Day 5 in Bangkok, Thailand (13 April 2014)

I woke up at 3:30am to checkout and catch my flight at 6:50am. At the time of writing we already have flown 4 hrs and 10 minutes and another two hours left to touch down at Narita airport in Tokyo. After nearly three hours layover in Tokyo, I’ll kick off my flight to Newark (direct flight). Anyway, if everything goes as planned, I’ll be in my home at 10:00pm (Boston local time) on Sunday. 
Yep! As planned I made it home safely. I would like to thank a spectrum of people who astonishingly provided their help to make our installation process a success.  

                                                      Heading to my gate at Bangkok airport!

 

 Tokyo (Nerita) airport!

Day 4 in Bangkok, Thailand (12 April 2014)

Since I’ve a lot of works, waiting for me, I decided to stay at my hotel and work instead of joining Dan and Kathryn for further exploration of Bangkok. However, I got some time to have a short walk and get a famous Thai massage, which makes me so fresh and ready to work on my proposals. Other than that, I spent the whole day at the hotel working, and do not have that much to report. However, I’ve been watching the data online if everything is ok! Tomorrow is the day that I start my long way back to home.

Day 3 in Bangkok, Thailand (11 April 2014)

May be today is a blessed day! When I step out of my hotel I saw this!

As usual, we took a taxi to AIT. This time communication with the taxi driver was a bit difficult. Neither he understands English nor does he know the whereabouts of AIT. A disaster; right? He exited the highway way before we get closer to AIT, and of course we got lost. He asked a police officer, but we had no idea what they talked but we know we are in the wrong place. Finally, with lots of difficulties, and surprisingly with our lead, we got to AIT. When we got to the room where our electronics are located, one of Dr Nitin’s students, Sanit, who has been very instrumental for the entire our installation process, told us a kind of bad news. The internet lab head called the student last night (~11:00PM local time) and yelled at him, saying “you are a student and you shouldn’t contact me directly on my phone, etc” (because Dr Nitin used Sanit’s phone when he tried to reach her yesterday evening). 

This is the internet lab that I'm talking about!

Now I’m shaking! I ask Sanit, “does that mean we can’t use her lab?”, Sanit doesn’t know but instead he would like to find out if the permission she gave to Dr Nitin still stands. Sanit rushed to the lab to learn more about it. He called me while he was at the internet lab, and told me “yes we can use the lab”. We disconnected everything and moved to the internet lab. While we were in the middle of reassembling everything, we were told to “freeze everything” (just to use the exact word) until she (the lab head) comes and talk to us directly. Well! I had to be so diplomatic here. I told the secretary that “we’ll not do any permanent thing, we are just testing the site until she comes and if she said no we’ll pack up and go”, the secretary agreed and we plugged everything and started testing. The site is much better than the previous, but still the mysterious current is there but it is very weak compared to the previous one. While we were doing that one of the senior staff at the lab came and “interrogated” me with different familiar questions (because I encountered similar questions wherever I put my instruments); like what I measure with it?, why in Thailand?, what is the importance to the country?, what do AIT get out of it?, etc; and I patiently explained everything. He then went back and called his boss and confirmed me that “Yes we can use their lab space” and even gave me a better and secure room to put my electronics. Holey Molly! While we started digging, the lab head showed up and Dr Nitin introduced me to her. She also asked me several questions like her staff did, and after I explained everything, I took the opportunity and invited her to come to my seminar this afternoon so that she can learn more about what we do with the instrument. She happily agreed to show if her other meeting winds up early.  

 

 Game started!

Computer plagged in!

We went for lunch, letting the instrument run for a while. Fortunately, today was international day at AIT. That means each country brought their nation’s food and sales it at the food fair. We bought our lunch from there and rushed back to work. Since we have only half day left with long weekend (because of a major holiday in Thailand, a kind of New Year), the team had to split for the afternoon duty. I went to my seminar and Kathryn and Dan decided to stay around the instrument and follow-up the outdoor work. Because of the coming major holiday in Thailand and international day at AIT, there were no that many people at the seminar. Guess what? The internet lab head and her senor staff showed up to the seminar which went out very successfully. It seems that the seminar completely changed hers and her senor staff’s attitude, because after the seminar they both come to me and couldn’t stop thanking me for bringing two of my instruments into Thailand. She assured me that she will do everything she can to keep my instrument safe. Listen this, all dedicated IP address (two) and its configuration completed within an hour after the seminar. Did she do something about it? I do not know. But I know one thing, her senior staff came to me before he left for home and told me this, “to make your data flow successful and to avoid any internet traffic, we gave you a completely separate IP address”. Thank you so much man! 

 International day food fair at AIT!

 Group photo after my seminar (VP woman is the second to my left)

 Sensor in place!

  

 Antenna on the roof!

Outdoor work completed!

 Finally, the instrument get the right spot, data flow confirmed by my body, Matt Magoun, the real time data is already online, all outdoor work completed, what else; none just go back home. As a good bye, Dr Nitin and his two graduate students took us to one of a big shopping mall. We had dinner at one of Thai restaurant in the premises of the shopping mall, where we had to sit on the floor with legs crossed. Initially, I thought it’ll be hard for me to sit that long with legs crossed, but actually it was fun. We had delicious dinner and sadly, we had to say goodbye to everybody, which we did and went back to our hotel by taxi, no AIT van today because all the drivers went home for the holiday. We got to our hotel safely, and tomorrow is a free day since we completed all our tasks today. Last definitely not least, I sincerely thank Dr Nitin and his two bright and very help full students (Rajesh and Sanit), without their help the installation would have not been possible.

 Went to this shopping mall!

 Pictures inside the shopping mall!

 Headed to this restaurant!

If you need food you need to sit like this!

Wow! Poor fish, look at him!

Day 2 in Bangkok, Thailand (10 April 2014)

Since AIT is a bit out of the city (about an hour drive from our hotel), our host couldn’t manage to arrange a car to shuttle us back and forth. Thus we were told to take a taxi to AIT. With the help of the hotel boys, we got a meter taxi. Hummm! Meter taxi? Yes! The taxi has meter on it but does not provide a receipt. However, we finally figure out some way to get a receipt. When we get at the AIT compound, our host welcomed us and directed us to the room where our magnetometer was stored.

 AIT sponsor countries' flag

 AIT Logos!

 Searching home for our sensor!

What was next? O! boy! It was the hardest thing to get a quite spot for our sensor. The place what our host dreamed of is separated by a river from the building and there was no way to get the cable cross the river. We did search different area of the institute if there is any remote and quite area, but found none. There was one reasonable nice location which is close to the library. I took Dr Nitin with me to the library if they can allow us to put our electronics there, but we were not welcomed at all. The whole morning passed just by searching sites. Finally, after lunch, we laid the down along the bridge and see how far we can take the sensor to the site that our host dreamed of, and found reasonable distance which is away the pedestrian and bicycle population area. However, the professor at the closest side of the building refused to let us put one simple table in his office. Instead we were given the next room, which we had to pull the sensor closer to the bicycle and pedestrian area. One major problem we investigated, there is a huge periodical current coming that disturb the Z-component of the geomagnetic field. We knew this could not be a good site to leave our sensor, thus while I was doing further diplomacy, Dan and Kathryn found out that this big unknown current is coming from the river which I still have no idea how. 

 

 This where we put the electronics for overnight!  

 Look the mysterious current on Z-component of our data!

The cable had to pass on top of this bridge along with the power line!!

Almost at the end of the day, Dr Nitin remembered one possible site, the internet laboratory. We rushed there and it was in deed reasonably quite spot, however, we have to get permission from the head of the lab who is also the vice president of the entire AIT. However, she was nowhere to be found. Finally, we decided to leave our instrument for overnight and see how the data looks like, in the meantime Dr Nitin look for the internet laboratory head. He tried to reach her on phone but her phone was switched off. Finally, we done for the day and walked to the van that Dr Nitin arranged for the entire group to go for dinner; and while we were waiting at the van for the group to join, the lady called back and told Dr Nitin that we can use one of the rooms in her lab. Later Dr Nitin told us the good news. That was really good news, for a while at least. We then went to one of the best Indian restaurants in Bangkok, which we had amazingly delicious dinner. In general, Thursday is gone without any major achievement, let see what will happen tomorrow. 

 Dinner at the Indian Restaurant in Bangkok!

Day 4 in Phuket, Thailand (9 April 2014)

Believe it or not, today I over slept which means the jet-lag is gone already. Unfortunately, this our last day in Phuket and we had to checkout from our hotel. The university car picked us up at 9:30am and arrived at the AMBER site around 10:00am; everything looks great, the mag running normal, the SCINDA GPS works fine, the out door work is almost done. What else? we are just making a final check ups. We will head on to the airport within a couple of hours, and stay tune for more update from Bangkok.

 Temporary GPS cables!

 Sensor after their fence is set in place           

 MAG and SCINDA GPS receivers, sharing the same table together

 The mag computer!

 SCINDA computer!

 Final goodby to our mag in Phuket!

 Although it is an hour flight, but this is the plane you get from Bangkok to Phuket!

 Partial view of Bangkok from my hotel room!

Finally, we got back to Bangkok and made to our hotel successfully. Bangkok normal taxi do not give you receipt and thus to get a receipt, we had to pay a tinny bit more. Looking forward to kick off our second mission tomorrow and stay tune for the update.    

Day 3 in Phuket, Thailand (8 April 2014)

Ok! the jet-lag is gone today, and woke up at 5:45am, which is the best so far. I managed to have a little swim in the morning before I head of to the university. As usual, the university car picked us up from our hotel.

 Start digging!

 Bingo! sensor aligned!

We were so excited to check what went wrong because Matt sent us email that he lost the connection. Well! guess what went wrong? Our computer for some reason automatically shut down exactly at local midnight. It did not take us long to figure out the reason and Kathryn fixed that shortly, while I was taking care of the out door work. Ya! out door work! if you think the Thai work hard as the Chinese does, I'm afraid that you are way far wrong. Anyway, the out door work did not go as far as we expected before lunch. However, after lunch we investigated the spice that can hibernate the Thai laborers to work fast and hard. Well! it worked nicely and accomplished almost everything. That means, the censor got aligned, the building got drilled and the mag and GPS cables placed in properly, cables buried, the GPS antenna mounted. The only thing left for tomorrow morning is to put fencing around the sensor just let people know that there is something and please do not get closer. Fantastic! 

 

The two GPS antennas side by side!

Ops! The SCINDA GPS receiver, since we sent short GPS cable, it was not enough to go to the proper antenna location. Initially, I was told that the fourth floor is allowed to place SCINDA computer so that we'll get enough GPS cable antenna. However, latter that promise got reversed and we were strictly told that we have to use the same room where our mag electronics are hiding. Then I took a gamble and put the GPS antenna close to the mag GPS antenna, the cable barely made it to the second floor. However, I'm not comfortable, may be I'm wrong and the SCINDA team can correct me, because we placed the antenna in the middle of the 30 degree inclined sheet metal roof and that may cause a lot of multi-path. Solution! we have to send long GPS cable as soon as possible so that the GPS antenna will get very appropriate location that we already identified. Other than the data transfer seems successful, because I got message from Chris that he already started receiving data from here. bingo! 

 Here is Patong beach look like at the night side!

Since we accomplished a lot in one day we celebrated with nice dinner and few draft beer and also got a chance to walk around to see the night side of Phuket. What a successful day, thank you everybody. We will go back to the university for final check-up to see if everything is working ok before we head of back to Bangkok for our second mag deployment at AIT. So, see you tomorrow for the update!     

Day 2 in Phuket, Thailand (7 April 2014)

Ya! the jet-lag woke me up at 4:30am, which is not that bad. The university car with three group of folks showed up to pick us up at 8:30am. At the unveristy we met our point of contact Dr
Chinnawat Surussavadee, who happens to be MIT graduate. He took us to the possible sites to pick the right location for our sensor. After a few search, we found a suitable site for the sensor. Well! there is always be one minor problem, this time the GPS cable is short to put the antenna at the four story building roof, thus we have to find a home for the computer on the second floor. Thanks to Dr

Chinnawat, we found one excellent room in the library building. The GPS cable from the roof barely made to the second floor room where we have the computers. 

On our way to the university

This is the building where Dr Chinnawat's group sit!

Searching for sensor site!

This is the room where we put our electronics!

Providing seminar!

Here is the team!

At the dinner!

After we setup the computer and laid down the magnetometer cable and seonsor outside, Dr Chinnawat and his team took us to one of the nearby restaurant. O! man the Thai food is so delicious, and I couldn't stop eating. We got back to the university and did about an hour and half seminar. We got to the computer room and successfully completed the internet configuration. Of course, I have to wake my man across the Atlantic, Matt Magoun, to check if he can see us from there. Sure! in deed he sees us and get connected without any problem. This is the first time that the IP configuration went through without any delay. We completed our work for the day at 6:00pm and Dr Chinnawat and his team took us to another restaurant for dinner. Again the food is so so nice. Finally, we got back to our hotel around 9:00pm. Let's see how far we go with the outside work! stay tune!