A sweaty experience

The past week has been like the others here in Mumbai, going to clinics, seeing sick people, while attempting not to succumb to the heat or the crowds. Getting from one place to another is like summer in Disneyland, trying to get from Space Mountain to Splash Mountain. You are pushing, being pushed, while all you really want to do is slap the stupid idiot blocking your way, sit in the shade and drink an ice cold lemon-thingy and then just get on the ride. Except here there is no ride at the end of the line, just a hotter, more crowed train.

After taking such a ride this week I would end up in a leprosy clinic. If you wish to feel no pain, just have to leper sneeze on you and vua-la, within six months you wont feel your hands and feet. The amount of leprosy has decreased by a huge amount here in the past 20 years, but has had a slight resurgence in the past 3-ish, but have no fear, I can now recognize the signs. Also I have been going to a small clinic by the worst smelling dried fish market imaginable, where I listened to the collapsed lung of a woman, who had Extremely Drug Resistant TB! AAAAHHHHH! I will have to tested when I get back, but it is not as contagious as some (KELAN) may think.

For the weekend, I went to caves in Ellora and Ajanta which was an 8 hr train ride to get to. It was worth it! They where all carved from about 200 BC to 600 AD, from the from Jain, Hindu and Buddhist religions. The weekend started with breakfast on Friday which was some spicy potato-thing, sending me in to a fit of fire breathing sweats, which would be the theme of the whole weekend. Every bit of it involved me sweating all over, from eating in an air conditioned restaurants, to hiking in between the caves, and in an attempt just to avoid heat stroke I had to keep sucking down water and limca (their lemon fanta) with lots of grunts, sighs, and ARRGG's. The caves were amazing, thats all I can really say. For every bit that the Vatican is awe inspiring for its grandness these caves where in their details. Each was cut out of the cliff face in two sets of some 30-odd caves. The largest single cave was created by removing 3,000,000 cubic feet of rock! Yeah it was wild! Many of the caves (particularly Buddhist) had paintings, that where still intact, which along with the giant Buddhas, Shivas, ornate columns and shrines made it quite an experience.

This week I am off to some town on the outskirts of Mumbai (I dont believe there is such a place) where I am to work in some other medical clinic and, you guessed it, see more sick people. But today I was informed that there is a doctor strike (I am also not sure of the existence of this) to I have the day OFF! Yeah more walking!

Rolling on

The weeks are falling like flies. Unfortunately here in Mumbai I am having to deal with mosquitoes, which are impossible to kill. When I have not been chasing these pesky pests, and then subsequently running from them (a doctor burst in a fit of laughter after seeing this process, saying something about westerners) I have been walking around the city, getting my self lost in the all the hustle and bustle. In an attempt to reach the beach by foot I ended up walking in circles (as I found out later) for an hour and a half until I waved down an auto rickshaw, and it was long ride to where he dropped me off. The beaches in Mumbai are done completely Indian style, that is to say, one of them was covered in people, the other covered in trash.
Besides expending energy in my personal locomotion, I have been using it to stand for long periods of time watching surgeries. I have been able to watch a tipple bypass, several angiograms and the removal of a large tumor from the intestine of an unlucky recipient. I have been stationed at a BSES hospital here, which is a strange cult like organization, but harmless only due to the fact that they only want to help people. I went to a TB clinic for the poor, which was amazing, because I observed every kind of TB in the span of 2 -ish hours. My best attempts to breath as little as possible to avoid catching the airborne bacteria where thwarted by a giant celling fan that churned the air with such force that it would blow the paper off desks and cause my hair to assault my eyes. The doctors did tell me that after decades of working there they have never caught TB, and with my impeccable health record (ignore all the broken bones and injuries) I hope to join them in not getting infected.

Pics.

So here are some pictures, I know it been a long time coming. The first one is of The Taj hotel, that was attacked. The second picture is of the kids at Than Goan preforming on Republic Day (mom you would have loved it). The Agra Fort is the next, then the detailed ruby, emerald and other gem inlayed in white marble at the Taj. The last is of the Taj through the enterance gate. I have taken 757 pictures thus far, and have 94 from people that I have been with, so do the math, and I have been averaging over 21 pics a day. I do have several bad copies for one good copy of a picture (on some of them), but still I can take 916 more, yeah 4gb camera memory. I am also creating a link to another album that is online (I hope it works) so you can check out 60 more! Eat it up. http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2217630&l=d7bb7&id=11513397

Mumbai

So I am here in Mumbai! It is much like the rest of India that I have seen but the streets and buildings are bigger, and if it possible it is more crowded. I am told that it is a very safe city in general, I mean you try robbing someone with hundreds of people watching you from every street corner at every hour. Yesterday I went to go see the Gateway to India! It was cool, you know, some big arch that the British built for themselves, or rather that they made Indians make for them. From there I went to Elefanta Island, where there where these really old Hindu caves carved into extravagant temples. They where awesome, but it is freaking hot, and all the smog does not help make one feel cleaner as you are sweating all over your self while looking at the brown water that surrounds Mumbai.
Indian trains are a thing of legend, and let me tell you that there is a reason. They get absurdly full. Think of sitting on a train, with the bench seat, add five people to that seat, then add as many people that can standing in front of you (between you and the seat in front of you) which is about 5 more, and extend that into the isle until people have to hang out the door, which they have to keep open, because if it was to close it would kill and dismember 6 people. When you pull up to a station it is like the running of the bulls into a wall of people trying to get off, but without the bulls (and there must be less shoes).
Today I went to the Hindu (I think its Hindu) hospital that I will be working at for the next week. I observed an angiograph and then angioplasty. It was amazing!

HALF WAY!!!!

This is much like the last post, I am halfway done with the trip. I am currently in a shady Internet cafe at the end of a dark, small walkway, off an alley, off an on/off ramp (traffic direction has little meaning here) from the highway that my hotel is on, in Delhi. The last week in Than Goan was nice, it was the same as the previous week, full of peaceful walks, yoga at dawn and dusk, intermixed with reading and playing with Shoe. We did go on what they call the "Super Hike", on Tuesday. It was over a 2,000ft climb up the hill behind Nature Quest (the place I was staying) to a small village where we held clinic. It took us 4 hrs, it would have been quicker, but Dr. Paul is old and the guy carrying all the meds (80-ish lbs?!) had to rest frequently. It only took us 2 hrs to come hike down, when I say hike you should be imaging a kind of running semi-controlled fall, down a mountain. The week was nice and I left Than Goan happy that I had spent the last two weeks there, and after letting Shoe attack my Birkenstocks for one last time I made the journey back to the labyrinth hotel (my room is the one at the top of right hand stair case after the diangle stairs) in Delhi. I have my flight details and I am flying to Mumbai in 3 hrs (I cant forget to get food first). If the first half of the trip was any indication the second half should be a ride, because thats what the trip has felt like, being shot though space or something, with me screaming AAAHAHHHHHHH the whole way. Anyway I am off to one of the biggest cities in the world which has the largest slum population on Earth (I am sure you can wiki some other cool facts too). Look out below: AAAHHHHHHHHH.

One Month!

This is day 30! Oh how time flies. The last month has been wild. At first I was amazed at everything, it was all so different, but I realized today on the bus back from Rishikesh that I was not cringing as we passed trucks overflowing with sugar cane by playing chicken with on coming traffic, that I was becoming used to it all. I knew it was just the way everyone drives. I can now navigate through towns, do a bit of bargaining, with a sense of knowledge behind my actions, which is much different from the first week. I don't have too much to reflect upon, I have learned a lot while having fun and getting exposure to incredible India. I don't know what happened to the last post but it appears to be placed below the previous one.