Indians take to the streets in celebration as monsoon clouds burst open each June.
Some have chartered a jetliner that will follow the path of the eclipse from Delhi, flying over any monsoon clouds.
Further launches are promised.Admittedly, the fireworks, which took place at a time of heavy cover from seasonal monsoon clouds, were something of a damp squib.
Rising into the monsoon clouds in a remote corner of Cambodia, they were one last enclave of Khmer Rouge guerrillas, impenetrable and seeded with land mines.
At this time of the year there are dark monsoon clouds on most mornings, and seeing the sun is a rarity; but for at least half the year the mornings are the most beautiful time of day.
A week after I landed, the monsoon clouds arrived, but this time the Indus River swelled and burst its banks: my vacation coincided with the largest natural disaster in Pakistan's history.
On the way I lay flat on the bows, clutching the gunwales and staring up at the swirling monsoon clouds which looked like smoke rings in the light of the full moon.
They include ancient Greek vases, a backward flag, piles of cartoon rocks, a star-filled sky that could be from an American landscape painting and monsoon clouds from an Indian miniature.
The monsoon clouds travel the same route as the plane, bringing welcome rain to the baking plains, before being forced upwards by the Himalayas and covering them with snow.
It provides a taste of authentic Tibetan culture, and, like much of Tibet, it lies in the Trans-Himalaya, a vast high-altitude desert to the north of the main Himalayan range, which blocks most of the monsoon clouds that dump rain on India and Southeast Asia in the summer.
