Hello all,
My travel companions that have just recently blogged have summed our recent events up fairly well. I’ll try not to be too repetitious. Today has been our first full free day and it has been fantastic so far. I already find myself saying “fantastic” more often after only a couple of days with Gopal. We had breakfast at the canteen at the hospital which has pretty good food and most meals average around 50 cents. We then were enlightened with Paras’s talk on organophosphate poisoning, which invoked some interesting discussion as Gopal mentioned. We then headed into town on the bus which did have great music along with some interesting light effects. Now we are hanging out at a great coffee shop, which my lonely planet guide book described accurately as a “hip cafe.” They have espresso which makes me very happy and good food. We’ve heard they will play us a movie for Rs 100 (a little over $2) so we definitely will be spending an evening or two here.
Overall, it’s been a great experience thus far. At times I’m overwhelmed with the poverty and state of things, but at others impressed with the fine clothing, jewelry, cars, etc. It’s a very interesting place. It’s been more difficult to communicate then I expected, but we are getting by.
I forgot to mention- We traveled from the bus stop to our current location by rickshaw, which is an interesting motorized 3-wheel auto. I really liked it, I wish I had one of my own. I could probably pick one up for a few thousand Rs but getting it home might be an issue. Hope all is well at home.
CaseIndiaTrips 2 