Flight Details, Immunizations, Housing, Language Acquisition

CSPP India Academic Tour

December 27, 2008 to January 6, 2009

Flight Details
You may have already received several emails from Myra Ingmanson regarding your flight reservations. If you are reserving your tickets through the travel agent who we are working with (Saima Iqbal), then you need to contact her ASAP. Her contact information is below:
Email ids:  saima@u2travels.com; saima_zafar25@yahoo.com
Phone:  512-769-6258

If you are making your flight arrangements on your own, you STILL need to send us your flight detail and your itinerary. October 1, 2008 is the deadline for sending in information to Myra regarding your flight details.
Here are some important dates to remember while booking your tickets:

• December 28, 2008 – The program starts at 8 am. Ideally, we would like you to arrive in Chennai latest on December 27, 2008 so that you have a chance to rest and get over your jet-lag before we start our program. This might mean flying out on December 24 or 25. Once the program starts, we have a very busy schedule with not much time to relax.
• January 6, 2009 – The program ends on January 6. We will have programming on January 6, so please make your travel plans for January 6 at night or on January 7. 

If you have not received information about the flights from Myra Ingmanson, then please email Myra or call her: 512-632-7734.

Immunizations
For vaccines, we have used a service called Passport Health which has offices all around the US. They specialize in travel health and work with individuals to evaluate the needs based on the places they will be traveling. Many times, the local county health department may also provide vaccines. We recommend that everyone contact their own physician, or a specialist such as Passport Health to evaluate their own situation. Everyone should be up to date on the basics such as Tetanus and Typhoid. Hepatitis A, Hepatitis B and Polio may also be recommended, but everyone should consult their own health professional. You may want to consult your physician about carrying medication for Malaria and for common issues such as diarrhea, vomiting, insect bites etc.

Here are some websites for Passport Health in California, LA, and San Francisco.
http://www.passporthealthla.com/
http://www.passporthealthca.com/
http://passportsf.com/

Housing
We are making hotel reservations for our students at New Woodlands Hotel. This is a 3-star hotel located at the heart of the city. It is surrounded by shopping malls, cultural centers, business centers and is close to the Marina beach. Each of us will be sharing a room with one other person. More information about your accommodation will be provided to you later.

Hotel Contact Information:
New Woodlands Hotel (P) Ltd
72-75, Dr.Radhakrishnan Road
P.B No 626
Mylapore, Chennai-600004
India
Phone: 28113111
Fax: 28110460

Language Acquisition
Tamil is the language that is spoken in Chennai, which is the capital of the state of Tamilnadu. Though English is one of the country’s official languages and is commonly spoken in India, it would be a good idea to know a little bit of the local language in order to get around the city, to be safe and also begin to understand the culture. The website given below provides some good preliminary instructions in conversational Tamil. The sections on “preliminary lessons” and “conversational exchanges” are good links to review.
http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/plc/tamilweb/tamil.html

Facebook
If you have not yet joined our group on Facebook, please do so. You can meet others who are going on this trip and also exchange ideas and important information regarding your journey. You can also find tips on cheap tickets, best places to get your vaccinations, etc. If you have not joined yet and/or do not know how to, please email us at rnatrajan@alliant.edu or plattjason@hotmail.com.