Delhi

We have arrived in Delhi and it's HOT! The city is much much bigger than Goa, with highways and traffic lights! (a rare sight in Goa) Although I find the city life a nice change after 3 weeks in a small place, I can't say the same about the people, who are not friendly, even bordering on rude. They also speak less fluent English, which makes things a little harder. Who knew 2 cities in the same country could be so different?

We'll be doing some sight-seeing tomorrow. Will keep you posted!

Goodbye Goa

I can't believe 3 whole weeks has passed since we arrived in Goa. Everything that was once so foreign has becom familiar and routine. Waking up each morning and walking in the HEAT to the hospital, joining the ward round, lunch at the hospital canteen (surprisingly good and cheap), skiving off as early as possible, and then rushing of to see the sights. Even the chaotic bus routes of Goa have become second nature to us and we are able to give directions to tourists! Walking back from the hospital is like walking through our "kampung", we stop every so often to talk to people we know along the way. We are indeed "almost a Goan".

I realise I haven't posted very much on Goa, and sorry no pictures (the internet is slow even when I'm only checking emails). I will definitely post some pictures when I get back. To sum up Goa, it is a place of sun and sand, good food, and most importantly friendly Goans.

We will be leaving Goa tomorrow for Delhi, which is supposed to be hotter than Goa. I have mixed feelings about leaving Goa. Keen to move on an explore another city, but knowing I will miss this one.

Roads of India

This, as you can probably guess, is bad at best. Drivers beep their horns more than they signal. Our taxi driver coming from the airport approximated 1 beep every 5 seconds (no, I'm not joking!), which makes sleeping in the car impossible. A horn can mean 1 of many things - you're in my lane, get of; you look like you're ABOUT to come into my lane, stay of; I'm coming round the corner; I just feel like beeping my horn; etc. It's really up to other vehicles and pedestrians to interpret them. Driving in the lane of oncoming traffic is no big deal. You just have to squeeze back into your lane when you see a car coming head on. They also have traffic police a.k.a. cows standing in the middle of the roads, slowing traffic. You can imagine...

Almost a Goan

Firstly, sorry for not updating regularly. I thought the excitement might keep it going for a bit, but what I didn't take into account was the accessibility to the internet!

Anyway, we've been in Panjim, Goa for 3 days now. Panjim is the capital city of the Goa state and isn't very big at all. We were initially quite shock at the size of the city ie. it was smaller than expected. Probably about the size of Sibu, for those from Sarawak. The city is actually cleaner than I expected. We haven't seen too many piles of rubbish by the road side or smelt too many stenches. So that's good!

Food!!!!!!!!!!!! This is good and cheap. We mainly eat at lower budget restaurants because they're clean and very reasonably priced. We can get a proper meal for Rs 100 (about RM10). We are still on a mission to try all types of Goan food. We've tried the pork vindaloo which is a pork dish cooked with chilli, spices and tamarind, dodol which is quite different from the Malaysian dodol but still good and many others.

On the medical side of things, we're only expected to go to the hospital for half days, which suits us just fine. :) We've seen some interesting cases so far including tropiccal diseases not seen in the UK, such as typhoid fever.

I'll leave it at that for now. Bye.