Ring of Fire in the Land of the Coconut

Journey to the Annular Solar Eclipse in Kerala, India, 15 January 2010

All the eclipse pictures on film! Or jump to eclipse day.
Notes on the trip & the eclipse and a lot of reports about it.

Saturday, 9 January 2010
Frankfurt, Hessen, Germany

The flight to Kuwait on KU 174 left 3 hours late (14:21 instead of 11:30 CET) because of heavy snowfall in Germany the night before which also affected Frankfurt airport badly. (To avoid getting stuck already on the train we had stayed at an airport hotel overnight already.)

Nightly approach to Kuwait City, Kuwait

Here the connecting flight to Thiruvananthapuram had just left, of course, when we landed at 21:29 instead of 18:45 local time (+ 2 hours) after 5:08.

Sunday, 10 January 2010
Mumbai, Maharashtra, India

In the meantime the airline had already moved us onto a later flight that night, to Mumbai, from which we would continue to TRV (good) - however during that procedure my return leg from Kochi to Kuwait was accidentally deleted from the system without anyone noticing (bad). KU 301 leaves at 23:10 (planned: 22:45) and reaches Mumbai at 4:53 (planned: 4:50) IST (+2 hours 30 minutes) the next morning, after 3:13. While in Mumbai we received quite some VIP treatment by three ladies, though (good).

The waning crescent Moon over the tarmac while switching to the domestic terminal - where we found three free internet stations! News about the bad weather back home (with many cancellations and delays in Frankfurt) as well as previews of the eclipse - including a wire story featuring Ajay Talwar whom I'd been in contact with and whom I would meet soon.

A new culinary world had been waiting here (a snack bar in front of the domestic terminal) ...

... as well as interesting license plates ...

... and airport displays. 9W 336 left at 10:59 (planned: 10:40) and arrived in Thiruvananthapuram at 12:48 (planned: 12:40), after 1:49, so the whole time in the air had been 10 hours and 10 minutes. And in the end arrived "only" 8 hours and 13 minutes late in Kerala, the Land of the Coconut Palms.

Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala, India

Again, another world: Now the main language is Malayalam ...

... and the weather is baaad (later the papers would say that it was the most rain at that time since recordings began) - not exactly what you want for a solar eclipse, now 5 days in the future. But everything else worked out: Our luggage was all there - as was V S Shyam from AASTRO, our host for the coming days, and his friend and (amazing) driver.

Story continues here! Or go right to eclipse day.