Feb 3rd: Its hot, damn hot.

My god its hot in Madurai, the week I spent up north in Lucknow has got me more used to a cooler temperature of around 23 degrees. Today down here in the south its about 34 degrees. By the time I had walked the five minutes to work I was a total ball of sweat. I'm going to get a bit of a shock when I go home in a few days. It Looks like the weather there is not the best. Maybe I should stay longer until spring :-)

Myself and girls that are staying at the guest house went into the market tonight to pick up clothes that one of the girls has had made. It was good fun and I was mad that I left my camera behind.

One part of the market is the tailor district, one side of the lane is taken up completely by singer sewing machines. Each one is occupied by a very industrious little tailor beavering away, making whatever garments he needs to complete that day.

The other side is full of material shops, you name it they seem to have it. If by some chance a particular shop doesn't have what you are looking for you can bet that his pal down the road does.

Now the ladies were doing what ladies do in shops like this, which was essentially look at every cloth available. Only joking ladies. I got chatting to one of the shop keepers while this was going on. He did his level best to get me to buy something. I nearly got caught up in it all but had a rush of blood to the senses and declined. You know what its like when you are on holiday. You buy something that makes perfect sense when you are there. Suddenly, back in Glasgow you realize that you will never in a million years wear what you bought.

The shopkeeper and I had a good discussion about accents. For Indians the Scottish accent is really easy for them to understand, far easier than American and English which is funny. As long as I don't speak to fast I have had absolutely no problems in being understood. Except, it seems, when it was perhaps in the best interests of the rickshaw driver to not understand.

After shopping we went for a beer at the rooftop restaurant which was nice. Comparatively peaceful up on the roof compared to the streets. We spent too long enjoying the beer that we were late back to guesthouse. First time I was late back since I got there. Whoops.

On the work front we have agreed what we are going to complete to bring everything together and roll out the process to antoher hospital. All good stuff.

TTFN