Yesterday, we took a day trip down to the tip of India! We got up and met in the lobby at 6:45 am. The hotel had even made breakfast for us early. Then we hopped on an air conditioned bus and headed out. We made a couple of stops along the way. We stopped first at a Kerala royal palace...super interesting. They made you take off your shoes to tour it which was definitely something you wouldn't see in the States. And that place was huge. It took us close to an hour to do a quick walk though.
On bus trip days, I'm always a little worried that I won't be able to find a restroom if I should need one. The gas stations are few and far between and don't have public restrooms even if you found one. The buses definitely don't have restrooms in back. You just feel fortunate if you get air conditioning. So when I saw a restroom sign at the palace, I jumped on it...who knows when I would find another one and anyone of my close friends and family could testify that my bladder is not the largest. So Angie (another student) and I got in line and discovered that we had to pay to use the facilities. In addition, there was no toilet. It was a squatter hole. Definitely a weirdly fun experience!! Thank goodness we didn't fall in!
After the palace, we stopped at a fort on the coast. There were some cool views of the ocean up there but we were soon on our way again to the tip!
The tip of India is at the town of Kanyakumari and is also called Cape Comorin. You can watch the sun rise and set at the same place! The town was packed because not only is it a popular tourist destination, it also is an important location for Hindus. The temple of an important Hindu goddess is in Kanyakumari. This goddess is said to have protected a famous swami (yogi) from harm and high winds as he meditated on a rock in the sea for three days. This swami then went on to become very influential in India politics and culture. It was the 150th anniversary of his birthday and many monks and Hindus were coming on a pilgrimage to the famous rock. We were actually able to go out to the rock by taking a ferry boat and the views were spectacular.
One of the best things about the day trip (and India so far) is in thanks to our new friend, Dr. Annie. She introduced Adam and I to something called jackfruit chips. The jackfruit is the largest fruit in the world and is native to India. They fry pieces of jackfruit much like banana chips. And let me tell you, realllll good. We bought a some more today. And I tried my first coconut yesterday too!!
Today, we were all a little tired from the trip yesterday and Jo decided to start class a half-hour later! No complaints here. We had an interesting day of class today on a variety of topics ranging from complementary medicine to end of life care and more. After class, we all relaxed a little bit. I really need to get going on my final presentation but I have found that I am just as good at procrastinating in a foreign country as I am back home. Tomorrow we will be trying to help Pallium with some data entry with the hope that it may help them quantify what they do and have done. For example, if they get all of their records onto a program, it would be much easier to say, "Okay, we helped this many patients with this condition last month/year. The average age of our patients is blank." Jo thinks this could be helpful to their fundraising efforts. So hopefully we will be able to give back to them a bit.
Adam just ordered me an ice cream, so I had better go help him eat it before it disappears! :)
I'll try to post some pictures later...the internet is not being cooperative right now!
No comments:
Post a Comment