Happy Birthday and Volcanoes

Everybody must be nice to me – its my birthday (or at least I have not yet gone to sleep so it still counts as my birthday). As most of you know I have been on an extended holiday since August. The original plan was to keep a blog of my travels and activities. However I was too busy to do so. November is national blogging month and the 2 blogs I read have committed to posting daily. Inspired by then I will do the same. Every day from now until end of November I will blog either on what I have done that day or from the last few months adventures in Mexico, France, Italy, Spain and Hawaii.

I am often melancholy at birthdays thinking about what I haven’t achieved and how I am getting older but not always wiser. Additionally this birthday is somewhat significant (my age is between 30 and 40 and is the product of two prime numbers but I am neither 33 nor 39). So there were all the ingredients for quite a depressing day. To combat this I arranged to go to Hawaii with my friend E.

We arrived in Honolulu on Saturday. We are staying on Oahu but today we flew to the Big Island to visit the Volcano. I am fascinated by geothermal activity, that’s why I love Rotarua in New Zealand and Yellowstone in USA. Every so often I think it would have been better to keep on geology rather than choosing chemistry but then I remind myself of how terrible geology field work is in Ireland – standing on a narrow road trying to avoid the passing traffic as I look at rocks while failing to keep myself or my notebook safe from the relentless Irish rain. But its different in Hawaii. We had no rain on the Big Island and despite the relatively short time on the Island, we saw some of the newest land in the world and an active volcano.

The US state Hawaii is a series of 8 volcanic islands. The pacific plate is slowly moving over a geothermal hotspot. The older islands are to the northwest and no longer have volcanic activity. Maui has both dormant and extinct volcanoes but real geothermal activity is on the island of Hawaii (also called the big Island because it’s the biggest – indeed all the other Hawaiian Islands could fit in its landmass). The Big Island is actually 5 different volcanoes in different stages of lifecycles
1. Kohala—extinct
2. Mauna Kea—dormant
3. Hualālai—active but not currently erupting
4. Mauna Loa—active, partly within Hawaiʻi Volcanoes National Park
5. Kīlauea—active: has been erupting continuously since 1983; part of Hawaiʻi Volcanoes National Park

As we only had a day we took an organised tour which visited the Hawaii Volcanoes National Park. Before that we visited a black sand beach. To be honest the beach was tiny most of the area was covered with hardened black lava. The lava had flown underground until it reached the sea where it cooled. It was amazing the amount of land that had been created. Also the old shoreline was still easy to spot with lines of mature coconut trees. Some baby coconut trees were growing in the black rock. I thought there was no way the rock could sustain plant life but there was overwhelming evidence against me (even though they were only baby coconut trees)

After the beach we went to Volcanoes National Park. We saw an active caldera complete with gaseous plumes. Unfortunately there was neither lava nor magma to be seen. Probably just as well as the lava is dangerous. The visitors centre had a display about the geologist who got caught up to his knees in lava. After several months he was able to walk again but if that can happen to an expert, God only knows what might happen to the lay people!

But the best part of the day was the birthday wishes I got from all over the world (from Europe, the US, Asia and the Middle East). I got emails, texts, facebook posts and a present from my friend E. I also spoke with my sister, brother and mother. Thank-you everybody for helping me have a happy birthday. Over the next few weeks I will be in Chicago and Toronto so some of you can help me celebrate in person (because November was Helen’s birthday month long before it was national blogging month)

Random India fact with picture

I've recieved a lot of feedback (some might call it complaints but feedback is a more positive term, don't you think?) I have lots of photos of India and here is one from Qutb Minar in Delhi. This complex has the largest minaret in the world. It also has a iron pillar. I'll let wikipedia tell you about the official story

The pillar bears an inscription which states that it was erected as a flagstaff in honour of the Hindu god, Vishnu, and in the memory of the Gupta King Chandragupta II (375–413). Made up of 98% wrought iron of pure quality, it is 23 feet 8 inches (7.21 m) high and has a diameter of 16 inches (0.41 m). Also, it was confirmed that the temperatures required to form such kind of pillars cannot be achieved by combustion of coal. The pillar is a testament to the high level of skill achieved by ancient Indian iron smiths in the extraction and processing of iron.
It has attracted the attention of archaeologists and metallurgists as it has withstood corrosion for the last 1600 years, despite harsh weather. Its unusually good corrosion resistance appears to be due to a high phosphorus content, which together with favorable local weather conditions promotes the formation of a solid protective passivation layer of iron oxides and phosphates, rather than the non-protective, cracked rust layer that develops on most ironwork.

Apparently in the 1970s, some people were amazed that the Iron pillar did not rust and concluded (as one does) that it was evidence of alien landings on earth.

Back in Chicago

On Friday, March 2nd, I arrived back in Chicago. The weather was bitterly cold as I took a taxi to my friends’ apartment. M & R invited me to stay the first night back which was wonderful as my apartment had been vacant since the tenants had left in early February. Despite carrying all sorts of strange Indian spices and having only been in the country twice since obtaining my green card, I successfully negotiated the US immigration and customs.

On Saturday, all my belongings came out of storage. I was reminded of something my mother often says “Helen, you have so much of this world’s goods”. Well it’s very true. I’m still unpacking a week later (this morning I found some curtains that I have only the vaguest memory of purchasing; also a very cool meat thermometer that I remember contemplating buying but thought I had decided against, seems not)

On Saturday night M & R invited me over to dinner. There’s a group of us who meet up for games every so often and we were doing that night. However when I got to there, I discovered they had organized a surprise welcome back party – the first time ever I had a surprise party. I was very surprised but many people said I didn’t seem surprised at all – probably it was due to the jet lag. At the party were the following


M&R – bought a new apartment, both got new jobs.

E – moved appartment, acquired a long-term boyfriend in my absence. I had never met boyfriend who I insisted on calling “the mysterious X”. E was the friend who forwarded all my mail to India. At least he enjoyed reading the several magazines to which I subscribe.

J – work colleague. You may remember her from the transcontinental gossip. Been promoted in my absence

J – work colleague. Completely rescued me in India by sending over Shiseido skin softener, crystal light and ant poison.

K – work colleague. She sent Clinique pore minimizer to me while I was in India. Retired in my absence

R – work colleague– lost 20 lbs in my absence

P&R – became pregnant in my absence. They were there with their adorable daughter K who has got much much better at walking since I left and is getting more bilingual by the day

I – the friend I met in Singapore. Bought her first apartment while I was away. Also interviewing for other jobs

G – got engaged in my absence. Also fiancée broke off the engagement – poor guy

T – the friend I met in Sydney. Is now an official architect.

Also there were D and M. M – no significant news that I know about. Meeting M for dinner tonight so will check for gossip.

It really was a wonderful evening. I am very lucky to have such great friends (especially M&R). And it’s very very nice to be back.

I plan one more blog entry probably next weekend and then I’ll be finishing a year in India blog.

Quick entry - the final days!!

On Saturday I called my recently engaged friend L who mentioned that I hadn’t updated my blog. So well things are busy (I know it’s my usual excuse but it’s true). It’s gone midnight and the movers are coming at 9.30 tomorrow morning. So I am busy getting ready (oh my god how do I accumulate so much stuff). I do plan to post a few more entries (various ones in the works – mainly only in my head)

As I haven’t been emailing people I’m going to post my travel plans too

Tuesday to Thursday (Feb. 20th- 22nd): Munich
Friday to Monday (Feb 23rd – 26th): Brussels
Monday to Friday (Feb. 26th to March 2nd ): Cork
Friday March 2nd Chicago.

Yes it’s going to be a busy few weeks and I’m supposed to do some work too!!!!

More fire and more sightseeing

So again I haven’t been posting but I have less than 3 weeks left in India so have been busy jetting around the country. I’m just back from Jaipur. Those with keen memories may remember I went to Jaipur last May, so why may you ask did I return to Jaipur. Well a very nice French colleague was over to deliver training last week, she wanted to stay and see some of India we went off to Jaipur. The original plan had us in Agra too but we decided to return straight to Delhi as 8-10 hours in a car was too much. It’s no bad thing we decided against Agra as it would have been my fourth trip to Agra and I’m not the biggest fan of the Taj Mahal. Many call it a tribute to love but when all it said and done it’s a very big tombstone. It is a beautiful building but it is over-hyped.



Jaipur was good fun. I spent a fortune on shawls and cushion covers. On the prior trip I bought some beautiful pieces of jewellery but this time I was not tempted much, only one bracelet bought. On Saturday evening we went to a recreation of a Rajasthani village (Rajasthan is a province in western India – much of it is desert but it contains quite a few palaces as the Rajasthani rulers the Maharaja were very keen on building palaces. While we were at the royal palace we saw the current Maharaja – he’s quite old but looked quite distinguished. I was a little disappointed that he wore western dress as I would have iked to see the extravagant maharaja costumes). Some elements of the recreation were very tacky – a guru in a cave. However most were interesting (puppet shows, folk dancing) or fun (camel and elephant rides). Also included in the admission price was a traditional Rajasthani meal. This comprised of several dishes (they claimed 27 which doesn’t seem far off the mark). I have no clue what half th stuff I ate was but most of it was good. The restaurant was a little too authentic for me – there were no chairs; everybody sat on the floor. Not only that I got a terrible cramp in my leg and had to walk it off half way through the meal. This drew the attention of half the staff where all I wanted was to be left alone. The plates and bowls were made from leaves which is all well and good except the leaves are not entirely waterproof and the spinach dish was watery and split all over my poor colleague. Fortunately as I am an India veteran now I was well equipped with tissues and wet wipes to help clean up the ensuing mess.



The prior weekend I was in Goa and Mumbai. I flew into Mumbai and negotiated the tricky matter of getting a taxi from the airport (I tried to get the hotel to arrange a car but after 3 attempts and more than 30 minutes of my life spent on hold, I gave up). Upon checking in I was informed I had been upgraded due to my gold card status – the room was fine and the view was spectacular looking out over the Arabian sea. I had read that Mumbai is a “happening place” – it’s the home of Bollywood and India’s financial centers. Foreigners abound there. It is also home to one of the largest slums in the world. I was prepared for a hectic city which overwhelms, charms and devastates all at once. However I found a beautiful city ruined by the smell of sewage coming from the sea which surrounds it. I ventured out for a walk, braving the smell (familiar pleasant salt air contaminated by too many people and a lack of urban planning) – perhaps I could have survived the smell but the heat finished me. It was 35C and this is winter. Summer must be hell. Fortunately I only had 24 hours in Mumbai. I left not unhappy but with a strange feeling I get more and more often. I think it is a sign of getting older. I leave a place and think “this is probably my last time here”. It’s not that I can’t go back but thinking about time, money and desires it’s unlikely I will be back in Mumbai or Shimla or Agra. It’s not that I want to return but just that I probably never will. I realize that time is speeding by and that even a full and long life is still a very short time.

After Mumbai, I proceeded to Goa. It seems everybody loves Goa – beautiful beaches, tropical hillsides speckled with Portuguese colonial houses, exquisite churches, delicious food. The beaches were big and sandy but when traveling alone (as I was) swimming is not an option. The food was lovely especially the Goan bread and prawn curry. Old Goa was marvelous – for me it required no imagination to see 17th century Jesuit priests wandering about the church gardens. The churches looked out over blue seen, the view obscured only by the forecast of palm trees. A pleasant breeze circled the area. There was a lot to like about Goa but also some things blighted my visit
I was seriously misled by Lonely Planet. The place I stayed was fine but completely overpriced.
No diet coke in the hotel or any restaurants. I found some in one shop. I know it seems childish to complain about the lack of diet coke but in a town where you can order kingfisher beer for breakfast it seems some diet coke is not an unreasonable request.
It’s still India and you have to bargain with everybody for everything. Even when I bargain hard, I know I’m being fleeced and the injustice of it drives me crazy so I get in a bad mood and don’t buy things I want. Even the things are not so expensive but I know somebody else is getting it for less and I just feel I would rather pay double in Ireland in the knowledge that everybody is charged the same price.
It’s not as poor as other parts of India but there are still beggars and the little girl who grabbed my leg and pleaded for money for food affected me more than any beggar has for quite some time.
The flight from Goa to Delhi was delayed for ages.

The observant among you will have noticed that I mentioned a fire. While packing to go to Mumbai and Goa, it was cold in Delhi so I had the heater on. I noticed an unpleasant burning smell but thought little of it – the poor homeless souls in Delhi are often burning rubbish to keep warm in the winter months. However in this case I should have paid more attention because the burning item was my portable heater. The plastic handle caught fire and the flames went dangerously close to the curtains.

On planet Helen, household fire is sufficient reason not to be blogging.

More Indian adventures

My Indian colleagues believe I have the worst luck. This may be the case but before I came to India I would say I had above average luck for the general populations and average or below average luck for an Irish person (I do believe Irish people are luckier – I know it’s not scientific but science would have you believe there is no such thing as luck which is not the case either).

Today, I went with a Russian colleague (Olga) to the train station as we were taking the evening train to Chandigarh. On the way to the train station, another colleague (Jake) telephoned me. He was already in Chandigarh:

Jake: Hi, Helen it’s Jake
Me: Hi Jake, how are things in Chandigarh
Jake: not so good
Me: why (expected to hear complaints about the team or problems with hotel booking)
Jake: the hotel is on fire
Me: pardon?
Him: they’ve evacuated us all and we are all waiting outside. So maybe you want to change your travel plans
Me: is the fire engine there?
Him: not yet
Me: maybe

We spent the next 20 minutes driving to the train station as I called the Taj hotel central number to ask them if I should cancel. They didn’t even know there was a fire and unhelpfully said they couldn’t reach anybody at the hotel (da, it’s because they’ve all been evacuated). I also tried to see if tickets were available for the next day but the ticket office closes at 2pm on Sundays.

Upon reaching the train station we sought help from many of the railway employees. They were spectacularly unhelpful. After talking to 4 separate people (each of whom acted as though he was doing us a massive favor by agreeing to talk to us), we discovered:
The ticket office is closed.
The ticket office which is open will only take bookings for trains leaving in the next two hours
Nobody can help us until 5.40 in the morning (2 hours before the train)
We can get a refund of 50% of the ticket price but only if we cancel today
We would have to wait to cancel
The cancellation policy is not clear

As each ticket cost 820 rupess (about 20 euro) we decided to be extravagant Europeans and shake the dust of Delhi railway station from our feet.

On the way back from the train station Jake calls again
Jake: Helen, it’s comical now.
Me: why
Jake: They are throwing stones to break windows
Me: why
Jake: because the fire brigade do not have axes. They are taking big stones and trying to break the windows. They’ve tried to break one window four times now.
Me: any sign of controlling the fire
Jake: apparently all the sprinklers went off in the rooms so the fire is under control apart from the lobby. Of course this also means all my clothes are wet!

Various other phone calls follow. Eventually Jake and another colleague who decided to travel despite the fire are booked into another hotel in Chandigarh. I may travel tomorrow or I may not – I suppose it depends if my Indian colleagues have more success with the Indian railway staff than I had!

Really, you can't amke this stuff up :)

train travel

Chandigarh train station is infested with birds. I don’t know if I am capable of describing the incessant squawking. Indeed I’m not sure if anybody can adequately do justice to this sound. They seem to be sparrows but I’ve never heard sparrows be so noisy. Ever so often the sound lessens as though there may be relative silence but then the crescendo starts again – it is unharmonious, chaotic and annoying; indeed it could be symbolic of India. But most of all it is unrelenting, even the public announcements which are loud can barely be heard over the birds. The only relief is that I have only 30 minutes to wait before the train arrives. I’m writing this as I wait for the evening Shatabi to Delhi. I’ve been at our office up north for the past week and am now heading back to Delhi. Birds aside, Chandigarh train station leaves a lot to be desired. There is no diet coke to be purchased anywhere. I wouldn’t mind a snack but the options look dangerous and Indian trains are a miserable place to be sick (not that everywhere is a little miserable when one is sick, Indian trains are miserable even when one is completely well). I’m blogging really to preserve my little remaining patience and sanity. I would like to call my sister to see if the Belgian post office has traced her package, or call other project manager to see if there are issues in Delhi but the birds would beat me out in any conversation. I bough far more reading material than I read so I could catch up but again the birds would disturb me. A nice café at the railway station would be ideal but there is none. So to summarize Chandigarh railway station – nowhere to sit down and eat, food and drink only available from places from where consumption almost certainly equals illness for non-locals, and birds, and birds, and birds. I knew Chandigarh station was seriously lacking, so I tried to explain to the driver that he should stop to let me buy some diet coke. Here my very limited Hindi combined with his limited English failed me: Me: can we stop to buy something Him: train station Me: I would like some diet pepsi Him: train station Me: Pepsi, Coca-cola gesturing Him: office Me: no train station Him: train station (smiling) Those global branding folks at Pepsi and Coke need to do a better job! It’s not like it’s going to get better when I’m on the train either. Due to late changes in plans I am in coach rather than executive coach. To be fair I complain about executive coach as it’s manky but it’s 4 seats across rather than 5 in the case of coach. The whole train seems so old and not old in a faded grandeur way, old like it could never have been new. Everything is dirty, the windows barely open, not that you would want them do looking at the rubbish and human waste which lines the tracks. Also the windows provide some barrier from the poor destitute souls sleeping by the railways. The bathrooms are unsurprising also disgusting. Often I find my self thinking – can I wait until I get home or do I really need to go now. There is a choice between western and Indian. I always choose western and I suppose I should be glad that at least that choice exists. I’m on the train now. My seat (like those in the rest of the carriage) is not facing the direction of travel. I wonder whether the rail powers that be are just thoughtless or whether the cost/time/effort to re-orientate the carriages was considered excessive. Whatever the case, it’s not doing much to improve my mood. One good thing is there is a lot of food served on the train. This means I can eat what I like (about 30% of what is served) and still be reasonably full. The food supply (was going to say feast but that’s not fair to the word feast) begins with tea and snacks – usually samosas and some bizarre sweet made from nuts with a texture like asbestos. Then there is very watery soup with breadsticks pretty far removed from any beadlike substance. Then there is the main meal – typically Indian with rice, dal (lentils) and vegetables. There’s also Indian bread (roti, nowhere near as nice as naan), pappadums and pickle. Pickle just sounds far too scary for me to try. Then there’s ice-cream which initially I refused to eat but have recently softened my stance since I eat it and didn’t get sick. This is all served to you in your seat and is included in the 500 rupee (about 10 euro) ticket cost. So I suppose it’s not bad. On that somewhat positive note, I will stop. There thousands (literally 3671 emails in my inbox). They don’t all need to be answered (thank God) but they do need to be deleted, filed. And soon the system administrator will prevent me from getting more emails if I don’t reduce my mailbox size. At least there are no birds……………………..yet!










Course 1 -snacks? course 2 - soup and breadsticks course 3 - main meal