Other India Experiences

My travel companion (Lahaul Expedition) Nate Montgomery's website about India.
http://www.unc.edu/~nmontgo/hhe/background.html

More trip pictures from other team members
http://picasaweb.google.com/Lahaul2008

Mark Clapp's blog (Spiti Expedition)
http://unchhe.blogspot.com/

Article in The Lancet Student about the Spiti Expedition
http://www.thelancetstudent.com/2008/05/23/%e2%80%9cthe-last-free-summer%e2%80%9d/

Advice for the Indian Traveler

General

-you have likely never seen this many people. Expect craziness.
-everyone expects you to pay more than Indian people. You will be ripped off constantly. Consider this your language barrier tax.
-never accept the first offer for anything. Walk away or find someone close by who offers the same services and make them earn your money.





-bring some type of water purification for urban water. I used Polar Pure which is a type of Iodine purification and it worked great because I could fill up my water bottle out of the sink and then treat it. I preferred this to buying bottled water.
-wash your hands...constantly





-little children of all social and economic classes will ask you for money, they seem to equate foreigners with free money
-some children will ask you for some of your local coins for a coin collection they have. This is not true. An adult will later take this child's money and cash it in for himself.





-I wasn't a fan of tour guides.
-Get yourself a good guide book and read it.
-traveling in nice hotels means that you pay more for everything, not that it includes more (internet, phones, food, travel arrangements)






-you will see all kinds of animals mating
-you will step in some kind of feces
-cows are gods, literally and figuratively
-farm animals live in the city, well everywhere really






-don't expect nice bathrooms, there will be no shower curtains
-the shower head will likely come out of the bathroom wall somewhere random, if your lucky there will be a drain nearby
-always carry toilet paper...you never know
-expect to see people defecating in very public places





Transportation


-never, never, never try to drive in India
-plan to share the road







-meeting a large bull with horns face to face in traffic is common.
-coming within inches of another car is common, no matter what the speed








-larger vehicles have the right of way because you have more to lose in a collision with them
-coming to a complete stand still in a face off and having everyone get out of their car to "discuss" the options is common






-trains are a nice way to travel but they aren't as cheap as you might expect.
-overnight trains are great, and a interesting experience
-don't fly Go Air. They charge for drinks and snacks, they don't have many flights so when one gets canceled it takes a while to get on another one. I would suggest Jet Airways.





-when possible, always buy a prepaid taxi. You can usually find these around airports and bus stations. If you do get a prepaid taxi do not give them your slip until you have reached your destination. This slip is cash to them.
-people are inherently bad at giving directions. Confirm directions with at least one other source.




This is all I could think of right now. If anyone sees this and can think of something else please add it to the comment section. India is a lot of fun and knowing these things will help you with what to expect when traveling in India. India is fascinating and beautiful. Enjoy it!

Coming Home

The long journey home has begun. The trip from Pune to Mumbai this morning was much easier than expected. I was able to find a shared taxi to Mumbai. The taxi driver was actually going to pick someone up for his business from the international airport and he said he could take me to the domestic airport which is close by. This was a pretty awesome set up because it meant that I didn't have to deal with rickshaw drivers in Mumbai and the traffic from wherever I might be dropped off. The drive to Mumbai was fast and smooth, but it took almost as long to get to Mumbai as it did to get from the outskirts into the airport because of traffic. I ended up getting to the airport with pletty of time to spare. My flight was scheduled for 2:10pm and I arrived at 10:00am. After killing time for several hours because I was not allowed to check in yet I went to check in and they told me my flight was cancelled. Shit. They said that could get me on a flight a couple hours later. They better!

I made it to Delhi. I am currently waiting for my taxi at Hotel Grand Godwin. My flight leaves at 2:10am. I hope I don't fall asleep and miss it! It is crazy how many miles I am about to cover...

Oh ya I almost forgot. Don't flight Go Air in India. I have decided to make a post where I impart all of my knowledge about getting around in India when I get back.

New Delhi Airport Experience:
I had begun to feel very good about myself and how I had finally figured out how to easily get around in India by the time I left for the airport from Hotel Grand Godwin. After taking some strange detours and picking up someone random on the street I arrived at Delhi International Airport about 11:00pm for my 2:10am flight. I waited in the line that was formed outside the airport and I showed my passport to the security guard who promptly told me I could not get inside without a ticket. As I stared inside in confusion at the ticket counter I pleaded that this made no sense whatsoever but my arguments were either lost in the language barrier or just completely ignored. Other people where able to get in because they had printed off the recipe from the ticket they had purchased online. I saw some airline offices near where I had gotten out of the car so I decided to go find British Airways and see if they could help me get some kind of a ticket. I was a little worried now because Josh had bought the ticket and he had already gone home so I was only left with the electronic record of my ticket, if they could find it. The British Airways ticket office was closed but I did see someone in the American Airways office so I went in to see if they could help. They could not... My ticket apparently was booked through British Airway's so they could not find any record of it in their system. I explained to them that the BA office was closed and they recommended another office in a different location that might have somebody in it. It did not, but it did have a security guard outside who recommended that I try talked with the BA people in the road who check luggage at the curbside. So I went to plead with this person who spoke better English and must have understood my predicament and he eventually went in to get a supervisor. The supervisor spoke with me got my information and ran around until he eventually told me to get back in the line and he would meet me at the front when I got to the security guard. When I got to the front the man was no where to be seen and I was left with the same problem I had before. Eventually the man came with a ticket in his hand that he got printed from the ticket counter (wow) and I was able to enter the airport.

After making it through one of the most intense, but worthless security checks I have been through I planned to kill a little more time shopping around inside the terminal. The terminal was just like the security, pretty terrible. I settled for a weird orange juice drink and then tried not to fall asleep while waiting.

The rain has come

The monsoon has started. I planned to go to Mumbai today (Monday) by bus but I was told that the monsoons have begun in Mumbai and it is not a fun place to be in the rain. I was also told that the ferry out to Elephant Island would not go in the rain and this was the main thing that I wanted to see while in Mumbai. Neela also said that at the beginning of the monsoon last year many parts of Mumbai became flooded and people were stranded in the vehicles for days and she was worried that I may not be able to make it up to the airport because the place that I was going to stay was on the southernmost part and it is a good distance from the airport. It has been raining here in Pune for the last couple days. It isn't a downpour but it is a steady rain. So I will be in Pune for two more days. Neela said that I was welcome to stay and I said that I only wanted to stay if they could put me to work. They said no problem. I will leave Wednesday morning and travel to Mumbai where I will catch my flight to Delhi as planned at 2:00pm.

Deep Griha

Yesterday, Saturday, I spent the day seeing and hearing about what Deep Griha (http://www.deepgriha.org/) does. The amount of programs and the size of this operation is much larger than I had been expecting. They have completely filled the first center I visited in Pune. A young lady named Claire showed me around the four story building that was complete with a clinic area, computer center, volunteer room, kitchen, and rooms for the HIV/AIDS program, nutrition program (DISHA), Women's Empowerment Program, educational programs, and childcare programs. Even though it was a Saturday the building was fairly busy with volunteers, staff, and Pune children and adults. It was an impressive sight.

In the early afternoon I finally got to meet Dr. Neela Onawale in her office where she told me all about the Deep Griha story and the evolution of the society. What impressed me the most was how Deep Griha has been able to adapt to changing conditions both in regards to the people it serves but also in terms of administration and finances. As Neela told her story she would talk about how some programs led to the development of other programs because they uncovered underlying needs. That afternoon I took a bus with several other volunteers and an engineer and his wife led by Bhoscar (Neela's husband) to visit City of Knowledge and City of Child.


City of Knowledge (photos below) is a project in progress that currently has a upper and lower kindergarten class and a nursery located about 50 km outside of Pune. The purpose of this facility is to provide inexpensive education to rural children that matches the quality of educational centers inside Pune, but keeps these children and families from moving to the slums in the city. The current plan is to add on standard (grade level) per year. The facility is located on a old poultry farm. Some of the buildings have been converted to classrooms while others are still in the abandoned condition they were left. One of the problems that this trip was hoping to solve with the help of the engineer was the lack of water at the location. We toured several sites around the complex looking for well sites (I think) and had tea with the local farmers while the men were talking business. It was great fun to listen to Bhoscar and see his vision and passion both for this project and all of what Deep Griha does. (The photo on the left are the buildings that have been converted into a Upper KG, Lower KG, and a nursery with a playground outside. The photo on the right is rest of the poultry facility viewed from a hill in the back of the complex that will eventually become the upper grade levels)










City of Child (photo below) is an orphanage that is located 40km outside of Pune. Some of these children are true orphans and others are children of parents who cannot take care of them (possibly because of AIDS, lack of family structure, or a combination of illness and poor resources). Unfortunately it was getting late so we did not have much time to spend there, but we did get to see the children who were playing games and we got to see the dinning facility, sleeping area, and classroom areas as well as the building where large groups of volunteers stay when they are here.

For the last couple nights I have been staying at the Cultural Center where the volunteers are housed. The house is located in a nice neighborhood and the facilities are quite descent. I am sharing a room three bedroom room that has one bathroom. There are couple Indian ladies who work in the kitchen and provide us meals. There are many people from all over staying here, most are either in undergraduate studies but some have already graduated. There is a small group of people from France and England, a guy from Ireland, a girl from China, a girl from Australia, and a girl from New York. Most of the people here are going to be here for weeks to months. One girl that I talked to will be here for 6 months!

On Monday I will get to see a few more centers including a youth center that volunteers have recently been working out. I also hope to speak with Neela more about the medical programs and about how conducive these programs would be to have either rising MS2s or students doing international 4th year electives. It is my plan to include this in my presentation to MS1 students interested in doing programs abroad after their first year in the hopes that a UNC medical student could come here next year. I think that it would be a great opportunity and I wish that I would have set it up to have more time here. My experience with the Himalayan Health Exchange was fabulous, but it would be much different being involved with Deep Griha in Pune because there would be the opportunity to submerse yourself in the culture and be a part of a more in depth form of health care through the relationships of Deep Griha.

Arrival in Pune

I made it into Pune today (Friday) at about 4pm. The flight out of Udaipur was seem less, but a bit strange. The airport had one terminal and two propeller planes. This was my first flight on a prop plane. On the plan I was talking with my seatmate who was from Chennai India and I was telling him about my trip and where I was going. The man sitting across the isle from us must have been listening and spoke up after we had been talking about how I was going to get to Pune. He said that instead of taking a taxi to the bus station and then a bus to Pune it would be easier and faster to get a shared taxi and he offered to help me get it. He said that it would take about and hour or an hour and a half to make it to the Dadar bus station. I followed him and we walked for a little ways outside the airport and he began talking to people and eventually told me that I could either take a shared taxi or that there would be an AC bus coming in 10 minutes for 250 Rs (very good price). After thanking him profusely he went on his way. His business card reads Manohar Samuel, Senior Vice President for Strategic Marketing of Grasim Industries.
THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR YOUR HELP MANOHAR!!

The bus ride went smoothly all the way to Pune, but instead of letting me off at a bus station it left me in the street somewhere random. It then took a very expensive (I got ripped off) rishshaw ride to find the Deep Griha operation.

Wandering In Udaipur

I spent most of the day just wandering around. It seems that I saw most of what Udaipur had to offer in the first day. I tried to find this place called Sahilyon Ki Bari but never did. So I walked for a while near Fateh Sagar Lake and back towards the Gangore Ghat were I was yesterday. On my way there was a couple guys on a motorcycle who spoke pretty good English that asked me where I was going and then told me to hop on the bike. We rode for a little ways and then we stopped at his store and had some Chai while they acted like they weren't trying to sell me stuff. This kind of thing happened to me several times throughout the day. Young looking, well dressed men that spoke good English would befriend you and then try to get you to come and get fitted for a suit. The lines that many of them would use were so similar I thought they had to be a part of the same company. There weren't really pushy though so I enjoyed chatting with them (usually getting a little something for myself like directions or opinions about museums) and then went on my way. I went out onto a little peninsula where there was a hotel and I got pretty close to the Lake Palace. There was a French couple (I think) that spoke good English so I chatted with them for a bit and recommended to them that they go for dinner at the Jagat Niwas Restaurant because the sunset was beautiful. Next I went down to the Gangore Ghat to hang out near some elephants. It is impossible to sit anywhere without attracting a gathering of people. I spoke with a couple little boys that were "collecting coins" and they would pull out various foreign coins that people had given them and ask me how much they were worth. A little while later a older boy came and took all there coins. One boy had a nasty looking wound on his foot probably from and old blister. I had some tape with me for the blisters on my foot so I wrapped his up and told him to wash it with soap as soon as he could. People saw this and I then had several more people sticking dirty feet with blisters out for me to wrap up. I wish I would have had my first aid kit though.

At one point today I walked near a school and there were many school children walking by. Besides loving the fact that they could say hello to me they would ask me for rupees. These were well off children asking me for rupees. I don't know if foreigners just throw out rupees (and pens) here because all children ask for it.

Then I went to the Bangore museum next to the Gangore Ghat. I am glad that I didn't pay more than 25 Rs to get in though, it wasn't that spectacular. They did have one cool display with many different styles of turbans. Apparently you can tell where someone is from because of the way they wrap their turban.

Tomorrow morning I get on an airplane and fly to Mumbai. From there I will try to make my way to Pune by bus and should be getting there in the afternoon to meet Dr. Neela Onawale and the rest of Deep Griha. I don't really know what to expect but I am looking forward to it!