and cloudless for hundreds of miles, just awesome, as a cold front had recently come through and showed me a world I knew was out there but had never been able to see.

I took out my trusty Blackberry with it's pitiful 3.2 megapixel camera and fired away. It's kind of sad to see all that beauty and then not be able to bring much of it home, but I will still post the photo album and let you see a little bit of the amazing world that I saw today.

Coming SE from Delhi, we never really got down as far as Mt. Everest or K2, although I believe I saw them from the cockpit, but they were still over 100 miles away. But, on the trip from Delhi to Patna, India, we saw hundreds of miles of the Himalayas. To see those gorgeous mountains on the horizon and realize that it represents the highest places on earth and all the beauty that they contain was completely life changing. My good attorney friend in Chattanooga, Scott Graham, had bothered to come to Nepal in 2004 and climb Mt. Everest successfully in May of that year (GO SCOTT) and now I was seeing it out my window. And today the sky was clear and you could see how huge this area is. But, the biggest thrill was to see from our cat-bird seat these huge mountains, so high they looked like they were out the window, not down below.

I promise now that next time I go this way I will have my good camera and will never miss another opportunity to put this place in it's best light. I will send out a link really soon with connection to the rest of the Himalayas photos that I took today, along with a few others from this week.

Now, I have to go to Nepal and see this magical place. Even though we mess it up continually, I am transfixed by the pictures of our Blue Planet from space and now from high in the sky to see these mountains was completely magical - what a beautiful sight!!

Still kind of tingly from today's flight!!

Dan

A Full Roll

There are things that you just have to get used to in another country. Here, since they really prefer sprayers to paper by the toilets, you have a hard time finding toilet paper. One of the reasons that it is rare is because the roll of paper, if there is one, is always small. I was in a hotel recently and asked for another roll and, after taking the wrapper off, this is what I found on a brand new roll. To give you a reminder of how it feels to be without this precious stuff when you need it, in Africa we used to call it GOLD! I asked Dr. Wical why that name and he said because you will realize how valuable it is one day when you are without it. So true!! But, in America this roll would be almost used up and over with, yet here it constitutes a full roll. I haven't figured out if they want you to use less and think that a small roll helps or if the smaller rolls are all the hotels want to risk in case of theft, I just don't know. I can find full rolls in the stores near our house but never in hotels.

Last night we spent the night in Angul, in Orissa State, near the East Coast of India, just a few miles west of a city called Bhubaneshwar. The pilots who live here were telling me that one of the nice things about this part of India is, for some reason, there are no mosquitos. How nice is that, especially this year since the monsoons were so heavy and the mosquitos were apparently potent since they have had so much dengue fever, including some of our drivers and flight attendants, called air hostesses here. It's further South than Delhi so I notice that it hasn't cooled off as much but it's closer to the ocean and so there is more of an ocean type breeze that helps cool it off a little bit. The whole facility, which will eventually include a steel mill and a coal gasification power plant, is still very much under construction, but the airport is done for now and the guest houses are nice and new. We like staying here because the menu isn't so strict and they have internet that actually works pretty well without so many filters that you cannot get anything done. And now, today we flew 25 minutes in the jet to Raigahr, where we are on a regular basis. There were a couple of new guys from England on board the flight and one of them is a private pilot who used to fly Twin Otters in Florida for a sky-dive school. He came up front to look things over and to see our glass cockpit. I think he was glad to see me up front and wanted to know about how and why I was in India. We ex-pats always want to know why the other guy is here.

The tricky part of this flight is to fly almost 900 miles with 9 passengers and then land, spend the night, and then the next day fly another 100 nautical miles after having taken on no fuel. Our airport in Angul is so new that they have the fuel truck there but it hasn't been DGCA approved yet so we have no option for fuel there yet. Making all your takeoff and landing weights and since Angul is a short runway (4000 feet) you have to do quite a bit of flight planning to make sure this is all going to work (it does).

Karen continues to recover at home and it has now been a full month since I brought her home from surgery late in September. She is doing well but we went to visit her doctor again last week and pressed a little bit for more information about what went on during her surgery. When Karen started talking about getting a couple of other things done she said both she and Dan needed some time for recovery before trying another operation on Karen. We took that to mean that she and the other doctor were quite scared by her low blood pressure and quite pale appearance. They had ended up giving her 3 units of blood and she spent the first night in ICU so that is quite a bit more scary then just a routine surgery with a trip home that night. At one point Karen heard the doctor's voice in the background saying something about her heart not doing things they liked and she had a hard time breathing for quite a while after the surgery so she was scared and quite uncomfortable but now seems to be fine and is on the mend, so to speak. I would still give her another full month before she will be doing exercises in the gym, other than just walking, but at least all the drains are out and the leaks are stopped now.

It's going to be another Christmas away from home as our thoughts about the Citation XLS going home before the end of the year have been changed by the maintenance schedule for India being quite different from the original. Our Phase V, which would be due in 5 years or 1200 hours, was done by the previous owner just before we bought it in 2008, so won't be due until next year because the 5 year schedule is compressed to 3 by the Indian government. That means that we won't be brining it to America like I thought for paint and interior and Phase V until possibly later next year. Dan's training will be due again next Spring and his 40th high school reunion will be coming in April so that's most likely the next trip home to the USA.

We are disappointed that Dr. Tim Jennings visit to India just didn't get wings. From the beginning it seemed like things were aligned against us. The SDA church had a campout planned that was a big conflict and the Sunday church never really got behind the program so we are going to back up and try again sometime in the near future. We already had some touring planned and were just looking forward to having company from America but sometimes patience is a virtue and this should be something we can redo and it will be better. One of the things making this year kind of scary was that President Obama will be here in Delhi that weekend and we don't know what will be shut down and when, so that's a big unknown.

While here in Raigahr this time there were lots of company pilots here so we set up a "party" and solved most of the company problems. That was fun. The difficult part will be communicating it to management. Tomorrow will be a 35 minute flight to Ranchi and then a 1:30 flight back to Delhi. This time of year it's much cooler and yesterday when we took off from Delhi it was only 78 degrees F, which we haven't seen for many months. That made the airplane perform much better as we are used to flying in 25 C above standard air, which really takes the excitement out of flying this airplane, putting us back in the regular jet crowd.

Well, it's getting late and we have to get up and fly tomorrow so I will sign off, say thanks for keeping in touch and hope to see everyone of you sometime in the near future.

Take care,

Dan

Commonwealth Games

Well, we finally broke down and decided to attend some of the Commonwealth Games here in Delhi since Dan's schedule kept cancelling and there were international athletes competing in town, might as well go and see what is going on.

We had been watching it on TV and it seemed like there weren't too many people in the stands so maybe we could help with that also, but what to go see?? We both like swimming competitions and it was the finals, so it would be more exciting and it included the awards ceremonies, so that might be fun. I went online and found the website for the CWG2010 and start trying to buy a ticket. They don't make it easy but I finally purchased the tickets. After hearing the prices for the Olympic Games when they came to Atlanta in 1996, I thought I would have sticker shock but discovered that tickets were amazingly inexpensive. Lots of the events could be attended for 250 rupees, or just over $5 USD. Since the swimming was into the finals and I wanted the best seats we could get, they were 1000 rupees each, or $20. Completely amazing. The hard part, though, was actually picking the tickets up. You would think the advantage to buying online would be to just pickup at the box office at the venue you were at. Sad thing, no box office and there were only two ticket venues where you could pick up online purchases, so we had to go all the way to downtown Delhi in traffic, to the train station, and our driver didn't know where the swim venue was, at all. Fortunately, we drove right by it on the way to the train station. Once I got to the station, I walked around the corner and found quite a long line waiting for ticket issues. I spoke to the lady in line in front of me and she indicated that in Delhi you really needed to come the day before to pick up tickets as the wait was quite lengthy. I had told the taxi driver just 10 minutes and Karen was in the car. Oh-oh. The lady suggested that I cut to the front of the long line and see if they would issue my ticket immediately, as the swimming started in about 90 minutes. I went to the front and there was a door where the security guy let me right in. When the lady at the desk saw my expat face, I was welcomed with open arms and told to hand her my paperwork, which included my passport for identification. So, based on that info, she typed something in and a couple of minutes later I had a couple of pretty cool looking large tickets to the swimming finals. The taxi wasn't allowed to park outside and had to drive down the street some to find parking so he had to come running back a half a block to find me and we headed for the swimming venue. Of course, there were about 10 different gates for this and we drove around for a few minutes and then ended up walking about half a mile from the entry gate to the building itself. Karen had agreed to go to this but we hadn't counted on a long walk since she is healing from her surgery but, fortunately, she did okay and we had a sandwich and a soft drink on the way in and found our seats, which weren't really assigned, but the section was assigned, so you went to your section and then just found the seat that you thought would be good - interesting. We ended up with a whole bunch of expats, probably parents and family of participants, from England, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, etc. I think we were the only Americans in the building. The lady next to us from New Zealand guessed that we were from England, so that wasn't a bad guess. When we said we were from America but lived in Delhi, I think the look of shock on her face kind of let us know that she thought we were crazy.

But, we had a great time, it was a great venue, the air-conditioning was strong, the pool was beautiful and the families around us were supportive and talked good English, which was so much fun for a night. By the end of the evening we had several friends and had really enjoyed the spectacle of the games. I will post my pictures on a separate email and you can see more of what was going on. Since the company cars were all tied up we took a taxi and it was great. They dropped us at the gate and after I had the tickets in hand, I realized that they included two free passes on the Metro, the new elevated train around Delhi that we had been threatening to ride but had no reason to. So, I told Karen, let's ride home on the train, which ends up about 3 miles from our house. So, that was the plan, but after the games we were hungry and only a short taxi ride from Connaught Place where our favorite Mexican food is. So, after the game we hit the streets and found a tuk-tuk within a few minutes to take us just 5 minutes to Sancho's. Great!! Karen had only ridden a tuk-tuk one time for just a short block or two when we were at the Taj Mahal last Spring. So, this was her first real tuk-tuk ride in heavy traffic and with horns and close quarters, but we made it and it all made for a great adventure. After a good Mexican dinner we walked a couple of blocks to the Metro station and went down into inner sanctum under the ground. It's all very confusing, with us not even being able to figure out how to get through the gates with our passes from the games but they had someone to let you through a gate with your ticket from the games so on we went. Down more stairs and looking for the yellow train which runs to Gurgaon, where we live. We got on a very uncrowded train in a hurry and began to ride. About the 4th stop they said it was the end of the train but it just kept on going after pausing at the station. We failed to notice that it had reversed direction and now it FILLED UP with a rowdy crowd of somewhat inebriated local boys. Karen was ready to jump off. After about three stops I didn't like the sound of the crowd or the names of the stations. We began to realize that we had headed one way and then reversed course and were now headed for the North Side of Delhi with a rowdy crowd and at a great rate of speed. One older man took mercy on us and told us to change at a certain station, where it was safe, and so we crossed up and over and found the train going all the way to Huda Central Station, where the train now ends. Our ride took over an hour but should have only taken about 40 minutes, but we had nothing better to do and since we had opted for ice tea at the Mexican food place, we were wide awake. Then, when we got to the end of the line we walked out and started looking for another tuk-tuk which took us all the way home, about a 15 minute ride for 150 rupees. Too much fun and it was Karen's first really big outing after her surgery. I had a flight early the next morning but somewhere in the middle of the evening it cancelled so we had no schedule and finally crawled into bed somewhere around midnight. We both think we are the only members of any of our high school or college classes to attend the Commonwealth Games in Delhi. And the whole evening was very inexpensive but really adventure filled. When we were on that Metro train with about 100 pushy, shovy Indian men, I thought Karen was going to jump right out the window but she hung in there and we survived.

While we were in the building we saw several of the contestants practicing on the high diving platforms so now, if I am around, we want to go back for the diving. My boss, Mr. Jindal, was going to participate in the skeet shooting but he said he was the 2nd alternate and so didn't get in. Would have been fun to see him on TV.

The weather is really getting into the nice time of the year and the city really gets crowded and lit up now as the crowds go out in the much more liveable climate.

My cats have totally become loyal to me after Karen went home for the summer. She is quite upset that they always follow dad around and choose to sleep on my side or be by my side, no matter what I am doing. I tend to be the disciplinarian but they take it and come back to cuddle and take a nap. One cat, Rupee, allows me to spin him on the tile floor while he is curled up in a ball, by his tail. You would think that he would get up and run away, but when I finish, he just lays there and kind of looks at me like, is that all you got?? I think he just does anything to guarantee a steady food supply but I will take it as affection and that's my story.

Have a great week!!

Dan and Karen

Taking advantage of inexpensive medical

Hi again friends,

I decided it's been at least a couple of weeks since my last blog so maybe you could stand to hear what's going on with Dan and Karen in New Delhi. If it's seemed kind of quiet lately, that's because Dan has never been busier in his life - and it has nothing to do with flying. In fact, I was really hoping the phone would ring and take me on a flight so I could hire someone or get a friend to come over and do the nursing care thing for awhile.

On September 23 Karen's new cosmetic surgeon, Dr. Rashmi Taneja, who did her training at UCLA Medical Center in the USA, decided it was time to, as they say in India, "Do the needful." The needful was brought on by back problems brought on by carrying around more than she should on the front. So, the doctor started with a breast reduction and then went on to do a tummy tuck and liposuction while she was at it. Karen was like a kid in a candy store when we went in to visit Dr. Taneja to talk about the process. And, the candy was on SALE. It is just so different here. The doctor told us to call her when we were with our driver and she would give him directions to her office. She would call and give us the reports that came back from the medical pre-tests and so on. We were just shocked to have this type of communication with the doctor herself. Because both Karen and I had been affected with diarrhea for a couple of weeks before the surgery, it turned out to be a little more exciting than we had imagined. Even though they did a blood test right before the surgery and the hemoglobin came back a 14, which would be a hugely good number, we now think it was a false high and, with the diarrhea, came dehydration. They told me Karen's surgery would be 4 hours and it turned out to be 6 and 1/2. The doctor called to say Karen was fine but would be spending the first night in ICU. I didn't get to see her until 8:30 that night, which was 12 hours after she went in to surgery. She was in ICU and I went up there. She immediately saw me and started asking for COLD water and a fan. She was feeling like she was dying of thirst. I guess the dehydration manifested itself greatly in her recovery. After they brought a fan in and aimed it straight at her head, she was happier and then I made them get ice water, which is a rare commodity in India and I hand-fed her ice for about half an hour. She said she felt like she was stranded in the middle of the desert without water. Said she never wanted to feel like that again. But, that was as bad as it got and they had given her three units of blood, two during the surgery and one more in ICU, as well as a saline drip, so she was getting rehydrated as rapidly as possible. That was as bad as it got and the next day they took her down to normal hospital care. I visited her for three more days and then, on Monday night we brought her home. Amazingly, even though the company had given me two days leave to be with her, I didn't have a flight for 5 days. That flight was only gone for a few hours and I came back without her even knowing I was gone, and haven't had a flight for 5 more days, so that is a miracle.

During the Commonwealth Games, which start tomorrow, the local police put out a notice to all the illegal immigrants that they would be searched out, found and prosecuted. Apparently, our househelp is from Bangladesh and is illegally in India. We had no idea as she has a security clearance and a worker's ID card. Anyway, without any notice she disappeared and then called and said she would be back on the 15th of Oct. So, right when we really could have used extra help around the house, we had NONE. And, that's the reason that I am looking forward to the phone ringing and taking me on a flight. At home, I am cook, cleaner, dispenser of medications, changer of drain cannister, back scratcher, laundry guy, cat mess cleaner upper, cat food guy, litter box changer, errand runner and general go-fer. Please ring, phone, and take me to work so I can get some rest! Actually, there is nothing like this experience to bond you together as a couple. Karen keeps lifting up the covers and remarking about her new body shape so I assume she is going to be very happy with the results. And, it was all done for a small fraction of what it would have cost in America. We know because Karen went and met with a cosmetic surgeon in Pittsburgh and got his quote. When I described the procedures to my Anesthiologist cousin in California, he was quoting prices for these same things out there that would make your head spin and your wallet thin. I have included pictures of the front of the hospital so you can visualize that this was not some fly-by-night jungle hospital operation. Everything was new and modern and very clean. Plus, I doubt your hospital has a guy dressed like the one above to open your car door for you and welcome you with praying hands. The nursing staff was amazing and so nice. The last day Karen was there she had her cellphone out to call family and tell them she was still alive and it was apparently too tempting to someone around there and it got stolen. It has a tracking device built in so we turned in the information to hospital security who said the ID number would be put on a police watch list and it would probably turn up. In the meantime, since we are in India, I bought another phone for $60 and put $20 worth of credit on the card and she can talk for months locally, as well as calls to family in America, for that amount. By going to the AirTel office, I managed to keep her same number and have a minimum of fuss about the whole thing. The funny part about the hospital and doctor bill was that they put up an estimate of charges as you arrive, including the doctor's fees, which was exactly as the doctor said it would be, and I didn't know this part, but they don't take checks and are leary about credit cards, so I went to the bank and got cash for most of the transaction. Because this involved a one hour delay, the doctor herself signed a surety for the bill, while I rode to the bank, and since it was in rupees, had to carry the large bunch of bills out in my briefcase, hoping to not get robbed on the way to the hospital. In the end, because of the extra care and more days, I put the last little bit on a credit card and it was all settled. Just very different from America, where the patient would be dismissed and the bill settled with whoever over a period of months. They wouldn't release Karen until the bill was settled and there was no getting her out of the ward without the signed release papers. Checking out of anything in India always takes way longer than it ever should and at times I thought I wouldn't get her out. Money here is just such a huge deal, all the time.

Our smaller jet the CJ, should be back from America this week. It has been gone for over two months to get paint and interior. I am excited to start flying it when it comes back, as I am sure it will look very nice. Then, around the end of the year, our Citation XLS, which is the main plane that I fly, is going to go for the same thing. Since our XLS is a 2005 model and sits outside all the time, it is starting to show it's age a little bit, although the people here keep it very clean and neat all the time. We have hired two new captains, one for the CJ and one for the XLS. They are both retired from the Indian miliatary and are both off to school right now in England. One is at FlightSafety, the other at CAE Simuflite, and when they get back they will start flying with me until they get 100 hours of pilot in command time in type. Then, they will be released as full captains, if they are able to handle it all and get recommended. I am hoping that it all works out because for the last 15 months it has been tough to get time off since I am the only captain on the XLS and our only captain on the CJ just retired last week. We had a nice party for Dhaka and his wife, and the owner of the company, Mr. Jindal, bothered to come to the party for an hour or so, so that was very nice. I will miss Dhaka and his sense of humor and informative ways teaching me about how things work in India. He has already found another job in Malaysia as a chief flight instructor for a big flight school and where the age 65 rule doesn't arbitrarily matter.

We are looking forward to company coming from Tennessee. Dr. Tim Jennings is coming to New Delhi at my invitation to make presentations at both the SDA church in Delhi and the Delhi International Christian Fellowship, which is the Sunday church that I attend here because there are so many expats to network with and form lifelong friendships with. The guest speaker today at the SDA church was a lady from Spain who works with Literature Evangelists from around the world and was here for some presentations. It was her first trip to India and she said that she can see now why people keep coming back to India as it gets into your blood and really gets to you. I have to admit that India has gotten into my blood and at times I get emotional, thinking about the blessing it has been for me at this stage of life.

I just found out that my friend Maria Lopes, from Portugal, who is here with her husband, is one of the most popular writer's of children's religious books for various publishers. Someone told me today that she is outselling The Bible Story and the Bedtime Story sets worldwide and in America. I am amazed as I have been at their house several times, she offered to come take care of Karen last week, and this is the first that I have heard about all this. Wow!!

Take care, my friends, and hope to hear from you!

Dan