While at UCLA in June 2009 for the International C. elegans meeting (www.celegans.org), I took a morning off to explore the La Brea tar pits. Was amazing to see ice age fossils in the heart of LA (5 bus stops from the UCLA campus).
Travel
This section has links to the more organized travelogues and picture galleries… but some random pictures are also at www.phlog.net/user/sujai
Spent a few days in Krakow with Linda who was on her way back from Italy, and then went tramping around on my own for almost a week in Warsaw, Gdansk, and Malbork.
Pictures from when my mom visited Scotland in Apri. Using Picasaweb (and a Panasonic Lumix FZ7) for the first time.
Yet again, Linda’s travelogue says it better than anything I could have come up with: https://netfiles.uiuc.edu/lmsims/www/Scotland2006/
When it’s not so hot (it is currently 45C/112F), I like biking to CRCS - one of the many places I work at. I use a Dahon folding bicycle (the 2003 Speed P8) and can’t leave later than 630 am because the traffic on Delhi roads is too crazy after that. Coming back is a problem because the bus is too crowded to put the folding bike on, so I usually have to leave my bike somewhere until someone can give it a ride back from South Delhi to East Delhi.
Almora - where I stayed over 3 weeks at Masi’s place, to see if I would enjoy living on my own and working in a place like this (I DID :-))
www.ylog.org/deodars - Richard Wheeler handed me the text, and I did this simple website for his Deodars guest house, where Arnt and Trish stayed, and where I had many terrific meals.
Ramgarh - Spent a couple of days with the Mukherjees (Masi’s friends from when they lived in Almora) who were very hospitable and we all took a drive to see the fantastic views from Mukteshwar.
www.ylog.org/bavaria - spent about a week with Arnt and Trish in Munich, which was wonderful. Loved their apt and the food at their place. Spent a couple of days biking around the bavarian alps, and even managed a train ride to the highest point in Germany.
www.ylog.org/heidelberg - Spent a weekend with my cousin Neeraj and his wife and kids. Had not met Fabian and Florian before but got along great with them, as you can see from the pictures :-)
Baba and I had a little jaunt in the hills. We stayed with Masi in Almora (www.ylog.org/almora), and then drove on to Chaukori (www.ylog.org/chaukori) for some amazing close up views of the Himalayas.
Linda’s travelogue says it all. Wish the rest of the lab could have come too as we had planned initially.
On my way back from China, I spent a few days in Hong Kong. Despite a lousy flu (which I took great care to hide from the immigration authorities in case they thought it was SARS and locked me up), I loved wandering around this chaotic, always awake, expensive city.
Linda’s travelogue says it best.
As I was writing up my Masters thesis in March and April, I was simultaneously trying to figure out which part of the world I could visit on my journey back to Delhi in May 2004. I got a good flight via Bangkok, so Thailand it was.
Travelogues and Pictures:
www.ylog.org/bangkok1 - (yes, there is a bangkok2 as well but I still haven’t gotten around to it!). I loved bangkok - the food, the sights, shopping for crazy things, wandering through crowded markets, riding the ferry…
www.ylog.org/chiangmai - spent half of my 10 days in Thailand in hilly Chiang Mai.
www.ylog.org/cmcricket - Chiang Mai was terrific, thanks mainly to Eric Little, an Australian expat triathlete, who teaches Thai third-graders how to play cricket.
Another winter. Another trip from the US to India. Another stopover. This time at Istanbul - ‘the crossroads of the world’. Pictures and Travelogue - Turkey
On my way back to Kolkata from UIUC in February 2003 (for my cousin’s wedding - which was GREAT fun because the entire family was there), I took a stopover in Paris. Saw that city for the first time, went skiing in the French Alps (at La Clusaz), and met up with Kim and Linda who were vacationing there at the same time. Pictures - France 2003.
Strictly speaking, this wasn’t a travel trip, as I never left Urbana-Champaign. But the pictures were too nice to pass up.
Met up with Anurupa, who was studying at the Scuola Della Guaratelle in Napoli that summer. Fell in love with the soft doughy and incredibly flavourful Napolitan Pizzas. Pictures - ylog.org/2002trip
One of the nicest things about studying in the US was that stopovers on the way home to India for vacations were so much fun. In March 2001, I stopped at Stockholm and met Bunti in Oxford before flying to Delhi for a surprise visit. In December, I travelled through Vienna with Abhilash and Mike, and went skiing on the Stubai Tal glacier near Innsbruck. Some pictures here.
Spent a month at SECMOL - the Students Educational and Cultural Movement of Ladakh, as a mathematics resource person for their Primary Teacher Training Programme. Pictures - ylog.org/ladakh