India (again), and SouthEast Asia

Today we ventured to Phnom Penh, the capital city of Cambodia. On our way over, we made a stop where Cambodians were selling all sorts of insects, featuring the roasted spider. Most sellers carried around a live one, and often a cute Cambodia kid yelled “poison” when she thrusted it towards tourists. I can see what Angelina Jolie adopted one! Later  that evening had a great meal arranged by our tour guide. Although many of the restaurants we are taken to in the evening (where we pay), have some arrangement with G adventures, its always been great, servers understand English, and the variety is good. Although the prices are probably a little higher than I'd expect. The next day we went to see the killings fields, where we learned all about Cambodia's history where ~a quarter of the population in the 70's was killed by a communist group called the Kmer Rouge.  Our tour guide, "nay", he mentioned his ability to whip and n...

Although today was and early start (left at 4:30 am), was a fun packed day. Started off at Angkor Wat, where we had a tour guide, I understood about 40% of what he was saying, but was a bit tired and don’t think I would have paid great attention anyways. After went quad biking around Cambodia which was fantastic, took us through some rice fields which is kinda what I picture when I think of Cambodia. In the evening I saw a circus group/play – lots of old white people who were taking way too many pictures (it was good.. but not that good). Our group had organized a going out in Pub Street to “yolo bar”, definitely was a foreigners bar, but was entertaining – beer pong, glow in the dark face paint, and games requiring one to squat on one leg and pick up money with their mouth, one of our group members one us a bucket of gin. The streets went nuts, full of people drinking in miniature box night club stands, and little kids trying to sell random things to tourists. ...

After I finished the India course, I then headed over to Thailand for a G adventures tour. So far I've met the group and every seems really friendly, my roommate is from Germany and is in an orthopedics residency. There is a couple on their Honeymoon from New Zealand, others are from South Africa, and England. Our tour guide Andrew, is really personable and super friendly. Arriving in Thailand was not what it was 10 years ago... where many drivers hovered in and around the airport trying to upsell me on hotels, insist they will give me a good price. This time round it went very smoothly, which was nice but not as fun. So far the process form going from Thailand to Cambodia has been really smooth. As we entered Cambodia (where we got our VISAs) I noticed two caucasian girls lying on benches on their backpacks, staring at the ceiling then staring at our group as we walked by towards our air conditioned bus, "I wish I paid a little extra" is what I can imagine they ...

Tapeworms: Today we discussed tapeworms, fish tape worm D. latum, pork Tape worm (T. Solium), beef tape worm (T. saginata). Of all of them, probably the most significant is the pork tape worm, not so much because infection with it causes disease, but ingestion of its eggs causes neurocysticercosis.   http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJM199209033271004 The article often quoted to demonstrate this point with orthodox Jews in New York who acquired it because their South American workers who were preparing the food had the tape worm themselves. Having tapeworms can be difficult to diagnose, we were told of one patient who was actually given anti-pscyh medications, the take home point being to document (picture and or bring in the worm or proglottids), to help identify it. Thereis a stool antigen (ELISA) for T. solium. Hymenolepsis nana (not to be confused with E. nana) is a dwarf tapeworm causing abdo pain and possibly pruritis, the one reason to check stool O&P in...