January 22-23, 2019 Day 3- Jaipur The last stop of the Golden Triangle was Jaipur, which seemed a lot more developed and westernized than some of the other cities. We passed an Adidas, Lacoste, Calvin Klein, etc. In order to get to our first stop of the day, the Amber/Amer Fort, we had to drive through the old city, also known as the “pink city”. … Continue reading Golden Triangle (Part II)
January 20-21, 2019 Water update: I am still alive and had no issues with the somewhat suspicious water I drank in the hotel! Day 1 – New Delhi After a very comfortable night in my hotel, I was up early for the start of my Golden Triangle tour. The driver picked me up at the hotel at 9am and I was off to the first … Continue reading Golden Triangle (Part I)
January 18-19, 2019 Next stop on the journey: New Delhi, India where I’ll start a tour of the Golden Triangle – all the major tourist sites in Delhi, Agra, and Jaipur. On Friday, the day before I was leaving southern India, Megan, Haben, and Adrienne were leaving for a weekend trip after lunch. Alexa was also leaving on Saturday with me so we had our … Continue reading Goodbye Kodai, Hello Delhi
January 16, 2019 For the second day of Pongal, Arun planned to take all of us to Madurai, the closest main city to Kodai about 3 hours away. We had planned to sleep in the car on the way there since we had to get up super early (5:30am), but we ended up chatting almost the entire ride before some of got a little motion … Continue reading Madurai
January 15, 2019 About midway through the first week, Arun mentioned that there was a 3-day harvest festival called Pongal during the second week of our time in Kodai (Tuesday- Thursday). It is quite a significant holiday in the state of Tamil Nadu – almost like a new year’s celebration. Therefore, the creches and CSI school were closed and hospitals wouldn’t likely have many patients, … Continue reading Pongal
January 7-17, 2019 Along with the volunteering, we had lots of time to explore Kodai and the southern Indian culture. Here are some of the fun things we saw, did, and ate! The Food While Muthu made us breakfast and dinner every day, we got lunch in town at different restaurants throughout the week. Most of our meals were traditional south Indian food including lots … Continue reading Exploring Kodai
January 7-12, 2019 CSI School In addition to the creches and hospitals, I also got to spend a little bit of time at the CSI school, which is a school for students with physical or learning disabilities and those who are deaf or blind. The day that I went was the Friday before the Pongal festival so they were having a little celebration instead of … Continue reading The CSI School and FIMRC Clinic
January 7-18, 2019 There are three main hospitals that patients can choose to go to in Kodai. One is the public, government run hospital which is free for everyone but often very crowded and the doctors are spread very thin. The other two hospitals, Van Allen and KHMS, are private hospitals that require patients to use insurance or pay out of pocket. Van Allen is … Continue reading The Hospitals
January 7-14, 2019 As I mentioned before, the creches are preschools that have actually been started by FIMRC in low income areas of Kodaikanal. Kodai is actually a tourist town in India where a lot of people from other parts of India and, surprisingly, a lot of Israelis come on vacation. Southern India is known for having higher income and higher literacy rates, however there … Continue reading The Creches
January 7-12, 2019 Night 1 was a little rough from the jet lag…and a little chilly. I knew Kodai got cold at night, but I didn’t quite process the fact that the homes don’t have heat. Thankfully there was a fuzzy blanket on my bed and I packed an extra sheet in my suitcase I could use for an extra layer. A few days in … Continue reading All is Well in Kodaikanal
Dana Around the World 