I've made it to the train, hooray! I arrived into Ghazipur station, about an hour and a half north of Varanasi in Utter Pradesh, on Friday to the warm welcome of the Lifeline Express team and Colonel Vishwen, an old army colonel who pretty much runs the show. It's a fully functioning hospital onboard just several carriages of a converted train and provides free medical treatment throughout its stay to local villagers for whom hospital treatment would be otherwise impossible. And it definitely lives up to all the expectations of the last 11 months' elective excitement! Everyone's been so friendly and already the train feels like home - the air conditioned sofa carriage being a particular favourite so far! And I've made friends with the chef...which is always a good thing! Hundreds of people arrived on Sunday for screening for the first set of operations - mostly cataract surgery - although having to turn away a child requiring a more complicated ptosis (drooping eyelids) operation was heartbreaking after they'd travelled so far. But we're looking forward to visiting the villages in a few weeks and taking a peek at what a difference the surgery has made to people's lives...especially the oldest patient of the day at 95 years young!

And despite a few days of feeling a little delicate (!) today's personal triumph of 10 slices of toast and 3 bananas hopefully means i'll be up and running again soon! So looking forward to cleft palate surgery in a few days and what will hopefully be an exciting few weeks of elective!