Culture

King coconut is cheaper than water here!!

Nights out and a new pool!!

Since we have come to Sri Lanka we have made soooo many new friends... as some leave more people turn up! Here are a few from a few nights out...

Also we found a new pool today at a hotel 1.5 miles from our guest house called the lighthouse... it is absolutely amazing and for 500rps (3 quid) you can use it all day.. its right by the beach and has 2 pools, one situated outside the hotel and the other down by the beach!!

Oh and the hospital is still there as well! :-)

Monsoon! Bleurgh

It's raining!

Has absolutely hammered it down for the past 2 days :( (see pics 1 & 2 of of our street). Has cleared up a little bit now - and we can but hope the weather returns to lovely and sunny!

Although miserable, the rain is quite cooling and makes the hospital distinctly less of a sticky affair. We've seen some really interesting cases - including pic 3. This poor pt presented with a bit of a headache!

We didnt let the rain dampen our spirits as we watched England win the group (at 12:30 am!)

Now ive finished writing is bloody raining again. Grrrrrrrr

xx

Work and play!!

Work and Play

Pic 1,2. Seeing as there were no photos of us actually doing some work we thought we’d show you some

Pic 3. One of our many cats on the ward

Pic 4. A dog at the disco enjoys the occasional beer

Pic 5,6. This was a BBQ on the beach. The fresh tuna was caught that afternoon and was cooked on a wheelbarrow and old coconut shells for charcoal!

Pic 7. 7.15am every morning is getting a bit hard to manage, especially with the world cup!!

World cup and birthdays!!

Pic 1: Friday night we found our selves drinking with our friend and fellow Karapitiya hospital medical student, Tobias. He is in the same guest house as us... the only problem is he is German! Some how he convinced both of us to support Germany in exchange for him supporting England!

Pic 2: I prefer world cup cocktails unlike Neil and Tobias who take full advantage of buy 3 get one free pitchers of lager (working out at 3 quid for 4!!)

Pic 3: Alex has his own tuk tuk and employs a driver Latchman.. who is a bit of a legend.. he drove Bex around on her birthday!!

Pic 4,5: BEX'S BITHDAY and the first England game.. we made Tobias change his shirt!! I got a cake from the Unawatuna beach resort!!! Unfortunately celebrations had to be cut short for Buddist fesival Poya (full moon) starts at 12am and no alcohol allowed :o(
(p.s. Thanks to everyone for your birthday messages and cards xx)

Pic 6: Our pool!! Well when we sneak in!!

Pic 7: Poya!

Second installment of our adventure!! We have seemed to settle into a regular routine now of going to the hospital at 7am and coming home around 2pm to head straight to the beach which is where the first photo comes from!! Come on England!!

The second is of me in the sea!! its sooo warm! The 3rd is of the amazing beach we have.. voted 12 best in the world apparently!

Transport is ablsolutely hilarious here.. if you want to get some where.. (as we do 4 times a day).. your options are a 2 stroke engined 'Tuk Tuk' costing about £1 every 5 miles.. or get the bus.. cost about 5p every 5 miles! The rules of the road involve a huge amount of honking your horn and dicing with death..

Pedestrians and cyclists seem to come out of nowhere literally just appear.
Motor bikes with entire families on them risk life and limb.
Tuk drivers are fairly crazy but they seem to know what they are doing
Bus drivers are suicidal but they seem to have right of way
Car drivers we are told have to be feared as they overtake on blind bends and don't tend to give way!

Oh and forget about MOTs lights, are optional extras here on all vehicles and Bex was horrified to see a man using a sprite bottle as a petrol can!

This is picture 4 us overtaking a van heading towards an oncoming bus! The 5th picture is us overtaking a red bus whilst the white van in front has just overtaken both of us! Which side of the road do they drive on? Answers on a post card please... or better still you can text us as we have a mobile on +94779870364

Love Neil and Bex

We've Arrived!

After a long flight we finally arrived in Sri Lanka. The drive from columbo was long and hot - but really interesting - there's alot of tsunami damage still along the coast road

We settled into our rooms at the guest house (who are very hospitable), and set off to explore - only to be thrown out of the only bar in town! (they let us sit in the garden after some persuasion (by neil!)

Alex introduced us to lots of his friends on sunday and we spent a lazy day by the pool (see pics - spot the whities).

Monday was our first day in the hospital and a stark contrast to the day befores luxury - it was steaming hot in the 35deg heat with no air and loads of people huddled around. We're attached to neurology at the moment and saw some really late physical signs of stroke and brain tumour - and a few cases of Dengue, leptospirosis and hepatitis A (impressing medics :)

Update soon

Bex & Neil