IDT Part Four

Our next stop on the IDT was a bit north to the city of Ahmednagar where we'd be visiting the School of Armor. Once again, the highlight of the tour was a firepower demo which showcased the various tanks and armored fighting vehicles of the Indian Army.

T-72 on display

With Ashish (Nepal) in front of a T-72

With Rohit at the train station

Lunch at the Officers' Mess

After the firepower demo, we moved on to the Officers' Mess. Little did I know that this meal had a little something extra in it to spice up my IDT experience. After another few hours of meetings, we boarded the buses to head back to the train. As I sat on the bus, I noticed that I wasn't feeling so well. I got back onto the train and laid down on my bunk to see if I would feel any better. I didn't. As the rest of the officers got ready to go see a movie, I decided to just keep laying there and hope to sleep it off. After about two hours, I woke up with a start realizing that it was time for whatever was in my stomach to go. Fortunately, I managed to make it to the bathroom before everything I ate for lunch violently exited my body. On the plus side, I felt about a million times better after my spectacular boot.

I made my way back to my berth and was prepared to sleep as long as I could. One of the bearers in my carriage (basically a local hired to assist officers with menial jobs) noticed that I was sick and decided that he had to take care of me. First he insisted that I have some tea as that would assuredly make me feel better. I told him thanks, but I just need to sleep. Thirty minutes later he woke me up again, insisting that I drink some tea. I said OK, just to get him to let me sleep. Thirty minutes later he woke me up to give me tea. I figured, well at least now he'll leave me alone. Thirty minutes later he woke me up to insist that I needed to put warmer clothing on. Surely it was the cold that had made me sick (even though it was about 70 degrees outside). I wasn't sure how to respond, but within seconds he was going through my clothes and trying to force me to put on jackets and socks. Since he was basically forcing the socks onto me feet, I humored him and put the socks on. At least then he'd let me get some sleep. Thirty minutes later he woke me up to tell me that I needed to talk to the train doctor. I really had no interest because I knew that I had food poisoning and now just needed to sleep. He wouldn't leave me alone though, so I got up and walked with him to the train doctor. I explained to the doctor that I just needed to sleep. The doctor was ready to push some medication on me, but I said I was fine. I just needed to sleep. I wobbled back to my berth and went back to sleep. Thirty minutes later the bearer woke me up again with some other doctor who wanted to diagnose me. This doctor seemed to think I had a fever, even though I told him I didn't. A thermometer soon cleared that up, but the doctor insist I take some medicine from him. He gave me a bunch of pills, though none of them seemed to be marked in packaging so that I could tell what was what. Thirty minutes later, all of the other officers returned from the movie and the train was soon full of noisy Indians enjoying another evening on the train. I finally got to sleep about two hours later...

After the fun of Ahmednagar, it was time to move on to Deolali and the School of Artillery. Our arrival was greeted by an Army band playing at the train station. For some reason, the Indian Army loves their bagpipers...

The first stop was the Army airfield, where got some hands-on time with Indian Army helicopters and Unmanned Aerial Vehicles.

Searcher UAV

With Mohammed (Egypt) and Dung (Vietnam) on a Cheetah

With my sponsor student Gangs in front of a Mi-8

We then had an artillery demonstration where we watched various Indian artillery crews fire downrange onto area targets.

Artillery crews at work

Mortar crew

Observation helicopter

Me and Tim (UK, far right) with a gun crew

Tim, Jeff, me, Mohammed and Ali (Oman) with an Indian rocket vehicle

Overall, our time in Ahmednagar and Deolali was well spent (minus the food poisoning) watching some impressive demonstartions of Indian firepower. Our next stop would be in Pune, where we looked forward to two nights off the train staying in a hotel...

IDT Part Three

After disembarking from our landing craft on the beach at Gopalpur-by-the-Sea, we boarded buses for our next stop at the Indian Army Air Defence College at Berhampur. This is where the Indian Army trains all of its air defense weapon crews. The highlight of the tour was a demonstration on the beach of the various air defense weapons. As an American, I'm used to mission planning against these weapons, so kind of cool to see them in action.

An OSA-AK vehicle

Video of a ZSU-23 firing

Video of an Igla man-portable air defense system

Video of two Strela air defense vehicles

After seeing the air defense firepower demo, we took the buses to the nearest train station where we met back up with our chartered train. The next day was spent getting settled back on the train. While riding, I was quickly taken under the wing of many Indian officers who wanted to teach me how to play their favorite gambling card game called Flash. I was a bit leery of being a newcomer playing cards for money, but the rules were fairly easy. In return, I taught them how to play Texas Hold'em. They all thought this was pretty cool since this was the game James Bond was playing in Casino Royale.

A day later we turned up at our next stop, Secunderabad. Secunderabad is connected to the large city of Hyderabad. We were scheduled for an overnight stop in the city, so we took the opportunity to book into a proper hotel for the night. After a rather lackluster tour of Hindustan Aeronautics Limited, a few of us jumped into tuk-tuks and headed for the nearest Taj Hotel, always a reliable choice in India for upscale lodging. Even better, there was a shopping center across the street from the hotel which had a proper bar. We showed at Happy Hour and proceded to drain eight pitchers of Kingfisher beer before heading out for some food. Hyderabad is famous for a local biryani dish...basically spicy rice and chicken. We found a restaurant in the area serving biryani and kebabs. Since we'd all had a few too many beers, we ordered way too much food and ate it all way too fast. The food was excellent, but we were all feeling the effects of spicy food eaten at midnight that next morning.

Happy Hour: Gangs, Jose (Chile), Tim (UK), Chris (Singapore), me and Jeff

Jose gets more beers.

Hyderabad biryani at midnight.

After the brief respite of a proper bed, toilet, and shower for the night, it was back to the train the next morning and on our way to the next stop, Ahmednagar, where I would get up close and personal with some Indian salmonella...

IDT Part Two

After almost a full day on the train, we came to our first stop, the city of Vijayawada in the state of Andhra Pradesh. We had a twelve-hour layover, though it seemed for no particular reason. We didn't have any actual official business in the city, but it was still nice to get off of the train for a while. This also gave us a chance to grab a real shower at the train station's VIP lounge (though VIP-class is a very relative term when it comes to Indian trains...)

Our first order of business was getting some real food. Despite only a single day on the train, it was apparent that food was going to be an issue. We were generally provided meals on the train which usually consisted of lukewarm meat on the bone swimming in curry, with rice and chappatis. Repeat twice a day for the next fourteen days.

Anyway, we found a nearby hotel and grabbed some decent food, despite some language challenges. One of the interesting things about India is that every state speaks a completely different language. So even the Indian officers have trouble communicating from state to state. Jeff's sponsor officer Vikas hung out with us and tried to smooth over the language gap...this usually consisted of him repeating what we had just said in English to the waiters in slower English.

Chris (Singapore), Mohammed (Egypt), and I wait for food.

Vikas negotiates a tuk-tuk for us while Ali (Oman) looks on.

After lunch, I joined back up with some of my Indian friends to go watch the Hindi movie Ghajini which had just been released. This was the second Hindi movie I'd seen in as many months. Ghajini is actually a remake of the Hollywood movie Momento...just add singing and dancing and remove the reverse storyline. Not as good as the original, but entertaining nonetheless.


Although Vijayawada gave us a nice break from the train, we still had twelve hours on the rails before reaching our first official stop. Sleeping on the train was a unique experience as well. I've slept on trains in Europe, and generally the rocking of the train is great for putting me to sleep. This sleeping experience wasn't quite as nice. The sleeping berths were just a tad short for me and my feet tended to hang out into the aisle just enough to get jostled every time someone walked past. The Indian officers usually didn't go to sleep until about midnight, and then everyone was woken up at 5 am to the sound of the tea-walla walking up and down the aisle serving bed-tea. I would try to ignore this, but it's hard to stay asleep when everyone around you is getting up to have their morning tea. I still don't understand how they keep those hours.

Anyway, our first official stop on the IDT was at the naval port of Vishakapatnam, also known as Vizag. The foreign officers were split off from the rest of the group and taken to see a simulation center, which turned out to be pretty uninteresting. We had all hoped to get to see some of the ships in the port. As luck would have it, INS Ranvir was docked right near our bus, so we acted like we knew what we were doing and just walked up into the ship. The sailors on board were happy to give us a quick tour, though it almost caused us to miss our bus to the next stop.

Left: On the forecastle of INS Ranvir
Right: Zaw Oo (Myanmar), Tim (UK), Jose (Chile), Jeff, Dung (Vietnam), Jerome (Lesotho), and I in front of INS Ranvir. Ruslan (Ukraine) and Amin (Afghanistan) in front.

Once we caught back up to the bus, we were taken to another part of the port where our next mode of transportation was located. We were to spend one overnight traveling on an Indian landing ship which would take us to next stop. We grabbed our bags and boarded our respective ships; in my case, the INS Kesari.

Mohammed and I board the ship.

With Amin and Chris on the INS Kesari.

While on-board the INS Kesari we got to watch various naval demonstration at sea, and enjoyed the sun and the breeze while sitting on the helo deck. I had been a bit worried about conditions on the ship, but it was all quite pleasant. That evening we watched a movie (in Hindi) and had the best meal of the trip so far.

Our sister ship, the INS Magar.

With Manpreet looking out on the sea.

On the helo deck. Back row - Ashish (Nepal), Ali, Mohammed and me. Front row - Jerome, Chris, Lanka (Sri Lanka), Ruslan and Amin.

Sleeping quarters on the ship were a bit tight, but actually better than the train.

The next morning we gathered up our bags and made our way down the scramble nets and into the ship's landing craft. These small boats then took us to the coast where we met our buses for the next stop of the trip, Gopalpur.

Left: Fun with scramble nets
Right: On-board the landing craft

Local villagers watch us coming into port.

IDT Part One

After the fun of the Christmas break was over, it was time to get back to the college and down to the business of finishing off this course. Typical of this college's aptitude for sucking the fun out of anything, classes for the new term began promptly at 0830 on January 1st! Welcome to 2009, here's a kick in the nuts...

Anyway, the first order of business for the new term was attending our second big tour of the course, the Industrial Demonstration Tour. This tour is two weeks on a train traveling around southern India to visit various industry and defense locations, along with getting to see some demonstrations of the Indian military.

On a Saturday morning we piled into the college buses for a quick trip down the hill from Wellington to Mettupallaym, where we'd be meeting the train. The student body was split into two separate trains traveling on different days, so there were about 200 students on each trip. Upon arrival at Mettupallayam, we realized that the train wouldn't be leaving for another three hours. Luckily, Tim (UK) had spied a bar on the way into the station, so about eight of the foreign officers made our way down the street to have a few beers before embarking on the great adventure.

Jose (Chile), Chris (Singapore), and Zaw Oo (Myanmar) dive into lunch in a dive.

Jeff, Tim and me.

Zaw Oo and Ruslan (Ukraine)...pass the Superstrong.

200 officers scramble from the bus to the train. Actually less organized than it looks.

After four or five Kingfisher Superstrongs and a bit of lunch, we were ready to face the train. We were prepared for fairly rough conditions on the train, and the college didn't let us down. We had a train dedicated for the college, but we were put in third-class coaches with four officers sharing a small cabin about 5 feet by 10 feet. Additionally, there was nothing separating the cabins from the rest of the train, so it was essentially one open bay. I'll let the pictures of the bathroom speak for themselves...

Our train at the platform in Mettupallayam.

Bathroom instructions...put your feet on the footpads, squat (while holding on to something for balance) and do your business. The cup is for "cleaning" (no toilet paper provided) and the bucket is for bathing. Not shown, the hole in the floor goes directly to the tracks. If anyone in India ever asks you to take a nice walk along the railroad tracks, I recommend you say no.

Typical cabin...not much room for tall white guys.

Regardless, we were on our way. The first twenty-four hours were spent entirely on the train. We used the time to get settled, get to know each other, and play some cards. The first stop on the IDT was approaching...

Mumbai Calling

The final stop on Jodi's whirlwind visit to south Asia was in Mumbai, where she'd be catching her flight to head back to the US. We were a little bit concerned that security might still be an issue since the 26/11 attacks had occurred only three weeks prior, but Mumbai seemed to be pretty much back to its busy self. We only stayed in town for a couple of days before Jodi's flight, but did manage to get in a little sight seeing.

Jodi in front of the Taj Palace Hotel. They reopened the day after this picture.

The Gate of India, where the 26/11 attackers disembarked.

Bustling downtown Mumbai. Lots of taxi cabs.

L: The outside of Mani Bhavan, Gandhi's house when he stayed in Mumbai.
R: Dobi ghats, where laundrymen clean the city's laundry by hand.

Since we were in the home of Bollywood, we also took a trip to an Indian cinema to see a Hindi movie. Although we didn't understand the dialogue, Bollywood storylines are extremely obvious with lots of slapstick humor and singing and dancing numbers. The cinematography was actually pretty good, and we didn't get bored even though the movies are some three hours long. Here's the trailer for the movie we saw, Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi:

After our short stint in Mumbai, it was time to head to the airports to say our goodbyes for now. Jodi caught her plane back to St. Louis, and I caught my plane back to Coimbatore to finish up my final four months in Wellington.

With Jodi's visit behind me, it was time to use the last week of the Christmas break to finish off my dissertation and get ready for the last two terms of Staff College. We did take a break from dissertation writing to celebrate New Year's Eve with our friends.

Back row: AJ and Vikas (India), Vanessa (Australia), me, Jazna (Chile), Jeff, and Hilde (UK) Front row: Tera, Gaby (Chile), Tim (UK) and Shamim (Bangladesh)

A long, strange 2008 was put behind us. Next up was a new school term and two weeks of train travel for the Industrial Demonstration Tour...