Taj Mahal

This weekend we went to Jaipur and Agra, both of which, like most things in India, were awesome but a huge, exhausting hassle. Everywhere we went, we were mobbed by very aggressive vendors and beggars, who do not take “no” for an answer. Jaipur is called “the pink city” because all the buildings are painted pink, and the city has a cute vacation-y feel to it (minus the beggars). There are lots of elephants and camels being used for hauling stuff around, and monkeys and peacocks everywhere. We went to the City Palace and Amber Fort, both of which were beautiful, and ate dinner at this place that felt like the Indian equivalent of colonial Williamsburg – they had lots of traditional food, dancing, snake charmers, elephant rides, etc. It was a little cheesy, but fun.

Jaipur - "the pink city"

Nancy and John riding an elephant


Seeing the Taj Mahal for the first time was truly an amazing experience. However, once we got up close to go inside, it was a completely different story. We happened to go on the one day a year that entry to the Taj Mahal is free, so it was super crowded with very hot, very sweaty people. It was over 120 degrees outside, and we had to take our shoes off to walk on the marble ground, which may as well have been made of hot coals. Overall, totally worth it, but it probably would have been a nicer experience on a different day.

Me at the Taj Mahal

Nancy and John at the Taj Mahal

This week we have been doing a little bit more clinically-based work. We went to an outpatient free clinic, where the doctor we shadowed saw 100 people in less than 3 hours. He literally did not spend more than 3 minutes with any patient. Very little history, no physical exam – just got the chief complaint and wrote a prescription. He did have very good follow-up, but I was really shocked by the whole practice – it would never fly in the US.

We also were set up with an NGO called Sahara, which has a number of different projects, but mainly does work with injection drug users and street children. It is a very interesting organization because it is run by former addicts who have gone through rehab at Sahara, and have stayed on to help other people get back on their feet. We went to a drop-in center where they had a needle exchange and oral substitution therapy, and were treating abscesses. We also went around different parts of Old Delhi and saw where some of the drug users were living – by the river, under overpasses, etc. There is an enormous population of IDUs here, and it was so sad to see so many otherwise-healthy men whose lives have been totally ruined by their addictions. Interestingly, we also walked by the section of the river where funerals take place – the bodies are cremated in large bonfires on site, then the ashes are floated down the river with garlands of marigolds.

The funeral part of the Yamuna river

Today both Nancy and Emily came down with a case of “Delhi belly”, so I went on my own to a small inpatient facility for HIV patients. They admit people who are being started on antiretroviral therapy, as well as patients who develop opportunistic infections, the most common being TB. We rounded on a lot of really interesting patients, a few of whom were, unfortunately, in the end-stage of the disease. In the afternoon, I was allowed to go around with a translator and talk with a few of the patients and hear their stories, which was really great, and exactly the kind of experience I was hoping to get here in India.