June 16 2011

This is the next installment in our aging travellers blog.  This one comes to you from Australia.  I was invited to speak by Lawrie Powell.  For those who don’t know him, he is the doyen of hepatolgists in Australia.  This time I am travelling on my own.  Not enough frequent flyer points for Irene to come with after Thailand and India. 

I arrived on Saturday in Sydney and immediately transferred to Brisbane, where I was met and taken to Coolum, a resort on the Sunshine coast (the coast north of Brisbane, as opposed to the Gold coast, which is south of Brisbane.  The resort was close to the beach, but not on the beach itself.  The meeting is an annual event for the gastroenterologists in Queensland, and they attract about 200 people.  This meeting was on cancer.  The first day was GI tract cancers and the second day cholangiocarcinoma.  HCC was the third day.  They kept me busy.  I gave a presentation on cholangiocarcinoma and then was asked to help judge the young investigators for prizes for the best work.   I thought I was going to go off after my talk, but nothing doing.  Then the next day, in addition to a talk on HCC, there were case presentations, and off course, being the visitor, I was asked to comment on everything. 

Fortunately, the meetings were in the morning only, and the first afternoon was free, allowing me to walk around the place.

I really like the lack of formality that surrounds meetings in Australia, at least those that I have been to.  Everyone was very friendly.  I had several people with varying connections to South Africa coming to speak to me.  Some had left SA as adults, some as children and some were born in Australia, but had parents or other relatives who came from South Africa.  They all wanted to know my opinion about the current political and economic state of the country, as if I should be an expert.  My connection with South Africa is quite tenuous these days, and I don’t follow what’s happening very much. 

Our meetings in Canada and elsewhere are seldom this informal.  I guess we Northern Hemisphere inhabitants are just a little (or in some cases a lot) anal.  A case of tight sphincteritis. 

After the meeting back to Brisbane, and then the next day (yesterday) I caught a flight for Cairns, and rented a car to travel the 100 km or so to the Daintree, a small village, essentially at the end of the road.  From here to go further north you have to take a ferry.  Shortly beyond the ferry the road becomes a 4-wheel drive only track. 

Irene and I were here 6 years ago.  We stayed at a delightful B & B, the Red Mill Inn, which is where I am staying now.  It’s a good jumping off point to go birding.  The village is tiny.  I doubt that there are 1000 people here, most farmers, owners of B & B’s, of which there are several, and operators of wild-life cruises on the Daintree river.  There is a general store, three restaurants (only one open at night, but last call at 7.00 pm) and a post office.  The dinner menu at the restaurant is short, and strangely enough, it’s exactly the same as the lunch menu!  Tonight is a big rugby league game (this is the form of rugby played by men in vests without sleeves, as opposed to the rugby I know, which has shirts like soccer shirts, and has different rules).  So the have a TV projector in the restaurant, and the locals are gathering to watch the game.  It’s a good way to do it.  Very social! 

I had a curry tonight.  It brought back memories.  No, not of India, but of my mother’s curry, which came as a powder in a box.  You dissolved the power in gravy and hey presto, a curry.  There were chunks of beef floating in the gravy and it was served over overcooked rice.  It tasted nothing like any curry I have had in India, nor even in an Indian restaurant.  Oh well, I was not really expecting more.  As long as it fills the void in my stomach it’s acceptable.  I can always get good food at home. 

I have spent some time birding and taking photographs.  Here are some choice ones. 

This is a pied heron

This wierd-looker is a tawny frogmouth

Yes, I know, this is not a bird, but I like the light effects!

June 16, 2011

Spent the day birding once more.  About 60-70 species all in all.  Quite good.  One of the things that I enjoy about birding is that it takes you into rural areas, forests, and other relatively unpopulated areas.  We spent a good deal of today in the rain forest, but also on the drier savannah.

I also had the opportunity to visit small Australian towns that I would not otherwise have seen.  In a way it is like visiting small towns in India or Thailand, except that the culture is more familiar, e.g., the local ladies going for their morning yoga session at the community center.  We do this in Toronto as well, so it’s not a strange culture.  Nonetheless, it is s slice of life as it is lived in rural Australia. 

The innkeepers here are fantastic.  They are so friendly.  Because we were going into the forest and might have come across rough roads they lent the guide and I their 4-wheel drive vehicle.  They also made us some lunch.  This is above and beyond what B & B owners usually do.  He used to be a pilot for Japan airlines freight, but got tired of being away from home and of spending long hours flying, mostly at night.  Now he runs a B & B.  Quite a change! 

Tomorrow I return to Sydney to catch the flight on Saturday.  So this is probably the last entry on this trip.

Here are photo’s from today. 

THis is a galah.  In some area they are as common as sparrows.  Imagine having such a beautiful bird around instead of sparrows

Yes, this too is a bird, a bush stone-curlew.  And no, I have no idea why it's called that!

More next week when I am in Taiwan and Japan

Varanasi

Varanasi

OK, I know I said that I was not going to talk traffic any more, but I have to mention this.   We arrived in Varanasi today.  We drove through to the hotel, passing through what I believe must be the center of the city.  It was bedlam!  Imagine if you will, two columns of ants, moving in opposite directions, with other columns intersecting them at right angles.  The ants don’t stop, regardless of what is in the way.  That’s Varanasi traffic.  Or, if you prefer another analogy, it’s like a massive game of chicken, played by cars, trucks, bicycles, rickshaws, and cattle all the time.  Sometimes our driver won. sometimes the other guy.  Needless to say, the cattle always won.  All they had to do was lie down in the street.  It was like nothing I have ever experienced before, and  I have been in some bad driving situations before, in Naples, in China, in Egypt, and elsewhere in India.  It’s a symphony of a thousand horns, all playing a different tune, but all with same message - “comin’ thru!”

Street food!

Day 2 in Varanasi

There are flower vendors close to any shrine or temple so that people can make an offering of flowers.

Last night we went to a Hindu prayer ceremony.  All along the Ganges there are so-called “ghats.  These are stairs going down the steep bank of the river to the water.  The stairs are yards wide.  Evening ceremonies are performed at almost all of the ghats and many people attend.  This is considered special because the Ganges is considered a holy river.  At this particular ceremony there must have been over 1000 people.  This ceremony has the distinction of being one of the more colourful.  The priests’ platforms are decorated with flowers.  They sing, chant and wave incense around, ring bells and beat drums, often all at the same time and to different rhythms.  The result is a cacophony.  The chanting is broadcast on a loud speaker set to maximum.  After a few minutes I was bored, but we stayed, although not to the bitter end.  

The crowd is starting to form on the steps of the ghat leading to the Ganges. The ceremony takes place nightly.

The cows arrive early to get a good spot.

This is the crowd on their way down to the Ganges. Maybe some of them are shopping as well.

This morning early we took a boat ride on the river.  The river serves as a bath for devout Hindus.  Never mind that it is heavily polluted.  So all along the way we saw men and women bathing themselves.  The women dunked themselves fully dressed, but the men stripped to their skivvies.  The river is also the local laundromat, where people wash clothes, and in one place it seemed like they were washing hotel sheets.  There were far too many sheets to belong to a single family.

Our 6:00 am boat ride down the Ganges.

Women bathing fully dressed!

The river is also the site of the local crematorium. We saw a funeral pyre, with a body on top.  The fire had just started, so what we could see of the body looked intact.  This was within 20 yards of the laundromat.  Another 50 or so yards down the river was a body, fully clothed, and headless, but unattended.  When people are too poor to afford the cremation fees they are simply dumped into the river.  Apparently in some cases the head is removed first, and thrown in the water as well.  The head, of course sinks, whereas the body does not, at least not initially.  That must have some religious significance.  The worst was that there was a dog dining on the remains, eating at the head end.  Lucky dog, got to sit at the head of the table (bad joke)!  

This is a short movie taken early in he morning. Not sure it's going to work!

There are so many stray dogs here.  Everywhere you go they are around, lying asleep in the middle of the road, rooting through garbage, etc.  Apart from being a traffic hazard they do not seen to be aggressive, and people leave them in peace.  

Coming back from the boat ride this morning we walked through some of the narrow alleyways just back from the river.  They are filthy and smelly, and you are in constant danger of putting your foot into fresh cow turd.  Yes, cows inhabit these alleyways as well.  It is weird to see cows so far from grass.

India is crowded.  There are more than 1.2 billon people in india, and it feels every one of them passed us or were passed by us, some more than once.  I don’t think I have ever been in a place that is so busy with humanity, so crowded and so bustling.  It is not pleasant.  You are constantly avoiding oncoming traffic, pedestrians and various animals.  Progress is slow, and it takes much longer than expected to get anywhere (an hour to do less than 30 km this morning).  

This man is selling some sort of leaf in which he includes betel nut and a few other things. This is a mild narcotic and he was doing a bang up business.

The monuments in Varanasi are not much to write home about, so I won’t.  However, it seems that Varanasi is a mecca for a certain type of caucasian tourist, who is looking for spiritual enlightenment.  There were any number of young women wearing Indian style clothing.  I saw some with an Indian man dressed in religious garb, presumably their guru.  There were also a few men seeking enlightenment, dressed Indian style, but much fewer than women.  I guess we males are either already enlightened, or too thick to realize how unenlightened we are.  

A religious man. Notice the garbage- it is pervasive- something we could not and would not want to get used to seeing.

As many indicated, Varanasi was a slice of Indian life, that is probably typical of many areas.

Tomorrow we return to Delhi, and head home on Saturday late at night. It has been another travel adventure with a difference.  Not sure I want to come back here in a hurry, but certainly a worthwhile experience.  

Morris and Irene

Our guide told us that Varanasi is the oldest city- 5000 years old. It is really decrepit but one can see how very beautiful it must have been about 100 years ago. It is built along the banks of the Ganges and the shore line curves so you can see for quite a distance. The homes in the old part of the city, where we stayed, are mostly crumbling but the area is slowly being gentrified and has been since the 80’s. 

A view taken from the boat early morning.

The hotel we are in was once a family home. It still is and the family lives in one part of the house which is closed off from the hotel part.  There are at least three levels, each with about 4-6 rooms which lead onto a sitting room as well as several outdoor terraces.  We were about level with the treetops and were able to see the street life below, the Ganges and the shoreline. The house must have belonged to a very wealthy family. I am assuming that it was an extended family and perhaps each floor was occupied by another generation. They are had their own sitting areas as well as common sitting areas and a very large dining room on the main floor. Both nights that we were there, there was entertainment in the evening. I attended about 30 minutes of Suffi singing and playing of instruments on one of the nights. 

Vegetable vendors- the produce is surprisingly nice and fresh looking.

Not sure if I mentioned this before- it always amazes me to see the dirt and dust and then the women in their beautiful and clean looking saris. What a contrast!

Irene

Chandigarh and Shimla

In our guide book, it said that Chandigarh was designed probably in the 50’s or 60’s by Le Corbusier, a famous French architect. I had visions of a small French city. Morris reminded me to include Indians and their mentality in the equation (reference to previous blog- nothing is maintained). There are also motorcycles, rickshaws, carts and horses etc. but in reduced numbers compared to other cities.

Yesterday Morris had to work all day so some of his colleagues kindly invited me to join them in an excursion to a place called Shimla which is in the foothills of the Himalaya mountains. Unfortunately it took 3 1/2 hours to get there and three hours to get back with the most precipitous roads ever. We drove up the mountain with the usual traffic. I haven’t been car sick in years but I was feeling a little queasy. Judy wasn’t so lucky- halfway up we had to stop so that she could upchuck. 

Just because it’s a winding dangerous road didn’t mean that people stopped passing. Just because the road hugs the mountain on the way up with barely enough space on the side for a motorcycle, and there is a retaining wall (joke) of about 30 cm. on the cliff side, didn’t actually mean anything in terms of speed or passing. I have to say it was easily the most dangerous car drive I have ever experienced, and I have been to Thailand, Jamaica and Egypt! When Morris found out from the others how dangerous the road was he said that he was glad not to have know in advance as he would have been worrying. I was so thankful to have arrived back unharmed.

Shimla has its outstanding view to recommend it and thee are loads of tourists who go there to escape the heat. We also saw the viceroy’s summer home- very grand- which was handed over to the Indian government in 1947 when India achieved its independence. It is also famous because Ghandi, among other prominent Indian politicians, was there for the independence ceremony. However, he refused to attend the meetings for the partition of India into India and Pakistan because he didn’t agree with it.

Shimla:  The viceroy's residence

Today we went to Nek Chand Fantasy Rock Garden- a 25 acre Chandigarh icon.Created by Nek Chand, the “garden” is a curious maze of interlinking courtyards, twisting walkways etc. all fashioned from recycled junk and organic materials. It reminded us of the Gaudi park in Barcelona. What an amazing place! Because Chandigarh is not usually frequented by tourists other than Indians we were a real curiosity and must have been asked by at least 6 groups to have their picture taken with us. Rockstar status! 

Sculptures in the Nek Chand Rock Garden

Our drivers never seem to know where the hotel we are going to is.  So they open the passenger window and bellow across to the vehicle next to them.  Never mind that both vehicles are moving.  This is the Indian version of GPS.  You don’t have to stop to ask for directions

Someone once said of India, when asked how India was different from other places he had been:  Everyone is a doctor and wants to give you free advice.  Every stone is a God, every tree is a temple, and everywhere is a toilet.  It does seem that there are a surprising number of doctors around, doctors of Aryuvedic medicine, homeopathy, and other Indian forms of healing (as well as MD’s who, it seems can advertise).  In addition, there are those physicians with fake degrees, and all those PhD’s, real and fake. 

I don’t know about every stone being a God and every tree a temple, although there are more than a million deities in the Hindu pantheon, and many many temples.  However, I can attest that everywhere is a toilet.  It is common to see men peeing against a wall.  We passed a group of pilgrims today.  They were walking more than 200 km to their shrine.  There were many thousands of them, in a column that stretched over more than 10 km.  They carried their food, tents were set up for water, they would sleep at the side of the road, but there were no toilet facilities.  The bush would do. (It was amazing to see this never-ending parade of people spilling onto the road and walking 2-8 abreast. The colourful saris, their red and gold banners and flags, and the music that played through huge loudspeakers at every rest stop made it quite a remarkable sight!)

Pilgrims walking to their shrine more than 200 Km away

When they talk about the scents of India they include incense, but also smells of urine, rotting vegetation and feces as well as BO.  This place is not sanitary!

Indian Laundromat:  Imagine having water buffalo in your washing machine

The monuments, palaces and temples mainly, are spectacular, each more impressive than the next.  In Agra a few days ago we saw the Taj.  It was mind blowing.  The next day we saw the so-called Baby Taj, smaller than the main attraction, but no less spectacular.  (It was Morris' birthday the day we saw the Taj. Our guide illustrated how the center of the Taj is like an echo chamber. So I screamed out, "Happy Birthday Morris!" Not a bad place to spend your birthday.)

Just to prove we were there

Today we visited the Amber Fort in Jaipur.  I hope our pictures do it justice.  It was awe-inspiring.  Then we visited the Pink Palace, also in Jaipur.  Again, my mouth dropped open.  We would go through a door, an in each courtyard something new and different and spectacular.  We visited a site that they call an observatory.  It was constructed by a Maharajah in the 1700’s or 1800’s.  Essentially, he has erected several sundials, the largest of which is accurate to two seconds.  The vane of this sundial is several stories high.  He also built several astrological instruments, the angle of which faced the appropriate sign of the zodiac. Very impressive.  It all looks like a modern large scale sculpture.  

Amber fort, Jaipur

Pink Palace, Jaipur

Also at the Pink Palace

Jaipur, like Agra and old Delhi is a jumble of streets, some paved, some unpaved, and all potholed, with traffic going in every direction, in your driving lane.  It”s just crazy.  However, enough of traffic, I have expressed my feelings, and I won’ mention it again for fear of becoming boring.  

In Jaipur we stayed in yet another hunting lodge.  However, this one was in the center of the city.  nonetheless it was decorated in a manner appropriate to royalty (Maharajahs were and are royalty in India).  The front door was a huge brass door, with a smaller human sized door inset into the bigger one.  It was intricately sculpted.  Inside the wall and ceilings were decorated with intricate frescos.  On the rooftop there was an excellent restaurant.  

The entrance to our hotel, not the Pink Palace

For the most part we have had excellent food wherever we were.  I don’t think we had a bad meal, although some were less impressive than others.  As carnivores we have now added another species to our diet -  goat.   I did not realize what it was, and only found out afterwards.  I think we would have tried it even if we had known.  

Everywhere we go people stare at us.  I do’t think I am anything out of the ordinary, but Irene’s red hair attracts attention.  On occasion while attempting to take photos through the car window she was the recipient of a blown kiss from a passing motor cyclist.  I think it’s the Indian equivalent of a wolf whistle.  

The observatory

Had to do it !

Irene here!  Looks like Morris has covered everything but my aryuvedic massage. I had a hot oil massage for 70 minutes. By the end of it I was so covered in oil that had someone given me a gentle push I would have gone sliding off the table. It was absolutely the best massage I have ever experienced. I will be checking for aryuvedic massage locations in Toronto.

We are now in the airport in Delhi waiting for a connection to Varanasi. I am so looking forward to seeing the sights there. So far we find India to be such a fascinating country with very nice people. The one annoying thing so far is that they jack their prices up for the foreigners to the point where I may as well buy some of the souvenirs at home!

Love,

Irene and Morris

Next few days!

Day 3-5

Today we headed out to Bharatpur, and a National park called Keoladeo.  We are now staying at a heritage hotel in the village.  It is very grand.  Used to be the hunting lodge of the local Maharajah.  You’ll see from the picture below what it looks like.

Getting here was a bit of an adventure.  It’s only about 200 km from Delhi, but that’s about 4 hours drive given the driving conditions.  They say driving in India has only three requirements, a good horn, good brakes and good luck.  As in Egypt they sound their horns for two reasons, one to let you know they are there, and two, to tell you to get out of the way.  You have to decide for yourself which message they are trying to get across, and sometimes a toot on the horn means both “here I am” and “vamoose”.  

We traveled most of the way on a highway, or at any rate, a double laned road.  Problem was that there are no sidewalks or clear division between sidewalk and road.  You also have to cope with pedestrians, cyclists, tuk-tuks, trucks, buses and the occasional cow, all of which seem to regard the road as their personal bit of space. Very harrowing!  If I were driving I wouldn’t last 1 km.  

We drove through what in India passes for suburbia, dormitory towns and villages that look very poor.  In many areas the house are hovels, in others simply grubby and often incomplete.  There is trash everywhere.  We came across a dead donkey in the road.  Obviously someone had hit it, and no-one had bothered to remove it from the road.  In one place there was a tree in the road -  actually growing there.  If the tree was so valuable that they could not cut it down when they built the road, surely they could have made a slight detour around the tree.  Instead it is wrapped in reflective tape, that looked rather battered, testament, no doubt, to having engaged many unsuspecting cars.

This place is crowded.  Everywhere you go there are hundreds of people milling about, most in the middle of the road.  If you look down the side streets as you pass they are thronged with people.  Having been in two equally populous countries, India and China, I’d say that India has a long way to go to catch up to China in amenities.  

One we turned off the main road things went from bad to worse. The condition of the road deteriorated.  There were huge potholes, that slowed us down to a bone-crunching crawl. However, eventually we made it in time for  late lunch.  In a short while we will go out birding.  I am looking forward to it.  

I will let Morris tell you about the birding except for the fact that some of the birds were pretty spectacular. We drove through the conservation area mainly by rickshaw which are basically bicycles with a bench (built for two skinny Indians) on the back end covered with a canopy. Besides the birds we also saw some beautiful deer(different from ours), antelope, wild boar, jackals, monkeys and mixed into the collection of wild animals- the ubiquitous cows!

A rickshaw made for two.  However we were three with the guide.  Hence the second rickshaw in the background and two drivers

Once again because of Morris’ passion for bird watching we have managed to see parts of the country which aren’t really on the beaten path in terms of tourists. We get a lot of stares wherever we go and yesterday when we went into a small rural village in the vicinity of our hotel, we were followed by a throng of children. Then a group of teenaged boys came down to check us out as well.

Our driver and guide are both terrific. As a matter of fact our guide invited us to his home to have tea at the end of the day. We happily accepted! What a wonderful opportunity to see the inside of someone’s home when you are in another country, especially one where the culture is so completely different to our own!

First of all the guide obviously does very well financially especially since he only works 6 months of the year. The other 6 are too hot for birdwatching and I guess no tourists would be interested when it is 48 degrees- I can’t even imagine that!

Our guide’s family 

Our guide’s wife, two sons and parents all live in the same house- a 2 story pistachio- green stucco home which he had built 10 years ago. Not only was the guide’s family in the house but they also had a collection of aunts and cousins. I don’t know if that is par for the course or that they heard we might be coming by and decided to check us out.

The main floor is basically one large room with a couch etc. where Morris and I sat, and on the opposite side is a great big raised platform (maybe 8x8 feet) where all the ladies and the children sat. (We noticed this type of platform outside the houses in the Muslim part of Thailand and it is also everywhere in rural parts of India. The entire family stretches out, lounges etc. and watches the world go by. (They also take naps on wooden bed frames with a thin cord woven in a crosshatch pattern.) where the world going by can see them!).

I took a few photos, did lots of smiling and nodding, conversed with the guide’s 10 year old son who speaks English quite well. He goes to a private school run by nuns, and he is getting a very good education. We then went up to the roof- just the guide, the kids and us. The ladies stayed in the house. There we were served tea and cookies by yet another male cousin. From the rooftop patio we could see the 2 cows they keep, the garden, the pile of patties and the satellite dish.

Everywhere you go in the rural parts there are these dark brown disks about 5 cm thick and maybe 25 cm across. They are either laying on the ground or piled up in conical or rectangular shaped shaped structures. We discovered that these are cow patties which are dried and stored to be used as fuel instead firewood. Some of these piles of patties are then covered over with another layer of cow dung in order to keep snakes and moisture out once the rains come. Those who are more creative/artsy make patterns in the outer layer. We even saw one with metal decorations stuck onto the surface. During the course of the day, the women take a large metal basin, fill it up with cow patties and hoist it up onto their head. They are incredible strong and have amazing posture!

Note the cow pats in the bowl on her head

Some sights we have seen in the last few days- entire families on a motorcycle- nobody wearing a helmet (we regularly see old ladies in their lovely saris on the back of the motorcycle- looks incongruous. Can you imagine your mother/grandmother on the back of a motorcycle!), bicycles, camels, donkeys, horses and elephants pulling carts, tuktuks with 12+ people where there are meant to be up to 4, trucks and buses jammed with people hanging out the back and sitting on the roof... We saw people on their knees or squatting on their haunches with a sickle in their hands cutting wheat and tying it into little bundles- you can imagine how slow progress is. Everywhere you go there are men peeing out in the open, but with their backs turned toward the traffic. All the towns have wells with a concrete platform where the men and boys wearing their underwear- all of them dark blue for some reason- go and wash themselves using pails of water to get wet and to rinse. There are other raised concrete platforms where the women in groups scrub their laundry. (We were told that the women carry containers of water to their homes where they can bathe in private).

I could go on and on but I won’t because nobody wants to read all this! Just one more thing. On the way back to Delhi our driver suggested stopping at a very holy shrine- you can’t imagine how huge it is. The entire length of this shrine was packed with people buying and selling things. The garbage on the ground was unbelievable- no garbage containers anywhere. Anyway we parked, stepped out and within about 90 seconds we ran back to the car- the stench of the place was too much for us! It seems that it was a holy day and a million people had come for the day. In their wake they left even more garbage than is usually there, and they needed to use the nonexistent facilities so just use your imagination- actually don’t bother because it is unimaginable!

The trough is filled with garbage.  They say a million people visit this temple over a few days.  There are no additional toilet facilities!!

The previous few paragraphs were written on day 3.  This next is being written a few days later.  The national park was terrific for birding.  There were hundreds, if not thousands of birds on the wetlands.  Apparently, at it’s peak there are about 10 times more birds here than at present, and yet what we saw over the next two days was impressive enough.  

Just one small corner of this park

Irene has written about our experiences on the birding leg of the trip, so I won’t repeat that.  We were due to travel to Chandigarh by train the next evening, so we had another day in Delhi.  Didn’t turn out that way, but more on that later.  We planned to go to the National Museum, but en route we were accosted by a man who claimed to be a journalist and told us that there was a demonstration at the national Museum, and so why don’t we go visit a craft place.  He hailed a passing tuk-tuk and off we went.  Of course, there was no demonstration, and we ended up at a store, run by a cooperative.  We had no intention of buying anything, but Irene met her match.  She was out bargained and we came away with another small carpet and some clothing for Irene.  These guys are superb salesmen.  Fortunately, the store at least was reputable and mentioned in the guidebook as being legit and providing high quality goods.

While we were in the store I received an email that our train to Chandigarh was cancelled.  Apparently a group of people, called “Jats” (a tribe I think) were blockading the railroad in an effort to convince the government to reserve jobs for them.  Instead of the outrage that one would expect the general reaction seemed to be “Oh Well!  That’s how things work in India”.  So, we had to drive to Chandigarh.  Instead of the journey taking 2 hours it took 6!  Another terrifying 6 hours on the road.  Fortunately we are flying back to Delhi tomorrow.  

The overall impression that one gets of India is of decrepitude.  Things are not maintained.  Things that get broken are not fixed.  Things that are dirty do not get cleaned.  So the buildings are stained. The masonry is missing bricks or has chipped concrete.  Roads that were dug up for one reason or other are only partly filled in, leaving gaping holes.  Our hotel in Chandigarh can best be described as shabby.  The plugs in India are different than the rest of Asia or Europe, and my adapter did not work.  I called the front desk, and instead of giving me an adapter they sent their electrician to the room. He proposed putting the plug off and inserting the bare wires into the socket.  Needless to say, I did not allow this.  This typifies some of the attitudes here.  They make do, rather than doing it right.  

Yet despite this, in some areas they are technologically very advanced.  At some of the presentations today they showed work that involved technology that we don’t have.  The contrast is surprising.  

We asked about crime in India, and were told that violent crime is relatively uncommon, (except when rioting or protesting, common events, when deaths do occur).  However, our informant told us that cheating and corruption are rife.  A surprising number of government ministers and high ranking civil servants and even judges are charged with corruption.  There was a scam on pilot’s licenses, and an estimated 25% of pilot licenses being faked, including some who were flying for commercial airlines.  The newspapers yesterday had a story about the daughter of a high official in the civil service, who was kicked out of flying school in the USA for incompetence, had some more training and faked her license.  She was able to get a job despite her poor qualifications and a large surplus of pilots in India.  This story typifies the graft and corruption that occurs here.  The newspapers are full of it.  You may remember that one of the previous prime ministers was a paid informant of the CIA.  The current prime minister has been accused of accepting a bribe, based on information from Wikileaks.  Of course there is corruption in Canada as well, but we are pikers compared to these guys.  

I gave my presentation yesterday, and this was greeted with some hostility.  I was asked about a procedure called “fine-needle aspiration” in the diagnosis of liver cancer and I answered that it should not be used.  Little did I know that the chairman of the session was a big fan of fine needle aspiration.  However, because of his very heavy accent I couldn’t understand much of what he was saying so I could not respond to his specific points.  So instead I responded by diplomatically, that his experience was different that ours.  There is however, a lot of data supporting my position, and very little data supporting his position.   I have had this reaction before, because what I propose, and what is in our published guidelines is contrary to previous practice, and those who have developed their reputations using older methods have difficulty accepting that they might have been wrong.  Doesn’t bother me.  The data supports me, and what we recommend is standard practice in Europe and some parts of the States, as well as in Canada.

The Dining Hall of the place we stayed at in Bharatpur (Ten minutes from the National Park)

The main building of the hotel we stated in at Bharatpur.  Very grand!

An overloaded tuk-tuk.  Five in the back, four facing forwards in the interior, another 4 facing back in the interior, and one on either side of the driver (15 people on a bicycle made for two, actually and the driver)

Village scene.  The kids were fascinated by Irene

Cutting wheat by hand.  Nothing mechanized here

Old vs new.  Note the wide boulevard.  This is not a one way street.  We were heading the opposite way.  

Village street scene.  Note how crowded it is.

Another street scene.  Fruit stalls, cattle, and a scooter.  Fairly typical

Irene took this one.

More next time

Morris and Irene