Fourth Week (Already!?)

This past week was busy, as usual. Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday I worked on research in the Department. Thursday I went to a village about an hour away for a meeting for the PREPARE project. More about that later.

One of the days I worked in the Department, I brought some Easy Mac (microwavable macaroni and cheese…could I be any more American?) to make for lunch (yes, I packed Easy Mac in my luggage). Everyone stops whatever they’re doing and joins together at 1:00pm for lunch either in the classroom or the conference room. It’s a very nice practice, considering a lot people in the U.S. just scarf down their lunch alone at their desk. So everyone sits around, and all the food everyone brought from home for their lunch comes out in containers and everyone passes in around and shares. It’s wonderful because I get to try all sorts of delicious homemade foods. I love it! Sharing food here is the norm, everyone shares whatever they have to eat and is always offering. I get the impression that if you didn’t try at least a little bit, it would be rude. Sharing water is also common. Indians don’t put their mouth to the bottle, they just pour it in. Obviously they’ve been doing this their whole lives so they are good at it, but every time I try, I just spill water all down my shirt and look like an idiot (fail).

Monday night I had a Skype meeting with my epidemiology advisor, Dr. Borenstein. We really needed this meeting to go over the details of my special project, which is a requirement of my graduation. It was quite a stressful conversation as I realized just how much work I have to do in the next few weeks. It’s part of the reason I decided not to go on any trips this coming weekend (6/11-12). The project is very extensive and I’ll have to do some calculations to project incidence of Alzheimer’s disease in China in the next 30 years. I’m just taking things day by day and setting goals for my progress.

My spring 2010 semester at USF I had to take a class called Database Management for Public Health Researchers, and Dr. Rajaram taught the class. I have to say that he had some influence in me wanting to go to India for my field experience. When I started my Master’s program, I knew that in two years I would have to decide where I would want to go for two months, and many places crossed my mind—Australia, Geneva (Switzerland), Costa Rica, and in the back of my mind—India. Since learning about global public health in college, I’ve had this desire to see Asia and more specifically India, which is the second most populous country in the world. From everything I’ve heard, India was so vastly different all across the country (both in geography and people). Considering how short my attention span is, I thought this would be a great fit for me. I distinctly remember googling St. John’s in Dr. Raj’s class and thinking, “wow, this might be a great place for my IFE!” I then approached Dr. Raj after class and told him I was interested in going there, to which he replied, “I am from Bangalore!” He put me in touch with Dr. Wagner in the Dept. of Environmental and Occupational Health, who has a relationship with the faculty here in the Dept. of Community Health at St. John’s, and the rest is history.

As luck would have it, Dr. Rajaram travels extensively to teach classes and happened to be in Bangalore for part of my trip. Tuesday evening I went out to dinner with him! His family’s driver picked me up and we went to the Forum Mall, very close by. There is an awesome restaurant in the mall and it’s got an actual train car inside, with tables and chairs in the car. The restaurant is very fancy for Bangalore and American standards. We got a bottle of Indian merlot (with a twist-off cap of course; India is not very well known for its wine…) and had delicious appetizers of tandoori baby corn and sweet potatoes, and paneer and vegetable kebab. (Side note: tandoori is a type of oven used to cook all sorts of things in—veggies, naan bread, chicken, etc., and paneer is cheese but to me it tastes more like tofu) For dinner we had a palak dish (spinach) and chicken biryani. It was so great to catch up with him and hang out with someone from home so far away from home. I hope to see him again during my trip.

On Thursday I traveled with two doctors from the Department to a small rural village outside of Bangalore. It’s one of the 13 villages that will be participating in the PREPARE cardiovascular disease clinical trial, which is just getting underway. The meeting was to inform the community and village leaders of how the program will work, and to build trust and rapport with the people. We took a taxi and made several stops first (in true Indian fashion), so it took us about 2 hours to get there. The meeting was held in a small pre-school room an lasted about half an hour. Of course after the meeting we had two requests for consultations. Whenever a doctor comes to a small village like that, the people use this opportunity to ask their medical questions. I guess doctors all over the world get this. “Oh, you’re a doctor? What do you think about this pain in my side I’ve been having? What could that be?” Anyway, there was one woman with a thyroid issue and another woman who approached us asking about her daughter, who was mentally retarded. The daughter was about 18 years old. The parents were requesting that she get a hysterectomy for hygiene and safety issues. If she were to be raped and get pregnant, that would be a whole host of problems. The doctors informed her that they need to go to NIMHANS, which is India’s National Institute of Mental Health and Neuro-sciences. There is a special commission there tasked with examining cases of women just like this, who are mentally handicapped and the families want hysterectomies. They would first need to get approval there. I never thought about this issue..how do we handle it in the U.S.? If a mentally handicapped woman’s family wanted her to get a hysterectomy, would that be allowed to happen? There are such huge ethical questions surrounding the issue.

Here are some pictures from the village meeting:

Village meeting for the PREPARE project
Note the little kids lined up against the wall on the right; This room is used as a preschool

Little preschooler :)

For every one of the 13 villages in the study, a village map has to be drawn up so anyone is able to find the correct study participant's house. Sorry, no google maps for this place.

Thursday night was Katinka’s birthday! About 15 of us went to Rendez Vous, a bar/restaurant that has grown to be one of our favorites. Some of the guys surprised Katinka with a chocolate fudge cake, her favorite. It was such a nice evening and I’m glad Katinka could have a great birthday celebration while abroad.

Friday I turned in my 20 page long mid-point IFE report to Dr. Wagner, my IFE advisor back at USF. It’s pretty dry but if any of you are interested in reading it….just let me know. We also had a mid-point Skype meeting with my supervisor here, Dr. Avita. It went very well and I think he’s pleased with my progress thus far. It’s nice to have gotten that out of the way!

Janine and Katinka left Friday night to go back to Germany. It was bittersweet—sad because they have become good friends to me and happy because they finally get to go home. I think they had some great times in India but were getting increasingly annoyed with all the ridiculous rules, so I think they will be somewhat happy to get home. I imagine there will be some reverse culture shock when they reach Germany. Things are just so, so different in the Western world. They were kind enough to donate lots of items to me as they packed up- an electric hot water heater (I can make tea and coffee all the time now!), a bunch of maps, bowls, plates, cutting board, hangers, soaps, food, etc. I’m sure when I leave in a month, I’ll pass these items onto others. Such a great little system here J After a fun dinner and some farewell drinks at Legends of Rock, we waved goodbye as their cab drove off. Whatever will I do without them!?! With my new friends Vanita and Corinne (new French girl!), I think I’ll be OK. I’m sure others will come too.

This morning, Saturday morning, I decided to come into the Department for a few hours to get some quality free internet time. I need to download some articles for my special project. I just got to talking to one of the women in my office, Andre, and she invited me to go to wedding reception with her tonight. I GET TO GO TO AN INDIAN WEDDING!!!!! This is very exciting news. There’s 3 things I think of when I think of traveling to India: going to the Taj Mahal, going to to an ashram, and going to an Indian wedding. Since the Taj is extremely far away and most likely out of the question, and I don’t think I have the patience for an ashram, I am so happy to be going to the wedding and crossing one thing off my list of Indian to-dos. No idea what I’ll wear yet though, but Andre (roll your R when you say her name!) has assured not to care what I wear, that people will be so excited to see a foreigner that they won’t care what I wear (hah!). Can’t wait to go and don’t worry- I’ll post lots of pictures!

Sunday I plan to go with Vanita and Corinne to Lalbagh Botanical Gardens and then get something to eat at MTR, a famous Bangalorean restaurant everyone assures us we must trust. Afterwards, Andre has invited me to her home to have a home-cooked lunch with her and to meet her husband. She is so sweet; she told me she’s very excited to be receiving me as her first foreign guest. She has asked me several times what I want to eat but I really don’t know what to tell her—I’m sure anything will be delicious!

Hope everyone has a safe and wonderful weekend!

My Indian Address

OK, so maybe I should have posted this a long time ago, but here is my address in India. Things take about 2 weeks to get here, so if you want to pamper me with mail, better send it sooner rather than later.

Stephanie Briguglio
#307 Annexe 3
St. John's Medical College Hospital Campus
Koramangala, 5th Blk, Sarjapura Rd. NR
Opp. BDA Complex, Bangalore- 560 034, India

Pretty complicated, I know. But using that address has the best bet of actually getting to me. Any and all mail is appreciated! :)

-Steph

Holy Cow!

Temple in Mysore

In addition to my beach cows picture, I needed to have a "sidewalk cow" picture

Beer Tower- Kingfisher, of course!

My favorite pup on campus. Poor thing :( Look at how scaly his back is near his tail! All the fur is gone.

Busy, busy, busy

6/6/11

This past weekend was relaxing, as I did not take any trips. Saturday I worked in the Department for a half-day, even though I’m not required to work Saturday (score points for me). I finished, for the most part, my editing of the PACE paper, which is the one about adolescent cardiovascular disease risk factors. I was all set to go over it with 3 of the team members Saturday morning, but when I got in at 9, they told me 10am, then of course 10am came and went. We probably started looking at it around 11:30. We all gathered around one computer and there were a lot of loud voices, arguing back and forth, and other random people looking over shoulders to try to give their input. Ten minutes later and only one paragraph down of the 15 page paper, everyone except for Dr. S at the computer got up and left! They went about their business and did not finish reviewing the paper. It was chaotic and not at all how we would review a paper in the U.S., but I guess that’s just India for you. I’ve gotten used to it by now. Another thing to note- people here love to have full on conversations with people in other rooms. So one will shout to another room down the hall ..”Farah!!!!” and then she will respond, and they will talk back and forth, instead of just getting up and going to the other person. It’s so strange. Let’s just say I have been wearing my headphones and listening to my iPod all day, just so I can concentrate!!

After work Saturday I went to lunch at the Hospital Canteen with Katinka. The Canteen is the dirt cheap restaurant on campus where all the students and people that work in the hospital eat. You can get a good meal for around a dollar, sometimes less. It was particularly crowded in the “doctors/staff” room that afternoon (yes, I sit in the doctors/staff room to avoid the chaos that is the rest of the Canteen). Katinka and I were sitting across from each other at a 4 person table and due to the large crowd and nowhere to sit, we had 3 separate pairs join us at different times during our lunch. A little odd to sit next to others at the same table, maybe, but this is all normal here. We really didn’t mind. The last couple of men to sit with us were doctors and one, Dr. Sanjiv, was a pediatrician. When he walked up and asked if the seats next to us were taken, Katinka shook her head, which of course here means ‘yes,’ so we started walking away when I had to call him back and tell him that no, no one was sitting here. He said ‘ohhh, right, your shaking head no is our shaking head yes.’ He ended up being a really nice guy and we talked about the best way for foreign students to study here- what type of visa to get, etc.

After lunch Katinka and I went to Fabindia, one of the nicer chain stores here for shopping. I got a very pretty kurta, my 4^th one! I still need to go to the tailor and have one handmade- I will pick my fabric, any borders, the length, the sleeve length, and then they measure me and make it to fit me perfectly. I think I’m saving that outing for a rainy day. Also still need to check out Commercial Street, where ‘the best’ shopping is here. After Fabindia we stopped at a coffee shop and had giant mocha milkeshakes…so delicious but definitely did not need that!

Saturday night I went out to The Filling Station bar with Steve and Jose. We got a Tower of Beer (will add picture of this later): Kingfisher of course. Around midnight we wanted some food and the only place open past 11:30pm in Bangalore is the Paramount Hotel, so we went there for some late-night snacks. Kind of cool to see where everyone that’s hungry in Bangalore convenes late at night! Of course there was lots and lots of staring, as I was the only white person there and was out with two Indian guys. I’m sure they were thinking, 'what the heck is she doing?'

Sunday, after leisurely waking up at 11:00am, I walked downstairs to get my milk from the communal fridge for breakfast. Being on the 4^th floor, the journey to the first floor fridge every morning is annoying, considering I have to put on pants and at least a t-shirt to ‘maintain modesty.’ In my room I like to wear a tank top and shorts- it’s not that hot at all but no point in wearing pants if I can wear shorts. Anyway, on the way down to the fridge, I heard a teeny little voice weakly say “excuse me” and looked over at the 2^nd floor lounge to see a girl on her laptop. She walked up to me and goes “are you from America?!” It was so cute and reminded me of how desperate I was for friends my first week here!! Vanita is from California and just finished her BA in Public Health at Berkeley. We ended up doing lunch and dinner yesterday and will probably travel together- possibly next weekend to Hampi or Munnar. We will go to the travel agent today (Monday) to see what’s available as far as the buses go.

I also did some significant work on my special project this past weekend. I read all the articles I have collected so far, and have updated my reference database to include them all. I’m also a good chunk of the way through my proposal, which probably should have been done a month ago but I didn’t really know about it until last week (oops). My goal is to finish that by Wednesday.

This morning (Monday) I started my week off on the right foot with a 4 mile run around the track. It feels so amazing to run, I don’t know why I haven’t run more while I’ve been here. I think it’s a combination of laziness and…laziness. Need to set a goal- maybe 15 miles a week? What I really need is a running buddy to keep me on track! Vanita told me she had already run around campus, so now that I know she runs, I’ll have to drag her with me to the track in the mornings.

The whole week I’ll be here in the Department. I’m now working on an Adherence study- Dr. S has written 85% of the paper, now I need to vamp up the discussion section and write a conclusion. I’m really crossing my fingers that something I work on here will get published at some point, because that will mean I’m published, even if I am only the last author on the paper.

This morning when I got to the Department I sat in on an “Inaugural meeting” of some 4 month long health course 29 sisters from all over India will be taking. All the sisters I have met here are so nice, they always walk right up to me with no hello, no nothing and just say “where are you from?” Never fail, that is exactly what every single one of them approaches me with. Of course I am always all smiles back to them and explain where I’m from and what I’m doing here. They are always excited to learn I’m from the U.S., and will go back to a group of sisters and tell them that, which in turn makes them all come over to talk to me for themselves. A lot of them are from Kerala, which is a state just south of Karnataka, where I am. Kerala is very Christian- I think every Christian I’ve me here is from Kerala. When I told Sister Gina, who is from Kerala, that I will be visiting Cochin in 2 weeks she got so excited and told the others, and there was lots of “ohh, you will love it!”s and “oh that’s wonderful!”s going around. They are so adorable and I love when they talk to me. They always end with “God bless you” and “All the best.” J

It’s so hard to believe that come Wednesday, I will have left Tampa 4 weeks ago. I never thought time would actually fly by this fast. I still want to at least visit Hampi, Munnar, Cochin, and maybe one other spot, but I only have 5 more weekends left. June 18-20 is for Cochin, this weekend I might go to Munnar or Hampi, and that leaves 3 other weekends for travel and work on my special project. If anyone has any suggestions of good places to go to in South India, please let me know! There is a possibility I may meet up with three other girls from my MPH program that are also currently doing their field experiences in India. We are pretty scattered and are trying to find a good weekend and place to convene. Possibly Mumbai, but when I wanted to visit Marc there a couple weeks ago the flights were too expensive. This loan money will eventually run out, you know, and I don’t have a full-time job waiting for me in Tampa, so I need to be extra careful!

Dr. Rajaram is here! He emailed me and wants to get together later this week. So excited to hang out with him in his hometown!

Better get to work now… will write more later this week. It’s Katinka’s birthday Thursday and the German girls’ last week here, so I’m sure there will be fun times ahead.

This week flew by...

This store sign reminded me of the TV show Outsourced, just because I'm in India and the sign says "novelties." So sad they canceled that show!

5/30

I forgot all about my plan for today when I got back from Gokarna this morning. I looked at my schedule and realized I was supposed to go to Mugalur today to observe cataract eye surgeries! After a little bit of rushing around, I headed to the school to leave for Mugalur. Already a bit overwhelmed, I got to the clinic and realized they had a very official looking OT (operating theatre or room). I was required to change into scrubs and put on a cap and mask, and then they sat me down not more than 1 foot from the patient’s eye that was being operated on. Dr. Daisy was the surgeon and was so nice, she explained different things to me and asked what questions I had. Unfortunately the combination of not enough for breakfast coupled with being one foot away from an eye being sliced, poked, prodded, things pulled out of it, things put into it…ended up with me blacking out and having to lie down. I didn’t technically faint or lose consciousness, but I felt awfully sick for about ten minutes. My vision went black, I was cold and sweaty all over, and I had no balance and felt very weak. So embarrassing! I ended up being completely fine but I didn’t go back in to see any more operations…one eye was enough for me.

5/31 and 6/1

Tuesday was my first scheduled day in the Department to work on my research. Since I didn’t really get any details from anyone before I arrived about what kinds of things the faculty are researching, I had to learn from each person once I got there. I decided that cardiovascular disease (CVD) research was what I was most interested in, so I talked to the two doctors in charge to find out if there was something I could help with. I asked a week prior to my first day of research in the Dept., but of course things here take days and days to accomplish and you can’t ask for something just once, you have to ask 95 times. So, with that understanding, I set out again this morning to do what I came here to do—chronic disease research! I had a meeting with the head of the Department (Dr. Arvind- very nice guy) and the two CVD research faculty members, Dr. Farah and Dr. Twinkle. The meeting really didn’t resolve anything and was slightly unproductive. After the meeting I sat outside on a bench in the hallway, unsure of my next moves. I have traveled thousands of miles and literally halfway across the world to be here and do chronic disease research….and no one has anything for me to do?! Lucky, Dr. Farah came up to me and asked, “so, what are your plans for the day?” and I said “you’re looking at it!” She asked if I might be interested in working on revising/editing some papers for some of their research projects and I jumped at the opportunity. I love to write and love to edit, so this sounded to me like the perfect opportunity. I ended up working the rest of the day on a paper about their PACE (Program for Adolescent Chronic disease Education) and am very excited about the work. The paper needs quite a bit of help, and in fact we may do some other data analysis and write up a second paper for publication as well. I hope to at least finish one of these papers before I leave. Dr. Arvind said I might be able to get my name on the paper as an author for my role!! That would be AMAZING and just for that alone, the entire internship would be more than worth it.

Today I also had the chance to go to the Research Institute on campus to meet with Dr. Kedar, who works with electronic medical record (EMR) research. This is the field I am currently working in part-time in Tampa, so it was really interesting for me to sit down with him and go through the flow charts and applications they use. They’re even piloting a program in Mugalur, at the rural clinic, to assign 100 patients USB drives with their EMR on it, make this EMR available online, and also available via SMS (text message) on cell phones. We spent about an hour going through the applications and I learned all about what their team does in the Research Institute. Cool stuff!

Here's a picture of the pilot EMR project in Mugalur. These trained community health workers are entering patient data:

Data Entry into the OB application

6/2

Today was my last scheduled day to go to Mugalur. Katinka also went and so did two new German girls, Aurelia and Francisca. Perhaps these girls will be my new travel/dinner buddies once Janine and Katinka leave at the end of next week to go back to Germany. Anyway, today was the maternal and child health clinic Mugalur holds once a month. We saw lots of cute little babies being immunized. They were getting oral polio vaccine, measles vaccine, DPT (diphtheria, pertussis, and tetanus), and BCG (tuberculosis), and possibly some others. After the shot the babies got a spoonful of an oral, oily substance which was a vitamin A supplement. They got the spoonful after the shots because by that time, their mouths were already wide open from all the crying! They also gave prenatal care today. There was one woman who started crying and after she left I learned that her husband has some psychiatric issues and it was really affecting her. Pretty sad L

Before her shots...

Tonight I went to dinner on MG Road (which I’ve been meaning to check out!) with Katinka and Steve, one of the Indian medical students. The bar was really cool and on the 13^th floor of a building with a great view of surrounding Bangalore. Most buildings aren’t that tall here, so we really got a bird’s eye view of the city. I actually had something different than Kingfisher beer..I had a Foster’s. While it’s not the best, at least it’s something different. They also had amazing tandoori chicken- 4 kinds on a platter! Afterwards we saw the Hangover 2 at the Forum Mall, which looks just like an American mall. The movie theater security was insane. First, just to get into the parking garage, they search your car for bombs. Then as I entered the mall, they searched my bag. They also searched it after I passed through the metal detector at the entrance to the movie theater. Next they made me take the battery out of my camera and check it at the door. I was further taken behind a curtain where they wanded me. Finally, a lady told me to spit out my gum. I was so frustrated that at this point, although it might have been a little rude, I said “oh, am I missing any more rules?!” Yeesh!!! At least the theater was really nice and big. Movie was a bit crowded but we had perfect seats—they even reclined a bit! The weirdest thing about the experience was the intermission. About halfway through the movie they stopped it for 10 minutes and people leave to go to the bathroom or get food. A few ushers also come around with ice cream menus. Might be a weird concept to have an intermission during a movie, but I really liked it! I think the U.S. needs to adopt this practice, that way, you don’t miss any of the movie if you need to run to the bathroom or get a snack.

13th Floor bar before the movies

6/3

Today is another day in the Department, where I will now be spending all of my time, unless I get the opportunity again to go out into the field. I am not really supposed to work Saturdays, but there are sometimes some interesting presentations given by the post-grad students so I think I will come in this Saturday, since I’m not traveling this weekend. They work Saturdays here for half a day- around 9a-1p. I could really use the time to get on the internet in the Dept. and do research for my special project. I’m getting really nervous because I think I’m falling behind on it. This weekend will definitely be dedicated to writing the proposal and getting a lot of background research done on the topic. Katinka and I also have some tentative plans to go to Lalbagh Botanical Gardens in Bangalore on Sunday morning.

I booked my flights for Cochin! Cochin is south of here in the state of Kerala. It is on the west coast (Arabian Sea). My friend from school, Rohini, is doing her field experience there and has invited me to come stay with her for a few days, so I will go from June 18-20 and take another long weekend. Should be beautiful there, despite it being monsoon season. We will hopefully do some exploring of Cochin including Fort Cochin.

Hope everyone has a wonderful weekend!

Gokarna Pics

View while hiking

Boats on Om Beach

First steps in the Arabian Sea on Om Beach

Kudle Beach

Hiking beach to beach

After the long hike we stopped at a cafe, and some women wanted a picture with us....

Gokarna Trip 5/26 -5/29

Beach Cows on Om Beach. You know, totally normal.

You have not truly traveled through India without taking an overnight, non-AC, sleeper bus. It’s an insane experience all its own that you wouldn’t understand unless you had been on one of these buses for 13 hours for two separate nights. To say it was like a roller coaster ride would be describing it mildly. On the way there, I had a single sleeper (it’s a bed) in the middle of the bus, on the upper portion. There are no stairs to an upper level, just a couple ladder steps to help you get up.

The bus:

On the way back, however, I was all the way in the very back of the bus. These back sleepers are perpendicular to the direction the bus is moving. The other sleepers are straight in line with the direction the bus is moving- I hope this makes some sense. We left at 7:30pm but with various stops and who knows what, we really didn’t leave Bangalore until 3 hours later. I actually managed to sleep a bit, even though it was beyond bumpy. Think: worst turbulence in an airplane you’ve ever experienced, then multiply that by about 20. Janine and Katinka (the German girls) were in a double wide sleeper next to me, also lofted. I just put on my iPod the whole night and drifted in and out of sleep. We only stopped once for the bathroom- which wasn’t too big of a deal since I had given up drinking liquids since 3pm.

Enough about the bus for now…

So when we arrived in Gokarna, we decided to get off a few kilometers early in the town of Om Beach, which, according to the Lonely Planet book, was the place to stay. After an exhaustive search of the beach we really didn’t find anywhere decent enough to stay, so we had breakfast at Namaste Café for a couple hours and thought of a game plan. We ended up staying the first of our two-night-trip at the Seabird Hotel in Om Beach. While it was a decent place, it was considerably more expensive than anywhere the girls had stayed on their other weekend getaway trips, and it really wasn’t close to much. Janine and I explored the town of Gokarna and after another very scary “charging cow, bull, and calf (charging cow family!!) encounter,” we took a long walk down a path to Kudle Beach, which was just beautiful. We found a deserted portion of it and actually stripped down into our bikinis! Freedom from hot, heavy clothes at last! It was so, so very hot there- at least 10 degrees hotter than Bangalore and extremely humid. I am so glad to be staying the majority of my trip in Bangalore where the weather is so mild. After a nice swim we walked further down the beach and found what I like to call a little “hippie campout” area and met an Israeli guy who offered us some coconut. We stayed there and shared a beer for a while until we decided we better start the long walk back before dark. Janine, Katinka, and I had dinner right at the hotel, where we were the only dinner guests. I had a fish fry dish, but I swear the fish was no bigger than your standard goldfish- disappointing to say the least, especially in a town on the water that is supposed to be good for seafood! In any case, it ended up being a great first day.

The next day, Saturday, was quite an adventurous one. After breakfast at the hotel, the three of us took an auto-rickshaw from the hotel to Paradise Beach, the farthest beach away. Paradise Beach was gorgeous! The Arabian Sea was so refreshingly cool, and there were only a few other people on the beach, surprisingly all of them white. When we were ready to go, we knew we would have to hike back, since the rickshaw dropped us off in the middle of nowhere. That’s ok though, because that was the plan- get a ride one way and walk the way back. Well…the hike ended up being really intense! It really reminded me of my hiking in Cinque Terra, Italy. The terrain was so rough- dirt/rock paths no wider than a foot straight up hills-what seemed like 90 degree angles. For areas we could not find a path, we had to hug the rocks of the coast, and use all four limbs to maneuver our way through the huge boulders. You had to be extremely careful because if a rock was wet, it was extremely slippery, or if you stepped on a pebbly or leaf-covered part of the path, you could easily lose your grip and go careering down the cliff. Of course the three of us only had flip flops on….go figure. For some parts of the hike all I could think about was how much some of my running friends, who also love to rock-climb, would absolutely love this! I must admit, a few times I was afraid we wouldn’t find our way back before dark, but just as I would think that, we would find the path and signs that we were headed in the right direction. It was such a blast and I couldn’t think of a better way to spend the afternoon there. We stopped at Dolphin Bay Café on Om Beach after the hike to have some delicious Nutella crepes- see, I told you I am not going to lose any weight in India.

Unfortunately the day was a bit too long, and by the time we got back, shopped a bit, and got a shower, it was already 9:30pm and all the restaurants were closed, except for the fish place. It was such a simple place and packed with locals. They serve one thing- a fish meal! It was very yummy. We each got a whole fried fish (maybe 6 inches long? And yes, they keep the head on and the bones in. It’s literally an entire fried fish), rice, a fish curry, and a vegetable that I think might have been okra. All of this for 45 rupees, which is almost exactly $1.00.

We originally wanted to check out the Pai Restaurant, which looked good and was recommended by both the Lonely Planet and a local we met, but when we arrived they told us they were closed. Funny thing because as we walked by a second time, we saw a large Indian family of maybe 8 people get seated, right after they were turned away at another closed restaurant and after we were turned away at Pai. Janine asked the waiter why we were turned away and this large family was not, when they told us they were closing? Unfortunately we can’t stop some of the racism (I hope this is the politically correct word…I sure can’t think of a better word to describe what happened to us), and a restaurant is allowed to seat whoever they want. It was just a lousy experience to have but a reminder that of course we are the minority. After dinner we returned to our new, cute hotel called Nimmu House, which is located in the center of Gokarna and was a much more reasonable rate. I slept on a floor mat with Janine’s mosquito net over me since the windows did not have screens!

Sunday did not start off much better than Saturday ended. We took an auto-rickshaw (tuk-tuk) to Om Beach to spend the day sunbathing and eating/drinking at the beach’s cafes. On our way down the stairs to the beach, we were harassed by a group of 23 (yes, I counted) young Indian men with seemingly nothing better to do than take pictures, and probably videos, of us 3 white girls. It’s a pretty intense experience to have these guys in your face and them continually yelling ‘hello, madam, hello, hello, which country you from, hello, madam, excuse me,’ and all you do is ignore. Of course there comes a point where you can’t ignore anymore, and when one man had his camera phone a few inches from Janine’s chest, she knocked the phone out of his hand and into the sand. We walked faster and stepped into a café to lose them, which fortunately, we did. The owner of the café we had met the evening before and had previously made remarks about not being able to stand Indian tourists (he was Indian himself, though), so we knew he would probably be on our side if the harassers followed us in. Thank God they didn’t.

There were many other sets of white tourists around in normal bathing suits, so we made our way over to them after breakfast and set up our towels on the beach. There seemed to be an “Indian side” and a “foreigners’ side” of the beach, so we kept to our respective areas. After a long while of swimming and more awful harassing by another group of men, we went back to the café and had some drinks to get away.

Unfortunately, again, while leaving the beach, yet another group of young, clearly immature, Indian men approached and surrounded Janine and Katinka (I was in the bathroom) and did the same bit about what is your name, where are you from, taking pictures, etc. We wear t-shirts and huge baggy pants, so it’s not like they were gawking at our bodies; it was purely due to us being white girls. Katinka eventually gave them the finger which just excited them more, and the harassing continued. I met up with the girls at the top of the hill where we took the same auto-rickshaw back to the hotel. Halfway down the road, the car in front of us, which just so happened to be carrying the last group of harassers, and they opened the back door and were continuing to harass us from the road! We told the rickshaw driver what happened and he seemed very upset, and at the end of the road he got out of the car, along with some of the men from the car and another rickshaw driver and all had an argument about the situation. One guy apologized and said they were drunk, then continued to say they didn’t do anything wrong. So if you’re apologizing, wouldn’t that constitute admitting that you did something wrong? Unbelievable. It was a little scary but the rickshaw drivers were really on our side, and wanted us to file a police report. We knew this would do absolutely nothing so we just said that was OK and continued on our way. We tipped the rickshaw driver big-time for helping us so much. It was such a shame all these men had to ruin our time in Gokarna which is otherwise, such a beautiful and peaceful place. So, so sad. I won’t let the experience be completely ruined because I’ll just remember the good times with friends, delicious meals, wonderful beach cafes, and incredible hikes and beaches.

I’ll just say a few things about the bus ride back to Bangalore. First, I had terrible heartburn again and just a general feeling of not feeling well for the first few hours. Second, a man had something like an asthma attack a few hours in, and the bus pulled over, lights went on, and Janine talked to the man and tried to figure out what was wrong and how to help him. After that episode, we all settled back in and I literally flew the rest of the way home. The bumps are SO TERRIBLE and especially in the back of the bus, that you literally go airborne on the bumps. I am not kidding when I say that my entire body hoisted off of the mattress and into the air. Sleeping was a bit difficult to say the least. Just glad it’s over.

Overall I’m happy to have taken the trip this past long weekend and had a great time. It was great to have the German girls to travel with, because I certainly wouldn't have done it alone, unless it’s a flight to meet a friend. I’m hoping to go to Cochin (south of here, in the state of Kerala) to meet a friend from school in mid-June.