Gujarat, Mysore, Bangalore Pictures

Monday, January 19th was a travel day. We spent a few hours in Gandhidham visiting the hospitals of Dr Thacker and Drs Goyal. The area was leveled by an earthquake on January 26, 2001, with somewhere between 30,000 and 100,000 killed. Bill Clinton, as an individual, visited shortly after the earthquake to attend a memorial service at a school site where 450 children died when the building collapsed. Something I was not aware of until we visited Gandhidham.
Dr Thacker had a 4 story building for his hospital with his residence on the 4th floor. The family got out safely, but the buiding literally dropped one floor as the 1st floor collapsed. It had to be torn down and he had to start all over. His new hospital is very modest compared to pictures we saw of the original on the same site.

Dr Thacker and his son who helped with the administrative duties for the training event.

Dr Thacker in his office. He is proud of his local area network and automation he has implemented in his hospital.

Front row, L-R, Dr Walter Townson, Dr Donna Dizon-Townson, Dr Rich Bell, Dr Thacker, Dr Goyal, Dr Rob Clark

Dr Vikas Goyal, pediatrician/neonatologist

Dr Jaya Goyal, his wife, OB/GYN

The neonatal intensive care area of Goyal's hospital.

Gujarat has another new means of transport. Had to have a picture of the motorcycle truck. These were quite common in the area we traveled through, but had not seen them anywhere else.

Some street scenes on the way back to Bhuj and the airport.

Love the colors!

The driver said the loads were around 25 kilos or somewhere in the 40-50 pound range. Talk about compressed vertebrae!

A couple of pictures from the tour of the pediatric unit of the Bhuj district hospital. We stopped to visit the District Medical officer on our way to the airport and were offered a quick tour. This resourceful mom has made a hammock between 2 beds for her infant.

The hospital had been rebuilt after the earthquake and was in pretty good shape compared to others we have visited.

Tuesday, January 20th was a down day, at least until the afternoon when the set up was scheduled. We headed to Mysore to do some sightseeing. Coconuts and bananas on the way.

The portico of the "Palace". We could not take cameras inside and there was no way to get a good shot of the building behind. Impressive and huge. Every door in the place was hand carved and about 8' by 5'.

Cosmo on steriods. Don't 'toutch' him.

The bananas are rather small in the south. We had a great hotel room and a really good shower. First time in the past 4 months, wahoo!

Tore Laerdal's daughter, Ingrid, recently completed her MBA and accompanied her dad on this trip to see the real business side of things along with having some fun traveling. They went on to another event in Tanzania after Pedicon 2009 was over.

Dr Archana Bilagi on the right with one of the interns. She was a real joy to work with and the mother of 3 children.

Sister Tanner and Sister Fairbanks took advantage of some free time on Thursday to do a little shopping. This shop is in Bangalore and is selling handicrafts from Gujarat, the state we had been in before moving on to Bangalore.

During the afternoon session, Sister Tanner and I made a quick trip to the ATM. As clean as Bangalore is, we were surprised to see this. Lifestyle is like the Indian Macy's.

Dr Ranjan Pejawar, Tore Laerdal, Dr Rich Bell