Well it's a few days into my 11 month "break" and I'm sat listening to the happy chaos on the road outside, horns blaring, cows wandering and crazy rickshaws weaving around. My fights here went smoothly - small panic attack at Doha (Qatar) - delay meant only 20mins to change flights but made it by the skin of my teeth - it was midnight and 33 degrees - not great for a 500m sprint. On my next leg, a few miles up the date suddenly occurred to me...Sept 11th, not the best date for flying and especially not when the man sat next to you is merrily tapping the emergency exit handle in time to the music. The air stewardess thought I'd lost the plot when she came around giving everyone white cards before the early 1am curry breakfast. When she got to me I told here that "I wouldn't be needing one, thankyou, as I am a vegetarian". She seemed puzzled that this would make me exempt from needing to fill out my immigration details...it wasn't a menu...I am officially a thick foreigner!
The heat hit me when I got off the plane...no more cold English summer, talk about one extreme to the other. Kerala (where I landed) is beautiful, green and exotic. It was a 7 hour drive to get to Tamil Nadu - it only appears to be a small hop away on the map! Here it is more dry and barren, but the mountain range which runs between the two states is suprisingly big and provides a beatiful back drop to Puliangudi, the small town where I'll live for the next 2 months.
My "family" are just lovely and go out of their way to be helpful. There are 8 people living in the house and I live off a nearby courtyard in a basic room which suits me down to the ground. The day I arrived in town I was introduced to the Dr at the hospital. It is tiny and chaotic. I was shown through to his wife who was stitching up a lady (in stirrups) who had just given birth. I am quickly learning that there is no such thing as privacy in hospitals! The same night I went to observe a lady having half her stomach removed (10pm-2am) and then slept at the hospital (at 2am the temple music started nextdoor - MUCH louder than a nightclub!). The operating theatre had a bug walking down the wall and fan kept on blowing things around. The most surreal moment was the 10min break mid-op when the surgeon was trying to get his digital camera to work to take a picture of his handy-work!
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