30 May 2008

We found Shinee though she is not as helpful as we hoped. We get a car though, and wander the city a bit. We wanted to go to an outdoor bazaar, but the driver just kept taking us to normal shops. Not a bad day though. It ended early and we simply relaxed at the hotel for the evening.

29 May 2008

So we boarded the bus to Agra, which was accented by the smoke of incense filling the bus. My lungs don’t take kindly to smoke weather it be exhaust, cigarette, or incense, so in spite of the aroma, it was a less than enjoyable way to start my day. After this I basically slept on the 3 hour trip down. The first stop was Fort Agra. This was a fortress built by the Mughals and then used by many other inhabitants to follow. The fort was never taken while it was used as originally intended. Now tour groups invade it every couple hours. It was beautiful architecture with red sandstone and marble sections. It is surrounded by a dry moat that would have been filled with poisonous snakes and lions. There is a photo of the sign that gives the history of the fort for those interested. Moving on, we made our way to some shopping where we got some of the same stuff we have been used to seeing for those who wanted to pick any elephants, or Taj Mahals up. From here we went to the actual Taj Mahal, or Crown Palace. The pictures you get of this place don’t do it justice as you might imagine. The larger than life creation is an amazing sight filled with nuances of detail that are truly wonderful. We paid our IRPs 750 while Vibha paid her IRPs 10 to get in. Foreigners really get ripped off. Luckily our fee came with a free guide that showed us around and showed off the wonderful alignment of the palace’s symmetrical gates, echo-enhancing double dome structure (the dome of the Taj Mahal actually has another smaller dome inside it to cause echo to reverberate), and optical illusions built in to the palace. After this we took some lunch (thali is apparently a sample platter or meal) and left for home. On the way we hit up the birthplace of Krishna (One of the incarnations of Vishnu) which was actually a prison. Krisha is one of the most well known Gods of the Hindu religion and is recognizable by the flute he is almost always playing. He is renowned for his charm, good nature, and as the most beautiful person on the planet. Most people seem to add on “in spite of also being very dark skinned if you can imagine.” The Indian culture is not one that is so proud of dark skin, and products such as ‘fair and beautiful/handsome’ are mainstream skin care products supposed to give fairer complexion. There is usually surprise when they find we often believe dark skinned people are beautiful, and fair skinned often are not. Krishna has a nice temple here now too. Unfortunately pictures in temples are forbidden, and so I have none to show, but there are some of the outside of some temples. We boarded the bus and slept most of the way back. In the morning there was a movie we watched about brothers who grew up boxing for India that was pretty good. There was drama in the family, reconciliation, humor mixed in, and good values all around. The movies are long here though, with 3-4 hours not being strange.

28 May 2008

We tried going to a bank, after meeting with the members of the Institute (IAH & VB) led by Director Renukuprasad. The group was definitely on IST though, and we had to do a mad dash after this to get to the airport for our flight…which by this time were running on time. So after failing at the banks across the street which were actually just ATMs, we had to simply leave and have people trust me with the money to get to Dr. Nadeem when I returned. We rushed to Dr. Nadeem’s house where his wife and daughter had made us lunch that was AMAZING! Now I like Indian food and all, but this was spectacular. 5 of us then managed to pile into a car with ALL the luggage and a driver to meet the others at the airport. This involved 1/2 of the car to be on someone else’s lap and no way to see out the back. The ridiculousness of this all resulted in lots of stares (more than the usual) towards our car. We made it…barely getting through security due to a 15 minute delay and flew to Delhi. We knew we had to find someone with a name that sounded like ‘shiny’ that worked for Panicker’s travel agency. While the name of the agency did not instill a great sense of security, Dr. Nadeem had faith in them, and he has let to lead us astray. We would not find ‘shiny’ for two days, but a small bus got us to a hotel and all was good. A brief debate over room cost, we settled in to rooms with cable TV, toilet paper stocked, and a shower that had a curtain. We slept then…till 3:00am for our 4:00am bus to Agra.

27 May 2008

We had another clinc day and I spent the time in internal medicine. We saw an endoscopy done on a dog and found minor mucosal ulcerations in the stomach. We had a meeting with Dean Yathiraj to discuss the program likes and dislikes for the following group.
Pros:
• Zoos
• Weddings
• Temples
• Silkworms
• Shopping
• Cultural programs
• Village Visits
• Movie
• Babies
• Elephants
• Wildlife
Cons/Wants:• Did not get to see actual fisheries in Mangalore
• Travel should be reduced and we can take or leave the sleeper bus.
• More clinics wanted with less Bacterology/Virology.
• More student interaction wanted.
• More Internet access needed.
• More Large animal experiences-perhaps split group by interest.
• Know money upfront
• Learn about the school earlier on.
We went and rested up at the KVC after clinics to pack up for the trip tomorrow to Delhi.

26 May 2008

Actually spent the day at the veterinary college. We saw several presentations on animal disease and what India was like. Over 70% of the population is in the rural sector here. Ownership of livestock is evenly distributed among landless laborers and marginal farmers. The school was inaugurated in 2004 as the 5th Veterinary school in the state. Some breeds of animals endemic to the region are the Malnad Gidda cattle, South Kenara Buffalo, and Bandur sheep. Institutes under the college include dairy science, toxicology, vaccine research, and wildlife veterinary medicine. The school runs regional diagnostic centers and health camps for training as well. There are BVSC+AH, MVS, and PhD degrees offered by the school. We saw one Dr. do a flank spay in a stray dog with amazing time. He says he slowed it down for us and can do them in 5-6 minutes. We went home and cleaned up a bit before going to a building where some students did some Indian cultural dances. At the end we got up and they taught us some popular dances and had an all around good time. We finished the night eating Domino’s Pizza at KVC and some of the girls had Henna done by Dr. Nadeem’s Daughter.

25 May 2008

We started the day@ the beach where we found shells, crabs, and the usual ocean stuff. It is cool to see a whole new ocean though. Now, I’m at very least an amateur entomologist, and I’ve seen big horse flies, and other flies before; but here…here is the fattest, largest fly I have ever encountered. I only saw them hovering around, but I believe if one were to desire, it could of given me a nice piercing…say though my liver. We left and headed to the zoo when people had their fill of long walks on the beach. The zoo here is very well kept with good labels which has been a problem in some of the other places we have visited. Labeling seems to be skimped on a lot, but not here, even lots of the trees are labeled which is cool for me as a tree lover. I learned that the crazy red squirrels seen earlier at the zoo are called Giant Indian Squirrels, and a cool cute bird I saw at the hotel in Shimoga is called a Red-Whiskered Bul Bul. Also, many of the birds I called hawks were Kites. There were 10 month old tiger cubs that looked almost full grown and an army of snakes and lizards of varying degrees of toxicity. A zoo worker even jumped in the porcupine pen to get me a quill. One of Dr. Nadeem’s friends in the Poultry Industry, took us out to a buffet lunch in an extremely fancy hotel. The food was delicious and followed by a trip to get giant mango special ice cream, which about exploded us. He showed us the church at the catholic school he went to growing up. It was incredibly well painted, crafted, and designed. We went around some and looked at temples where Vibha showed us some of the ropes and told some of the stories. It was a fairly good time. Our flight was grossly delayed (about 8 hours), and we stayed at the house of the man who took us out to dinner before. We got to watch TV, use Internet, and we taught him and Dr. Nadeem some card games. We got some pictures with him, and enjoyed some ginger-lime juice, which was a new experience I recommend to try if you want a refreshing drink.
We went to the airport and waited…a lot. Dr. Nadeem is not the guy to make wait when you claim your plane is on time and ready. He called the press. Luckily for us (as No one wanted to deal with press as we were all half asleep) the airport found us a plane and sent us to Bangalore before they got there.

24 May 2008

We arrived in Bangalore in the morning where we repacked and moved out to Mangalore. This was the first day the new Domestic Airport was open in Bangalore, and it took some waiting, but we made it eventually. We stopped at a fisheries college where we learned about various aquaculture diseases. Whitespot is a hughe problem for shellfish here, and the college developed a quick test to diagnose it, which is cheaper and more specific than the PCR alternative. An oral biofilm vaccine for EUS seems to be developed here as well. The college actually had some really great research papers out and I was quite impressed with the material they tackled here, especially in the areas of molecular biology and antibody diagnostics. The area of the country is beautiful in Mangalore with great hills, and forest lining the ocean. Our hotel also turned out to be a surprise as it was also a water park! We rode water slides, swam around, and rode a giant Ferris wheel. We then were treated to a very nice dinner by one of Dr. Nadeems associates. We then went back to the hotel where we failed to have a dance party due to lack of music and energy. While I was restless I took some time to see what pictures of the night sky I could get with some exciting results.

23 May 2008

Today was a crazy day. We woke up early to wash elephants in a river, that’s right. After this we took some rides on the elephants. Some of the babies were still breast-feeding which was something I never imagined I would see. The elephants ranged from 3 months to 76 years old at the camp. Not a bad range for a group of maybe 15. This was followed by stopping off at a very decorative temple of Shiva. Shiva is one of the main Hindu gods, recognizable by the snakes he wears, trident, and river (often spouting from a woman’s mouth) that springs from his hair. He is the god of destruction and recreation, or change. I’ll summarize my Hindu mythology lessons later in a piece, but for now I want to mention that after visiting a Shiva temple, you are to dust yourself off or you may carry the dust of the temple that can carry destruction with it. We moved on to a wildlife safari on a bus. On the way back we saw a ritual going on in a nearby village as they were celebrating Durga puja. Music was playing and people watched on as a man in a trance pulsed to music while kneeling on the floor. Afterwards several goats were decapitated and had their left forearm severed and placed in their mouth. It is safe to say no one in the group had seen this before. Dr. Nadeem had been wanting pictures of this for a lecture on comparison of slaughter methods used. The whole process was done in one stroke for each head with a very large curved knife, similar to the ones used to cut our young coconuts we’ve enjoyed. The villagers were very nice and the children liked to say hi to us in English like most places we go. We ended the day with dinner at the hotel where people wound down to absorb the day’s events before going to board a sleeper bus we took back. I use the term ‘sleeper’ lightly, but I am sure I managed to get a few hours in.

22 May 2008

Shimoga is a nice town but a bit dustier than Bangalore, Our hotel is pretty choice with colored lighting on each floor at night and pretty cush rooms. We had a meeting with a vet director we met randomly at breakfast that helps fund Dr. Nadeem’s programs. They invited us to a groundbreaking ceremony for the boys hostel at the new vet school going up. It was a bit more involved than a guy with a shovel in America. Rather, a priest chanted and blessed the earth involving several rituals. We took some photos, schmoozed a bit and took off to the elephant camp. It is interesting though that classes are being taught at this school before there are even buildings up for all the classes and students (and this one is scheduled to be finished in two years).
The elephant camp is pretty nice. The elephants are gathered every morning from the forest, brought to the river and washed, fed, and had oils put on their forehead. Not a bad deal if you are an elephant I’d imagine. The elephants have been trained, if you stand in front of them, to bless you. So you can go and pray in front of them and they will place their trunk on your head as if adorning you with holy water or some such (in this case holy drips of mucous). It is pretty cute to watch, especially when even the babies will do it. We would visit back again tomorrow, but we left to see a cattle ranch that has all India Native breeds of cattle. These cattle come in many shapes and sizes from small cows that are so friendly they will meet you at the gate and nuzzle you (not that any of the cattle are any more mean, just not so actively affectionate) to the giant cattle with horns longer than your legs. Most of them are medium sized gray cattle with a hump though that I cannot tell apart. These are often divided by the state from which they originated and some less superficial traits than I can observe in the hours we are there.

I think this is also the night we saw a movie in a theater. Jennat was a Hindi flick about getting caught up in the game of match fixing for Cricket. I don’t know that I’ve mentioned it yet, but Cricket is huge here. People play everywhere and I have no idea what is going on yet. I know that runs are good, wickets are bad, bowlers pitch, and you can get up to six runs with a good hit. I’ll figure it out later and perhaps enlighten my readers who care.