The first look I had of Bilaspur was the train station, never the most flattering part of a city. At the end of the platform, a few shabbily dressed men appeared to be gambling by candlelight, and I was worried as to what kind of place we were going to. As we pulled into the central part of the station, it started looking more normal, though definitely smaller and less affluent than the larger station in Nagpur. However, this meant there were no coolies harassing us.

As we drove into the city, I noticed that the auto rickshaws of Hyderabad had been replaced by bicycle rickshaws. The center of town is more like the outlying neighborhoods of Hyderabad, and it lacks the higher end shops, but we never shopped at those anyway. The major intersections are all large rotaries with a monument of some kind in the center, usually a statue or fountain, and I'm sure I'll soon recognize as navigational landmarks.

The city has about 500,000 people, so it is of decent size, but it is in a very rural part of the country. Just across the railroad tracks is village life, with mud buildings, farmers' fields and animals wandering. There doesn't seem to be a lot of money in Bilaspur, and the largest industry is steel, as a result of some kind of arrangement mutually beneficial to the mill owners and politicians.

The neighborhood where the doctors live, and we will hopefully be living, is nice. We are told that it is a neighborhood "popular among the middle class - people with jobs" and so it is hard to find a flat. I think we will be able to make a nice home here once we have a more permanent place to stay.