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Published: June 19th 2007
After a hard week ....
Stu relaxing after a hard week! The face stick Lizzie thought would help with screaming children but we quickly learnt that Stu's face was far more entertaining! Well, after 5 magical weeks in Manali (and almost 8 in India), we finally left yesterday with a heavy heart and even heavier bags.
We cannot begin to put into words how much we have learnt professionally at the hospital, from the simply amazing staff. Being part of the community has also been a real priviledge, particularly being stopped in the street and thanked by patients and their families. We will treasure the memories and will return.
Personally we have also had great times with some wonderful people and have made new friends, of particular mention must be Annie (Lizzie's shopping partner and the joint cause of Stu's poor financial situation), Gopi (Stuart's ice cream eating partner) and Dan (the worst card playing bluffer in the world!). We will hound you all in the months to come.
The past week has been full of the usual theatre, ED and outpatient commitments. In our down time we frequented our usual top 5 restaurants and Lizzie shopped until she dropped (this time with Annie's encouragement). We find now that all the shopkeepers know us personally so haggling is no longer required!
Days off were full, with visits to
On route to Rohtung
The road trip to Rohtung was spectacular (apart from the near death driving experiences!). Naggar where we drunk the worst coffee ever. We also learnt some new terminology - when Stu took his dirty cup back to ask for it to be changed, the waiter, looking shocked, said, "but Sir this isn't dirty it is 'au natural' ".
We also did a day trip to Rohtang Pass, a high mountain pass set at 4000m, where Indian tourists go to experience snow. Stu unfortunately had been beseized by the good old 'Delhi belly' for the second time. The journey was breathtaking, not just for the scenery, as our driver overtook other vehicles on hairpin bends, swerving to avoid oncoming traffic by teetering on the edge of a sheer cliffedge.
The trip took in wonderful scenery but the actual pass was, as Stu put it, 'a dump'. The best way to describe it was Blackpool beach on speed with a small amount of filthy snow, where Indian tourists took donkey and Yak rides - the ones wearing flip flops had particular difficulty climbing the icey slopes!
Yesterday we took a 10 hour bus journey through spectacular (in a deluxe bus although everyone on the bus spent the journey debating the definition of 'deluxe')
On route to Rohtung 2
The gang on a pit stop on the way to Rohtung. Annie, Dan and us. to Shimla, which is half way between Manali and Delhi, where we had decided to stay for 2 nights to break up the journey to Delhi. Shima was the summer residence of the Raj at the time of British rule in India and is literally built on a sloping mountain, giving it the appearance of a town slipping down a hill.
We are enjoying today (Lizzie's 25th birthday!) chilling around town, having done the climb to the monkey temple in record time. Having consulted the fitness chart at the start of the steep climb, we fitted clearly into the 'super fit' category, which we thought was a bit of a laugh!
Tomorrow we leave by bus for Delhi (9 hours) for a quick overnight stay before flying home on Thursday. Although we have loved the food here we are beginning to have cravings for certain English food (mum please see seperate e-mail for food grovellings for dinner Thurs PM).
Well as we sign off from probably out last blog entry for this trip thank you all for your company by e-mail and for sharing our trip with us. We look forward to seeing you all soon. xx
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