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How do you get to an eclipse
in the middle of the Great Thar Desert in Rajastan? Not easily.
Indians tend to view solar eclipses as ominous occurrences, and prefer
to avoid them. Our hotel in Bikaner, mindful of the safety and well being
of its guests, sent around a letter the day before with helpful 
advice
for "enjoying the eclipse" that included staying in one's room
with the curtains drawn! In view of this attitude, and the fact that we
needed to travel about 70km north from Bikaner to the eclipse path near
Lunkaransar, and then at least another 10km into the desert (the air pollution
is so severe in any Indian city or village as to virtually preclude any
type of astronomical observation), we were careful to secure a car and
driver a day early. Unfortunately, the day before the eclipse was the
Indian holiday of Diwali, and the celebrating tends to go on into
the small hours. Whether because of this or simple superstitious fear,
our driver failed to show up at the arranged upon 5:00 AM. By 6:00 ("T"
minus 2½ hours) we had succeeded in finding another driver who
was willing to risk the eclipse in exchange for about a month's salary
(fortunately, not a great financial burden in India). 
While
two hours might seem like plenty of time to travel a mere 80km, anyone
familiar with Indian roads will recognize the slimness of the margin we
were working with. Now superstition worked in our favor, however, and
the normally crowded roads were virtually empty. We headed north and found
a small road across the desert that appeared (on the map) to cross the
eclipse path. Navigating by GPS and a programmable calculator, we arrived
at the supposed center of the path of totality with less than an hour
to spare. It remained only to set up our observing equipment and hope
that our calculations were correct and that we were indeed in the right
place (an error of only 1km would result in our seeing only a partial
eclipse). Well, through a combination of luck and the miracle of modern
technology, totality began within 10 seconds of its predicted time. As
darkness fell and the stars came out, wail-like chanting could be heard
from the surrounding desert, adding a surrealistic touch to an awe inspiring
spectacle.
