Adventurous eclipse expedition

PTS

Hi,
After an adventurous solar eclipse expedition in Hangzhou with Ho Cham, I would like to share our wonderful experience.
We took the train from HK to Guangzhou, then the K210 train to Hangzhou. 3 days before our departure, KK Chiu informed us that Jay Pasachoff would be leading the IAU Solar eclipse somewhere in Hangzhou and they are setting up headquarter in a "Tianchi Hotel" which is some 2 hours drive from Hangzhou, and asked if we like to join this group.  We agreed and asked KK to book a room with the Expedition group.  KK left us with all the telephone contacts and asked us to call him upon arriving at Hangzhou.  However, I was not able to find any information from the internet about this Tianchi Hotel. Ho Cham had doubt if it was worthwhile to spend the RMB500 to hire a taxi to go there.  We had a deep discussion and decided to see how things developed before finalising our movement.

In the cabin of the train bound for Hangzhou, we met a father-daughter team.  The father was taking his 11-yr old daughter to see the eclipse in Hangzhou. Naturally we chatted and Ho Cham gave them a sun-filter because all they had was an exposed & developed film.  Sometime after mid-night, the father pointed to an article in a local popular science magazine which described about the selection of the Tianchi Resort as the headquarter for an international eclipse expedition.  We were excited at the news -- at least we now knew thw Chinese name of the location!  Ho Cham carefully wrote down the address of this resort. This note proved to be our "life line" the next day.

By that time, Ho Cham and I had the following in mind:
While all forcasts point to Tongling as the best bet for a clear sky, why should Jay Pasachoff, long recognised as the world authority on eclipse expedition, chose somewhere near Hangzhou?  There must be some reason behind that, and we were then shifting to trust Pasachoff over the other options.
Then we found out the chosen site, Tianchi Resort, is actually built next to a small resevoir to save electrical energy.  It operates by pumping water up to this resevoir in the night (when electrical power usage is minimum, meaning the electricity will be wasted if not used), and the water will be used to generate electricity in the daytime, thus functioning as a storage battery.  This site is high in the mountain near Anji, a small town about 100 km from Hangzhou to the NWN direction, and just 40 km SWS of Huzhou.  This site is as close to the centre line as Tongling, but many km's to the East.  This help us to decide on our destination.

Upon arriving in Hangzhou at around 10:30 on July 21, we were "welcome" by an eager taxi driver who offered to drive us to the address Ho Cham shown him, for RMB350.  Ho Cham, long knwon for his concientious, told me to be ware of these offer.  We then tried to call KK but his phone could not be reached.  We believed he was out of Hangzhou with his tour group, and call Jay Pasachoff's assistant directly.  We were told to take a taxi to the site.  As were did not have a valid telephone card, were tried to get one but failed.  Then I suggested that since all cab drivers must have a phone, there would be no need for us to get a phone card (How wrong was this decision! we ran into much trouble later for this.). Eventually we got into a cab, and after a few minutes' bargaining, the driver agreesd to take us there for RMB380.  We felt this driver was more trust worlthy as he did called his friends to check the mileage before asking for RMB450 for the trip.  The Ho Cham made the smart move to ask him to pick us up the next day, at 10:30, to get us back to Hangzhou because we have booked the ticket for the 15:41 train back to Guangzhou (can you imagine how silly our plan were?).

So far so good, and we enjoyed the sunshine and nice view while the driver rush us towards Anji.  Then about 20 km from Anji, we were stopped by a police who told us that the road to the resort was closed.  I "smartly" shown him my email printout (all in English!)that we are part of the expedition and have permission to go there.  We also asked the driver to call Pasachoff's assistant and asked her to confirm this with the policeman, who let us through.  We felt relieved, but just for 10 more minutes.

When we were driving up the hill and arrived at a junction, we saw a large banner which "welcome to astronomers from China and overseas to TianChi Resort".  While Ho Cham and I started to feel excited to be on the right track, we were stopped, this time by a road block and a group of police, who asked us to show our permit to go further.  We called Pasachoof's assistant who, after 20 minutes, were not able to get us through.  The taxi driverwas irritated for being held up (maybe also for being hungry then).  Ho Cham and I argued for a long time with the police.  After some 10 minutes into the argument, and to our surprise and excitement, the police offered to drive us to the resort, which is a further 8 km up.  Finally we arrived at the hotel around 14:30.


PTS

universe24

I can feel the adventurous of your trip. Would like to see more images about the side and weather condition during the eclipse happen.

astroQM

Sounds very exciting!

orion

PTS,

You were very lucky that you got a honest driver. Usually, it's a high risk to hire a taxi for such a long distance in China. You may be asked to pay more in the middle of your trip and the policeman may be part of the gang.

PTS

Orion,
Thank you for your advice.
In fact, The above story is only the first part.
When we "completed" our eclipse observation, i.e. as soon as totality was over, we started to pack up and tried to get a car to drive us back to the road block, as the taxi driver promised to come to pick us up at 11:00.  This time, the Hotel arranged several shuttle bus to get us down the mountain, in fact to Anji .
Ho Cham and I had considered going directly to Anji where we could get back to Hangzhou much easier (There should be public bus to Hangzhou from Anji).  However, we seemed to have some trust in the taxi driver and decided to get off at the road block, and it was just 10:30.  The policemen there recognised us and Ho Cham proudly shown them his "diamond Ring" photo.  Surely we were worrying if the taxi would ever come !
After some 45 minutes of sun bath, and after witnessing the 4th contact with our solar filter and naked eyes, the taxi finally showed up and we arrived at Hangzhou Train Station before 13:00.

PTS