Golden Triangle Tour

In my final week in India, I traveled the "Golden Triangle": Jaipur, Agra, and Delhi. I traveled with a tour company, Intrepid, and my group consisted of 11 tourists from Australia, the UK, the US, and Canada, and our trusty leader, Anand, a native of South India and tour guide for the past 7 years. As a group, we had a blast!! Traveling with Anand meant that I saw things that I never would have found on my own, like the old spice market in Delhi, or the best mango shake stand in the city. He also took care of some of my least favorite things about traveling in India, like the haggling for things like rickshaw fares. The transition from the quiet of the mountains was strange at first, but not as difficult as I feared. I loved my time in these cities.


JAIPUR: The Pink City

 After a couple of days in Delhi, we traveled first to Jaipur in the state of Rajasthan, one of the most popular states for tourists. The city was originally painted pink for the visit of a British viceroy, and it continues to get painted from time to time to keep up its beautiful coat. The old city, including all buildings and surrounding wall and gates, are ALL pink. The city has since exploded out of its original walls. We went on a walk around the city through the crazy bazaars, flower market, and to the Palace of the Winds. It is undergoing restoration, so there is bamboo scaffolding around it, but you can still see the beauty of the structure.

One thing to know about Rajasthan is that it is a desert state. We saw this immediately on our train ride in. The work animal used in Rajasthan is the camel! We also felt it: every day was at least 90 degrees; most were 100. That said, the first thing we did upon arrival in mid-afternoon in the dead of heat was... go see a Bollywood movie! We went to the famous Raj Mandir theater. Unfortunately, the movie they were showing was a horror movie, but it's Bollywood, so there was still an elaborate song-and-dance number!! Haha. It was about a long-haired witch that turned into a gecko, so for the rest of the trip, every time we saw a gecko (or long-haired woman), we would eye each other and whisper "it's the witch!"

The next day, we went to the beautiful Amer Fort and Palace, about 15 kms from the city where.... I rode an elephant!!! THIS elephant:

The Amer Fort palace is like the Versailles of Rajasthan. It is an incredible palace built into a hill in the desert. It combines Hindu and Islamic architectural influences. We had a great tour guide. One of my favorite stories: there are ramps everywhere in the palace so that the queen could be pushed around in a wheelchair, not because she was ill or could not walk, but because she was always so covered in gold and heavy jewels that she could not lift herself around.

The receiving room or opening hall of the palace

The hall of mirrors! You can see why I thought of Versailles.

The palace gardens seemingly floating in a reservoir in front of the palace. At the top of the far hill, you can see the safety wall, which looks like a smaller version of the Great Wall of China.

Gray/Hanuman langurs! Hanging out on a palace wall.

We finished our stay in Jaipur by shopping around the city then spending dinnertime at the home of one of Anand (our tour guide)'s friends, and his friend did a cooking demo for us, showing us how to make lentils, eggplants, and cheese curries. Yummm.

KARAULI: Desert Kingdom

Next we traveled to Karauli, a town in Rajasthan, and an old kingdom. We got to stay in a palace!! We also got to meet the Queen of Karauli! She and her husband work in politics now as advocates for their town. She told us they have built 90 schools in the past 5 years, especially for girls. We got a tour around the palace grounds: main house, menagerie (peacocks, guinea fowl, other weird birds), pool (I went swimming!!!!), stables, garage, horses, cows, and farm. We also went for a walk through town then to a Hindu temple during their prayer service. My favorite part was when a large group of women gathered and sang prayers with a drum and chime instruments.

Our room

Entrance to our room

Palace courtyard

We also had the opportunity to get mahendi, aka henna tattoos (non-permanent, last 2-3 weeks). The artist draws them on with ink made from the mahendi plant, then the ink stays on, slowly hardening for hours while you try desperately not to touch anything. Eventually, for us it was after about 6 hours in the sun, you apply a mix of lemon juice, sugar, and water, letting the mix drip over the hardened ink. I waited about another hour, then washed off any remaining ink that didn't flake off on its own. Voila! I purposely didn't tell my dad about this particular endeavor in advance. He picked me up at the airport, then noticed it about an hour later. Not thrilled, hahaha.

AGRA: Home of the Taj Mahal

Agra of the state Uttar Pradesh is most famous for housing the Taj Mahal. It is also home of the Agra Fort and nearby ghost town of Fatehpur Sikri, but I missed these two monuments due to GI illness; I made it through the whole trip without getting sick until then. I spent the day sweating (over 100 degrees) and recovering when we traveled from Karauli to Agra so that I would be ready to see the Taj the next day. I was fortunate; I felt ill for less than 24 hours, no problem.

We went to the Taj Mahal at sunrise!!! It was beautiful. It is worth all of the hype. It was also a wonderful time of day to see the Taj since it went up to 110 that day. Yikes.

Hooray! Jumping for joy with Stacey, my friend from HHE and roommate for this last week.

Later that day, we had a real "Amazing Race" moment getting on our train back to Delhi. After seeing the Taj, we leisurely spent the day relaxing, eating lunch, and doing a little bit of shopping. We pushed our time back before leaving for the station to see a wedding band play, to which I did some bhangra dancing, which they loved and cheered me on haha. We finally get on our mini-bus, laughing, stop for Fanta and Limca, drive a bit farther, and then we just stop. The bus stops moving, we all start looking at our clocks and frantically asking Anand when our train leaves. He gets out of the bus, jogs down the road to see what's happening, and gets back: "Ok, uh, guys... if we stay in this bus we have a 99.99% chance of missing our train. We could also get out and walk..." We also agree that we need to get out, so then we frantically grab our bags, start quickly weaving through the stopped traffic, rushing past some construction and lanes of traffic just facing each other, not allowing anyone to pass. We see auto rickshaws just past, which ask for an inordinate fee, go a bit farther and and the next tuk tuk driver is drunk. Finally, we get to an intersection where we load the group into 3 tuk tuks (a squeeze with all of our bags and 10 people). My tuk tuk arrives at the train station (5 km past construction) with 5 minutes until our train leaves, the next one arrives, and..... we wait and wait for the third one. Anand worries it went to the other train station in town..... then it arrives! (apparently the driver was singing "no worries, no hurry!" the whole time as they all shouted YES HURRY!!). We run through the station to our platform, and our train isn't there yet! We made it. Within 3 minutes, it arrives, we load up, then leave. PHEW! Many in our group had early morning flights the next day, so it was pretty important to make this train that arrived in Delhi at 11 PM. This night we said good-bye to most of our group.

DELHI: Back in the Big City

The end of the tour left me with one final day in Delhi. My flight left at 3:20 am the next day, so I had a day to spend with Stacey, my roommate, and Louise, a Brit from the tour, before a 10 PM cab ride to the airport. We had breakfast with Anand at our favorite nearby South Indian restaurant, then got mango shakes. We spent the rest of the day at some of the most peaceful places in the city.

We first went to Humayun's Tomb, called the predecessor to the Taj Mahal. When the Obamas came to India, this is the one place they were taken. I can see why. It's an awesome structure in the middle of beautiful Persian-style gardens. In the center foreground of this picture is a mini-canal for water, which runs throughout the gardens in a perfect geometric design.

Another angle, from the platform of Humayun's tomb.

We next went to Lodi Gardens, a beautiful park dotted with 14th-16th century tombs. Below pictured is the second-oldest mosque in all of India!! Another highlight of the park was seeing a mongoose scurry alongside the path!

Next we went to Jantar Mantar, which houses the astronomical instruments constructed for Emperor Jai Singh. There was a sundial about 3 stories tall and a bunch of other crazy-looking instruments for measuring the height of different celestial bodies; I do not understand how most of them work, or how they figured out any of this back when they were constructed.

Ta-da! Sun!

And that's it! We went to the market, ate dinner together, then prepared for our departure. After almost 30 hours of travel, I made it back! I'm sitting on my parents' couch alongside my dog, letting the "Project Runway" finale play in the background as I write and upload photos.

What an amazing trip!! I got to do a lot of really cool things and see some incredible sights. Even my list of highlights is looooong. My favorite part was probably hikes, walks, and the views in the Himalayas, but close seconds are: elephants in Jaipur, the Amber fort, the Taj Mahal, being a wedding guest, sightseeing with my friends in Delhi, dancing bhangra at our end-of-clinic celebration, stories and jokes around the campfire, learning to play cricket, "Insanity" workout team, and some of the memorable patients I met. I feel so happy and lucky to have spent my last month of medical school in this way, because of both the amazing setting and the great clinical experience.

Wedding Crashers 2: Bollywood Edition

Today is my third day in New Delhi. My time here has passed by in a whirlwind. I was a bit apprehensive coming here from the mountains, where I most loved small towns and the friendliness of our patients and people in general. Fortunately, people here, though they come in a mass are just as friendly. I have been so impressed by people finding us bus seats, giving us directions, and one man even buying our metro tickets for us and getting us off at the right stop (even though he did have us go the wrong direction for one stop before I corrected him.)

We arrived in New Delhi the evening of Apri 27th and checked into our very nice hotel. It was shockingly nice after our more rugged accommodations of the past month. We watched "The Big Bang Theory," ordered room service dinner (butter paneer masala for about $4), and went to bed early.

The next day, the 5 of us from Himalayan Health Exchange (Sophie from Indiana, Cheryl from Indiana, Stacey from Vanderbilt, Mary from Washington [only with us this day then left for the airport] and I) spent the day traveling to tourist destinations. We started in Connaught Place--CP to the locals--a pretty shopping area of British design. We had lunch there at a McDonalds where we amusedly ordered Masala Macs and a McAloo Tikki (potato patty); there's no beef on the menu. In the afternoon, we went to the Lotus Temple, a Ba'hai temple built in 1986 in the shape of a lotus flower. It was surrounded by nice gardens. We got our first taste as Indian models as person after person stopped to take our pictures with or without a friend or family member jumping alongside us. We initially amused, but it's starting to wear a little thin. I jokingly ask to be paid 10 rupees per picture, but no one has paid up, yet. We also went to the National Museum, which was great. I listened to an Audio Tour. My favorite of all of the amazing pieces in the collection was a series of miniature paintings depicting the love story of Krishna and Radha, Hindu god and goddess, which had added sparkle due to the addition of beatle wings!

The Lotus Temple--also pictured above with me

 

That night, we went to Indian Accent, rated the best restaurant in New Delhi and apparently one of the best 50 restaurants in Asia. It was the 4 of us from HHE staying for the tour, 2 other women from HHE from U Texas Houston medical school, another HHE guy, and his friend, Ashu, really a friend of a friend who has grown up and lives in Delhi. We had an awesome time. The food was incredible. We did a 7-course tasting menu. I can't really pick a favorite: potatoes wrapped with pesto, the best tofu I have ever had, bacon naan, a mango sorbet pop... it was all crazy good. We had a lot of fun together. At one point, Ashu mentioned that he was taking Denton to a wedding the next day. So, of course, Sophie and I immediately remarked how awesome that sounded, and Ashu invited us to come, too! We were amazed, but he said it was no problem, we would be his guests. He called up his friend, the bride, who assured him that it would be great, and they would be happy to have us. So, we made plans to take the metro and meet him at a nearby stop the next day.

Sophie and I walked to the closest Metro station to start our journey. We first jumped onto a general car, which was the most crowded subway/metro car I have ever seen, worse than any in New York even at peak hours. We just smushed our way into a wall of people. At our first transfer, we realized that the trains come so frequently (no more than 2-3 minute wait maximum, apparently), there is no need to squeeze onto a general car when we can easily ride a nice, far less crowded woman's car. Wow, it was nice. After one more switch, we arrived at Dilshad Gardens, the neighborhood which is Ashu's home. He and our friend Denton picked us up from the Metro, and we walked to Ashu's house. His parents and brother immediately greeted us then began serving us food: water, mango milkshake, moong dal, cookies, sugary dough sweets, fried onions and potatoes with ketchup, and chai tea. Next, we started to arrange for Sophie and I to get saris. Ashu took us to his friend's house where the bride was getting ready (she had her henna on already and was getting makeup) where his friends helped us try on their sari blouses, but they were WAY too small for us. So, we went back toAshu's, and his mom brought out all of her saris, and fortunately her blouses fit us with room to spare. We each picked one out, which we were told were of a traditional variety but were assured they would be great for the wedding. His mom quickly pulled out a needle and thread and without even measuring, tailored the blouses perfectly for us in about 5 minutes. Then she and her housemaid wrapped the saris around us and pinned them in place. Voila!

Giddily wearing saris!

Eventually, we made our way to the wedding ceremony, and we walked in just as the bride and groom were placing flower garlands over each other's head, a big part of the ceremony. After that, all family and friends walk up to them in turn to bless them and take a picture with them. The bride's sister excitedly came up to us and asked us to step forward. We happily did so. Everyone seemed SO excited that we were there. It was great to see the bride's friends that we had met earlier; they were sooo nice and even apologetic for her saris not fitting. They continuously thanked us for coming, to which we replied with vigorous thanks for letting us attend. After our official picture, many more friends and family wanted pictures with us, too. We tried not to draw too much attention, but that was a lost cause. After pictures, we were served a banquet meal, which was awesome. Some of the food we had had before (or some version or it), but there were some new vegetable dishes and an awesome dessert of dough in a sweet white sauce that we loved. The bride and groom after pictures are ushered into a sort of temple or ceremonial room outside the main banquet hall. Doors were open, so we could watch (and we were invited in, but it was soooo hot). Around a square fire, along each side are: the bride and groom, bride's parents, Hindu priest/master of ceremonies, and groom's parents. There is a ceremony that takes up to 2 or so hours, so we just watched part of it.

 Part of the wedding ceremony: bride and groom circling the central fire 7 times as guests throw flower pedals on them.

After watching this more interactive part, we decided that it was probably time for us to part, especially since Ashu offered to drive us to do whatever we wanted in the city. Sophie and I needed to get back to our hotel for a meeting with our tour group, so we did that.

Ashu, me, Denton, Sophie. Behind us is the stage where the bride and groom initially sat (garland exchange and blessings portions).

Before leaving, we took more pictures, and the bride's parents came over specially to thank us for coming. After profuse thanks on both sides of the conversation, we left. Ashu told us that this event was a small wedding (about 100-150 people) because it is a "love marriage" as opposed to an arranged marriage, at which there may be 1000-2000 guests. His brther invited us to go to another wedding tonight, for an arranged marriage, but we turned him down since we are on our tour now and leave early tomorrow for Jaipur.

That night, we met up with our tour group, consisting of 11 young adults from the U.S. (us 4), Australia, England, and Canada. We have a tour guide who is a native Indian originally from Mumbai but who has been living in New Delhi for some years and has led tours for about 7 years. After meeting, we walked around the area of our hotel (Karol Bagh), through its famous market, and to dinner. I was pretty full from the wedding feast, so I opted instead for mango ice cream. Basically, I want to eat mango-flavored everything.

Karol Bagh Market at night

Today we started with a tour of the city with our guide. We took a bus into Old Delhi and went first to Jama Masjid, the principal mosque of Old Delhi, built in 1650 AD. It houses up to 25,000 worshippers. I paid extra to climb to the top of one of the minarets. I was the only one, so as a single woman it was not allowed for me to travel up there alone. I had to wait for someone else to come along before I could be guided up to the top. Our group then walked through Chadni Chowk, the old market, and some back alleys of Very Old Delhi, which were tiny and awesome. Some of the houses were beautiful, but about 4 feet from their across-the-street neighbor. There were also wires hanging everywhere since they were built before the introduction of electricity. We saw some special areas: the fireworks market (across the street from the fire department), the wedding supply street, and my favorite, the spice market. We then went in a back alley to the old spice market, where they now sell spices whole-sale. We all started coughing and sneezing immediately. ha!

Rickshaw ride in Old Delhi! Only a little terrifying haha mostly awesome.

We also went to a Sikh (branch of Hinduism) Temple. They were playing beautiful music for their daily prayers. One drum and two piano/harmonica hybrid instruments. They also do a lot of community service, including free meals for anyone who needs one and a residential area for housing those that need somewhere to sleep. I joined in and helped make a couple pieces of flat bread and was instructed by one of the Indian volunteers. We took a series of bus, metro, autorickshaw (or tuk-tuk), and bicycle rickshaw today, rally got the whole gambit of Delhi transportation.

Main entrance to the Red Ford

Our guide then took us to a South Indian restaurant for a lunch of dosai and pineapple milkshakes. It was awesome to have something different than North Indian food, which I have loved, but am enjoying a few different things, too. We split up after that, with Sophie, Stacey, and I heading to the Red Fort, a world heritage site and important example of Mughal architecture. It also had a small museum about the Indian struggle for independence, which was also great. It makes me want to watch "Gandhi" again. We leisurely strolled around before taking the Metro back to our hotel, led by an exuberant helper, a Punjabi man who cut in line to buy us tokens, walked with us through each stop and transfer, then walked us off the Metro, almost getting in a fight with a Metro worker when the machine basically ate Sophie's token haha. wow.

Tomorrow we head to Jaipur via train!

Mcleodganj

Yesterday we arrived in Mcleodganj, the northwest most point of my travels. This town houses many Tibetan refugees and has become a backpacker and tourist hotspot. Today I visited the temple and monastery of the Dalai Lama. Apparently, he was in town yesterday, but left early this morning to do some public talks farther north of here. While at the temple complex, we also visited the Tibet Museum, which documented the history of the Tibetan exile. Tibet was invaded by China in 1949. After some failed attempts at resistance, it was basically usurped by China, and the Dalai Lama, after being threatened by the Chinese, fled to India several years later. He set up the government-in-exile here in Mcleodganj. Since then, China has assumed total control of Tibet, and the cultural revolution led to the destruction of, according to the museum, three quarters of Tibetan monasteries, nunneries, and important Buddhist texts and sculptures. The museum also cited 1.2 million as the number of Tibetans who have died due to the Chinese invasion. The exhibition made special attention to provide evidence that Tibet was a sovereign, independent state prior to 1949. Some of the devastating effects of the Chinese invasion are on the environment: Tibet is now used as a nuclear testing site, forests are being cleared, and lakes considered sacred to the Tibetans are being polluted. Tibet is much larger than I realized at two-thirds the size of India. There was also an exhibition about the Panchen Lama, the chosen successor to the Dalai Lama. He was born in 1989, and at the age of 6, in 1995, he was identified as being a very special person. On May 14, he was visited by the Dalai Lama, who confirmed that he was the Panchen Lama. Three days later, on May 17,  he was abducted and remains missing today. It is suspected that he is being held by the Chinese, possibly tortured or brainwashed. Although the information I received today was all one-sided and provides only the Tibetan point of view, it is all very disheartening. On our first night here, there was a candlelight vigil for two people who had recently self-immolated (set themselves on fire and died) in protest of China's continued holding of Tibet. Hundreds of people walked through town and to the temple.

On a more light-hearted note, today I also went for a walk to the next town over, Bhagsu, and a pretty cool hike through a valley to a waterfall. I went with 2 friends in my group, Sophie, a student from Indiana University, and Charlotte, an Australian med student.

After that, we walked to the other side of town and saw the church, St. John in the Wilderness, dating to 1853. It was built for the English governor and other Brits. It's in a beautiful, quiet forested area. There is also a large cemetery (unusual for India because Hindus and Buddhists practice cremation). The cemetery contains the remains of many victims of a large earthquake that hit here in 1905. Another was an early church leader who died of a bear attack!

Just some cows in the road. Fun.

Yesterday I sported an Indian suit, salwar kaleez, that I had made for me during my time in Bir. I picked out the fabric and pattern from a fabric store, then took it to a tailor who had me choose the design/pattern, and then he measured me. Two days later, I had a hand-made, tailored outfit! While in Bir I also had my eyebrows threaded (kind of like waxing: shaping using strings of thread to capture errant hairs, but it's more common in India to use this technique for finely detailed work). It cost 15 rupees, which is about 40 cents; apparently, it can cost $15 in the U.S., according to my Indian-American friends on the trip. What a steal! I feel pretty, oh-so-pretty... 

With my trip roommate, Rashim! She had this blue suit made while we were in Manali, and she helped me navigate the process of getting a suit made.

Tomorrow, I travel back to New Delhi via Chandigarh. It will be a long travel day. We leave our hotel here at 7:30 a.m., and my flight arrives in New Delhi about 6:30 p.m., then it will take probably an hour to collect bags and make it to my next hotel. I'm a little wary of traveling to the big city after all of my favorite time in small towns and villages, but it should be fun. I'll be with 3 other women on my HHE trip, too. Can't wait!

From Bir to Barot

Our time in Bir continued with 2 days of clinic in the mountains above town. We stayed at the same site for 2 days and had the local primary care doctor, Dr. Raj, with us for clinic so that he could help us understand what medications he had for follow-up (we don't want to prescribe something once that the patient will not have access to again) and other local questions, such as can a patient with an ear canal full of ear wax find mineral oil at the local pharmacy to clear it out? At this site, not unlike our others, I had lots of patients with eye complaints (I worked in the Internal Medicine tent). With their outdoor work as farmers and elevation above 6000 feet (for every 1000 feet of elevation gained, there is another 4% penetration of UV radiation), it was not surprising to see many patients with pterygium (sort of a growth over the eye, usually benign unless it grows very large and obstructs vision) and cataracts. With all of the vision complaints, I am gaining a new appreciation for the work done by Unite for Sight, with whom I traveled to Ghana in 2007. I would suspect about one quarter to one third of our patients have eye complaints. We have plenty of reading glasses and antibiotic eye drops/ointment, but there are so many complaints for which we do not have the proper tools. We do not carry distance glasses, a tonometer to check for glaucoma (or the drops to prevent its progression), artificial tears/saline drops, drops for allergic conjunctivitis, and no opthalmologist or ophthalmology trained nurses who are especially skilled at using a portable ophthalmoscope.  Unite for Sight could have a very busy traveling clinic in this region.

Himalayan traffic jam! On the way to clinic.

We also helped Dr. Raj by doing landscaping for his clinic. We cleared the land of rocks (well, mostly, it's pretty much an impossible task), planted trees, painted his fence and gate, and cleared off grass and weed growth over the paved driveway. This was a special project for Ravi, HHE leader, who wished to use our example to convince the government to fund this type of project.

I learned a lot from Ravi about some local politics as they relate to health care access and cost. First, this state, Himachal Pradesh, is leading or nearly leading the country in education and health care, partly because there is a smaller population, and their budget is large enough to cover a lot of services. First, the "below poverty level" is set at earning less than 250 rupees (about $5) per day. If you are BPL, then all of your health care is free, and there is a sliding scale after that point. Also, if you earn less than that, the government will pay you 250 rupees per day for some improvement projects. For instance, we saw a group at work clearing a landslide and another building a support wall to prevent landslides onto the room. Both of these groups were doing this government work. In terms of education, the state of Himachal pays you to send your children to school. At first, Ravi said this led to some fraud and people all claiming each other's children as their own, but now it's a pretty well established program.

After our FUN time in Bir, we set off on 4/22 for Barot, a town deeper in the mountains. The cars drove around Bir for about 3 hours to bring supplies, but most of us opted instead to trek to Barot! We were driven to Billing (the city from which paragliders jump), and then hiked along then over a ridge and down into a river valley, crossing the Taj River, and hiking along the other side until our cars picked us up again (about 6 hours from when we last saw them) and drove us the rest of the way (45 minute drive) down the river to our beautiful campsite right along the river.

Rhododendron trees all along our trek

Holding a snowball!

Doing the "Lion King" pose.... Aaaaaaachee ween yaaaaaah baba beeeee chee baba!

One of the scariest bridges I have ever crossed: made of corroding metal, cement, rocks, and sticks.

More monkeys!! This time, a different species: the gray (or Hanuman) langur, from my best guess. You can see it in this picture right in the middle among the red rhododendrons: it's white-gray with a long tail. These differ from the rhesus macaques we had been seeing along roads. Obviously, I was pumped to see another species of monkey!

We all had a great time in Barot, too: our last campsite. We did 2 clinics, one near where we finished trekking, and the other up a river that feeds into the Taj. I was on gynecology/medicine the first day, and pediatrics the second: aka the last clinic of the month and hence MY LAST DAY OF MEDICAL SCHOOL! We had some really interesting patients: 4 cases of hand-foot-mouth (Coxsackie virus), a little girl with amblyopia who we had to refer to an eye doctor, and, as my final patient, a little boy with probably the loudest heart murmur I have ever heard in a child (except maybe for those in the midst of 2 or 3 heart surgeries for Tetrology of Fallot). We could not entirely decide what the problem was, except that it was definitely valvular, perhaps mitral regurgitation (rheumatic heart disease still occurs not too infrequently here). He was asymptomatic, but on his last check-up, his primary care doc told his dad that he had a "hole in his heart," or that was the story from the dad's point of view, and it prompted him to take his son to our clinic, basically for a second opinion. We referred the patient to the closest cardiologist, someone known by Ravi. HHE sponsors a few patients a year to pay for surgical costs not covered by the government. Ravi took down this family's information and hopes to sponsor this patient if he does indeed need valve surgery, which our pediatrician suspected he might. I hope to continue to hear updates about this patient.

The drive back from our first clinic site near Barot. The Taj river runs through this valley.

Our camp site from the road above. The sound of the river at night was calming.

The walk up to our last clinic.

My last clinical day as a medical student! Pretty sweet way to finish.

To celebrate the end of medical camp, we (students/doctors, drivers, and other HHE staff) had a big party! It started with our dinner: trout from the Taj River... soooo good. We have generally been eating SO well, but they really pulled out all the stops on the last 2 camp nights, making dinners of trout, grilled vegetables, potato patties and pasta one night; pizza, french fries, and fish curry with lemon rice the next; and our favorite desserts, chocoballs, and a celebratory cake. Then we all had a big dance party!! Car stereos attached to the staff members' phones provided the music. I pulled out my bhangra moves and was complimented by the staff on my dancing. We ended the night singing and talking around a campfire.

Prayer wheels at the Dalai Lama's summer residence.

Today we drove from Barot about 6 hours to Mcleodganj, which is the residence of the Dalai Lama and the Tibetan government in exile. We made a lunch stop at his summer residence, where we walked around, saw the temple, spun prayer wheels, and looked at Tibetan handicrafts. Now, I stay 2 nights in Mcleodganj, just relaxing and enjoying the final few days of my part in the Himalayan Health Exchange.

Tahee Delay!

 "Tahee delay" is "hello" in Tibetan, spelled phonetically. Our past 2 days of clinic have been at Tibetan Buddhist monasteries, and we are currently staying in a Tibetan settlement. A couple of my patients who have been older monks speak only Tibetan, so we get a translator from Tibetan to Hindi, and one of our translators transfers Hindi to English. I'm already a little concerned that things are getting lost through one translator (like my COPD patient, who originally did not smoke, never smoked, only to find out later from a re-interview with a resident who speaks Hindi that he smoked for about 40 years and only quit 4 years ago. The guy was audibly, dramatically wheezing.) The translation is probably the most frustrating part of this experience. I really wish I could speak Hindi. I'm learning a few things (greetings, numbers to direct patients to specific tents, a few simple commands and medical terms), but it's still hard. Having our drivers serve as translators makes sense logistically, but I think it would be helpful for them to receive a little more training in medical translation and in medical English vocabulary. Some of them are AWESOME, but some of them are clearly more new and they sometimes have a hard time, especially with complicated patients.

Well child check with a young monklet. He was fine, except for some tinea capitis, which you can see on his scalp.

Triage tent! At this station Shushma, Stacy, and I took every patient's blood pressure (if an adult), pulse, and temperature (if an infectious-type complaint).

Our clinic set-up, Tents 6 (pediatrics), 7 (usually ob-gyn, but not at the monastery, since it's typically all men except for some villagers who came to the clinic), and 8 (pharmacy). The monastery proper is in the background. The whole place was a huge complex that houses 700 monks and also a Buddhist school.

Posing at the Dzongsar Monastery near Bir.

Also at the monastery: the largest Buddha I have ever seen.

Sunset view at Bir. A beautiful town. Bir is well-known for its production of tea. The tea gardens/fields are beautiful. In this picture, there are wheat fields and Tibetan prayer flags, seen all over town.

Today and tomorrow we have clinic at a village in the hills above Bir. Day 1 went well, and we're set up for Day 2 there tomorrow.