Culture shock begins in Palampur

COUNTRY: India, Palampur
PROGRAM: UniBreak
PROJECT: Health
WRITTEN BY: Hayley Hall

The story so far...

New Delhi. Putting 14 million people into one city is bound to be chaotic. To imagine the roads of Delhi one must completely abolish all concepts of order. We all arrived at the Program House feeling as though we had narrowly escaped death by car crash. Lanes do not exist. Traffic lights do not exist. Speed limits do not exist. Yet, overtaking on blind corners definitely DOES exist. The cars somehow manage to avoid each other by millimetres, almost as if in a dance with car horns drumming the beat. There was a lot of fog in Delhi which made it even more scary, providing around 3 metres of visibility. Cars appeared so quickly it was as though someone had magically clicked their fingers and they vanished as fast as they appeared.

The first day we were given a tour of Delhi and visited 3 jaw-dropping temples. One was only recently made but looked as though it was a hundred years old, another was a precursor of the Taj Mahal and another was called the ‘Lotus Temple’ which reminded us of the Sydney Opera house remodelled into a flower. All three were very beautiful. That night we also ate the best butter chicken of our lives.

The next day we ventured to Agra which was a four hour drive south to see the famous Taj Mahal. We were all very excited for the trip however after the short walk to the gate which was lined with camels, donkeys, horses, cows and monkeys, we were declined entry which confused and annoyed us all. It turned out that the President of the Maldives was having a private viewing so all the public were forced to be kept outside for security reasons. Bit selfish we all thought! After a 5 hour wait we finally gained entry with the many thousands of visitors, and it was definitely worth the wait! The Taj was so beautiful and surreal – a heaven on earth built for the Queen. Indians really do know romance well.

The next day we began our journey to Palampur, a 12 hour bus ride north, but in Indian time, it took about 15 hours. The drive was amazing, there was so much going on outside no one could take their eyes away from the windows to sleep. The roads eventually got windier as we drove higher and as huts became more frequent out the windows, we realised we were getting more rural. We drove through farmlands, apartment towers, town centres and wastelands. It was so strange seeing slums dwelling under the shadows of extravagant mansions. Eventually we arrived at Bobby’s house. His house was incredible! 3 storeys, all with marble floors and Western toilets (Win!). We were living it up. We were introduced to Bobby and Amit who were extremely helpful, had amazing English and were pretty good with Australian humour which was very impressive.

We spent our first day in Palampur looking around the town and getting to know the bus system. We soon learnt that the secret to the buses is to get on as fast as you can, otherwise they will drive off around the hairpin turns with you hanging on for dear life out the door. That was definitely an experience the first few times!

Placement started the next day. Mo, Dylan, Leanne and Todd spent the first week at Kayakalp where Mo and Leanne observed all natural therapies including Enema, Mud Therapy, Hydrotherapy, Panchkarma, Power Yoga and occasional chai in the sauna. Dylan and Todd studied Physiotherapy and were given homework to do every night followed by pop quizzes in the morning. And Damon, Alice, Jake and I went to Karan Hospital. The entire hospital was run by Dr. Veena and her husband Dr. Karan who showed us their methods of madness. In the first day alone we were shown the post-op rooms where women who had had hysterectomies showed us their uteruses like trophies which were sitting in old candy bottles under their bed. Then we were shown ultrasounds and discovered that kidney stones were very common. We were then placed in the dressing room and exposed to the dangers of smoking, seeing gangrene of the foot where the patient had to have a toe removed and endless other minor procedures similar to an episode of embarrassing bodies. After that we saw the Doctor perform several endoscopies within a matter of minutes ranging from caught food to throat cancer biopsies. It was inspiring how efficient and hard-working the doctors were, back home their jobs would have involved the work of at least ten different specialties. They were amazing.

The next few days continued on at much the same pace, enjoying a bit of yoga in between. We really felt as though we were settling into the town after a week of placement and had lots to debrief about each night. We are all waiting on the weather report to see whether we can go trekking this weekend, otherwise we will be heading to Amritsar. So until then, stay tuned!