Tada Falls

The "Simmerna" falls, to be featured as a hot spot in the Simmerna guide to South India... where if you're lucky you'll catch these bathing beauties:)

The crew trekking along the river bed, which served as our path.

Aparna found this less traveled hike for us, about 85 km north of Chennai just over the state border in Andhra Pradesh. We used random travel blogs we found online to plan the hike, seeing as how there is no AMC guidebook equivalent. The blogs described "formidable rock formations" and "treacherous steep inclines," however, we found it pretty managable. We hiked up the riverbed and used rock climbing skills when necessary to hoist ourselves through crevices and over large boulders. I must say, I was impressed by Kim & Aparna's natural skills, I think we have found a few new Metro Rock recruits :)

Mamallapuram

A stone mural. The carvings earned Mamallapuram a "National Heritage" title.

trees, rice paddies and ocean

the other two angels are just not as quick on the draw as I am, that's all...

Will and Ross choosing an interactive tour of the carvings...

This gigantic boulder, perched seemingly precariously, is actually called "the butterball." This was Kim's favorite, and she really enjoyed saying "butterball" over and over throughout the day:)

Kim and I with our first coconut. Not at all what I expected coconut to taste like - the milk was almost salty to my Americanized taste buds and the pulp was a bit too slimy, although dried out I think it'd been fabulous.

part of the "Five Rathas," a group of Pallavan rock cut temples excavated 200 years ago by the British.

the shore temple, striking with green grass, red dirt, grey stone, black blue ocean and baby blue sky.

A couple weeks ago, a few of us took a day trip to Mamallapuram, a coastal village boasting an aesthetic shore temple, ocean side seafood cafes and stone carvings ranging from murals etched into cliffs to intricate hand-size figurines of elephants or gods.

The road to the beachfront is lined with shack after shack offering stone carvings, bangles, and other knick-knack Indian paraphernalia. As the conspicuous foreigners, we are urged to enter every shop and if we accept the invitation, items are flooded before us. A few members of the group entered countless bidding debates with shopkeepers trying to gauge just how low they could go. Between shopping and negotiating transportation fares, my bargaining skills have improved in India, and I think Grandpa Dave would have been proud. Stone carvers sit and chisel curved lines into sandstone or marble, giving birth to statuettes, the most popular being replicas of Ganesh, the god with an elephant's head, and small elephants imprisoned by a mesh-work of stone within the belly of a larger elephant.

We wandered through the park housing many large stone carvings which we enjoyed posing with, and then folllowed a rocky path a short distance away from the village where we found ourselves above fields and paddies, lakes, ocean, palm trees, and sky.

Afterwards, we returned for coconuts and sunset on the beach. The ocean was warm, but we didn't venture too far - partly because of the time, partly because donning a bathing suit would have been inappropriate for the female contingency (a few Indian women were swimming in full saris) and partly because we'd been warned that the riptide claims a few lives each year.

After a two hour drive, we were delivered safely back at the Ananda around 10pm, topping off an exceptionally long and fulfilling Sunday.

les animaux

a bedazzled Jumbo. domesticated elephants... slightly depressing.

an oddly human appearing emu. this one is in the college "zoo."

the monkeys... i love the monkies.

mamma and baby cow chilling out roadside style.

around Vellore...

Rongoli, which is like sidewalk art commonly drawn in chalk. Many people have a new design daily.

A woman selling flower chains, which are usually placed upon shrines in temples. smaller chains are woven into women's hair.

How many people can fit in an autorickshaw? our PR is 7... 6 in the back and one in the front. Of course, that required a bit of rail/lap sitting, as well as a fairly well-tuned rickshaw.

The International crowd at our "favorite" rooftop restaurant... the Darling Residency. Bring on the Kenny G.

an intro to CMC... my work

I'm posted at the Christian Medical College, which is an enormous tertiary hospital with over 2,000 beds in the heart of downtown Vellore. It is a veritable oasis of academia and first world medicine amidst the choked and dust-filled streets.

As I'm officially here as part of the "research curriculum program," I have set up a couple research projects which I hope to be able to conclude while I'm here. The first is with the Emergency Dept - I will be performing a retrospective analysis of all of the snake bite cases over the last ten years. Most of you know I have a pretty significant snake phobia, which I'm hoping won't prove to be too much of an obstacle... And by the time I'm done my knowledge of venomous reptiles will rival, dare I say surpass, Justin Stempeck's. I'm also interested in looking into the difficulties surrounding trauma resuscitation and management in the developing world, but I'm not sure I'll be able to put that together as an official study.

I'm also doing a research project with the ICU comparing the case mix and outcomes here to that of the US and Australia. The implications of the study will hopefully address whether the varying outcomes that have been reported (worse outcomes in India) are due in part to differences in case mix, or if it is largely due to intrinsic lack of resources...

Not sure if I've lost some of you with these tedious descriptions. I find research to be pretty unsatisfying at times, so I've arranged to do clinical work in the Emergency Department in the mornings. This is my first week and after two days of seeing everything from motor vehicle accidents to untreated end stage cancer, to organophosphate poisoning (one of the most common methods of suicide) to snake bites, I'm completely hooked and have found myself going back for afternoon rounds as well. The director, Dr. Suresh David, is incredibly brilliant and a dedicated teacher who expects a lot from his junior doctors. There's also an American doctor who constantly seeks us out to show us physical/radiologic findings and quiz us on world politicoeconomics (yes, I made that word up) which I am particularly bad at. The Emergency department itself is the largest in India, seeing about 100 to 120 patients a day. The numbers themselves aren't that impressive, but the patients seen are SICK, as the common complaints are funneled elsewhere and over 70% of the patients are admitted.

There are quite a few other international med students here from Australia and around Europe, and they make a fun crowd to hang out/travel with. The top photo is a view of Vellore from the hospital roof, where my new favorite coffee/tea/biscuit bar is located. Sadly, the coffee servings are no larger, but the setting is striking and it makes a nice place for recharging.

The coffee question

For myself and my fellow coffee drinkers, the pressing question of "where will we get coffee?" always arises when traveling. I had a couple days of caffeine withdrawal headaches before I figured it out. We can make instant coffee at home, which I just can't get behind, as well as tea, which just doesn't quite do it for me. A few days ago I discovered the coffee stand at the hospital. The coffee itself is pretty good, although much sweeter and foamier than US coffee. While I usually concede that American serving sizes are out of control, I find this serving size to be inadequate. I usually need two... and the coffee girl thinks that's pretty funny.

Tiruvannamalai

Saturday, Jan 16th, we traveled to the temple town of Tiruvannamalai. My rudimentary understanding that I've gained from guidebooks and friends is that there are three manifestations of the eternal god, Brahman: Braham, the creator, Vishnu, the sustainer, and Shiva, the destoyer. Legend explains it was here in Tiruvannamalai that Shiva's phallic symbol, the lingam, first appeared as a large looming column of fire upon the mountain top of Arunachala. Kim and I joined Aparna and her parents to visit the temple and the local ashram, which is like a Hindi monastery. At the ashram, we found a tree draped with small multicolored pouches, each containing a wish. Aparna's parents were awesome (we see where she gets it) and explained many aspects of Hindi philosophy and religion. We didn't make it to the mountain top, but Kim and I fully plan on returning when there is a full moon, when thousands turn out to make the climb barefoot.