Goodbye India ...hello Thailand

The purpose of our trip to India was first and foremost to develop a good working relationship with a medical equipment manufacturing company in New Delhi. This was accomplished. We have now ordered 60 large pressure cookers and specialized surgical instrument baskets for distribution in Benin, West Africa this March. We are working closely with Mercy Ships and the Ministry of Health in Benin to select clinics and hospitals and train their staff on the principles of sterilization and how to use this system. Now we are just hoping that they will get them made and shipped on time.

In between meetings with the company (and being sick for a couple of days), we tried to explore as much as possible, after all, it would be a shame to be in India and not see a bit of the country!

On one of our days off we toured some of the most popular sites in New Delhi.

The Red Fort, built between 1639-1648. There is so much history it gets confusing who built what and when

The Mughal emperors lived here for nearly 200 years

Always impressed by the architecture. This was a public meeting hall

Humayun's Tomb, built 1565-1572, commissioned by Humayun's 1st wife, Empress Begum for her husband. As we were looking at this it crossed my mind to say to Olive "she loved her husband so much she built this tomb to remember him by" and then I remembered that Shah Jahan built the Tag Mahal out of his love for his wife. The Taj is far grander. I held my tongue!

India Gate - a war memorial similar in architecture to the Arc de Triomphe in Paris

The Lotus Temple - a Bahai temple noted for its flowerlike shape. I think we toured at least one place of worship for all major religions that are represented in India

Akshardham Temple - a modern (2005) Hindu temple with intricate ornate designs (no cameras allowed on the site)

Raj Ghat - a memorial dedicated to MG who died in Delhi

The place where MG was cremated

We met a very friendly and entertaining rickshaw driver (Akbar) who offered to take us into the extremely busy and narrow lanes of the Chandni Chowk market area. Although he wanted to show us all the market had to offer, we requested to just go to the Spice Market. What a wonderful array of smells, colours and samples of spices and foods

Shop after shop full of sacks of nuts, raisins, cereals, spices, tea and more

Anyone want a date?

Spice mountains

Lentils, beans and rice

  

Feeling chili?

A bird's eye view of one street in this market area. Our driver took us into a narrow lane and up several flights of stairs to get to this vantage point

Hello Thailand - after about a month in a predominantly Hindu country, we have arrived in Chiang Mai where Buddhist temples abound.

Young monks-in-training

A senior and junior monk walking through the temple grounds

We will be staying in Chiang Mai for the next 2 weeks, attending a large conference of medical and dental professionals from all over Asia. SPECT has been invited to make one presentation and to conduct a workshop at this conference.

Short Visits to the Indian States of Orissa, Karnataka and Kerala

One of the joys of returning to India for me (Dan) has been to re-connect with a couple of friends. I met Sura about 38 years ago when we lived on a team together in the state of Orissa. A few years ago we were able to connect by email through a mutual friend who visits India regularly. Olive and I were warmly welcomed by Sura and spent 2.5 days with him and his wife.

The beautiful hotel we stayed at in Bhubaneswar, Orissa. If you look closely, you can see Olive in our hotel room; from my perspective, she is in 3 rooms at once!


We visited 4 rural villages where Sura has some projects going on- each village presented us with a flower garland and freshly cut coconuts

We also visited a boys home that Sura operates which we have been supporting for a number of years

While walking to one village we came across this group washing parsley before taking it to market

From Orissa, we flew to Bangalore where Dan connected with Anand, a friend he made when they both worked together for the same employer in Calgary a few years ago. Anand hosted us for an evening of delicious Indian and Western food and story swapping. From Bangalore, we decided to take a trip down to Kerala for a few days staying first for a night at a resort, then for 1 night on a houseboat, 1 night in Cochin and then back to Bangalore and on to Delhi

Cocobay Resort at Kumarakom

While at this resort,, we observed coconut harvesting and tree trimming. This guy easily climbs the tree using this metal climbing contraption

But this guy takes the cake, climbing to the top of this coconut tree with nothing but bare feet, a rope and a towel and having a machete swinging at this side as he climbs (caught his ascent and descent on video)

Early morning fishermen

Houseboat we stayed on for 1 night sailing the Kerala backwaters

The boat had a captain, a cook and a waiter - we were the only guests

Kathakalli Dance performance in Cochin

We have 1 week left in India during which we will be back in Delhi focusing on the main purpose of our visit - to get the pressure cookers sterilizers and surgical instrument baskets ordered for SPECT's project with Mercy Ships in Benin in March

India (Jan 14 - Feb 11, 2017)

After more than 2 years away from this blog site, we decided to revive it for the next few months to record aspects of our travels and share with family and friends a bit of what we are seeing and experiencing.

On Jan 12 we departed cold and snowy Alberta, Canada stopping over in London for a day before heading to our first destination on this journey, Delhi, India. After a day of rest, we met with a representative from a medical supply company that specializes in designing new products for improving healthcare. We are interested in having this company design a new surgical instrument basket that we can put into a pressure cooker sterilizer to improve sterilization methods where autoclaves are unavailable for clinics and smaller hospitals in developing countries. For more information about this work see our website (www.spectrust.org). While the designers were creating their design, we booked a 5-day exploration trip to see the Golden Triangle - Delhi - Jaipur - Agra. Here are a few photos of this trip.

Vishnu - one of the principal deities of Hinduism. Small shrines, temples and large statues can be found everywhere. This is on the way from Delhi to Jaipur 

A popular roadside place to stop and feed monkeys in honor of the monkey god Hanuman

Hawa Mahal, a palace in Jaipur (the "pink city") with essentially a high screen wall built so that the women of the royal household could observe street festivals while unseen from outside.

I was fascinated by the colors of these steps down to a large well, would make a good jigsaw puzzle

Panoramic view of the well

Popular way to climb the steep hill up to the Amber Fort just outside of Jaipur.
100 female elephants are used for this purpose.

View of the countryside from the Amber Palace

Amazing architecture influenced by the ancient kingdoms of India

Incredible designs with paintings and inlaid precious stones

Amber Fort panoramic

Hall of Mirrors in the Amber Fort

A lot of symmetrical designs in the gardens and buildings

Jal Mahal the Water Palace in Man Sagar Lake in Jaipur

World's largest sundial in Jaipur, has a 2-second margin of error

We are using only authorized guide!

Quite the charmer!

Great feeding place if you're a pigeon

Went on a safari hoping to see tigers; saw lots of deer, ibex, chinkara, antelope, birds, mongoose and large tiger paw tracks but no tigers! Closest sighting came when we found a newly killed deer but in the dense forest, tiger wouldn't show itself

Cow patties drying in the sun then stored in the structure I'll call the "Schmidt" house

Colorful dress of a Rajasthani woman

Hazy early morning visit to the Taj Mahal

Mid-morning photo of this incredible place beyond words to describe

Agra Fort

The Taj Mahal as seen from the Agra Fort. The Mughal emporer who had the Taj built for his favorite wife was arrested upon its completion by one of his sons who banished him to this fort to spend his final days here. This was his view of the Taj. He is entombed at the Taj beside his wife.