Recently in India 2006 Category

Cow in Jodhpur
Originally uploaded by odessa.

The colors really came through on the digital camera well, though. We got the first of our film pictures developed and were sad to see that everything was very washed out. The colors of India are just incredible, almost worth the sickness and misery just to get to see it with your own eyes.

I can say that now, you see, because I am no longer there and feeling like shit. I probably would have never suggested such a thing last week.

K and I both dropped a fair amount of weight while in India. For K, I think the vomiting helped a bit with that, and I am pretty sure she lost even more than I did accordingly. For me, the loss of appetite due to constantly hearing vomiting most likely played a role. Plus, we were active and walking around town whenever we weren't holed up in the hotel with illness, so I suppose the combo of mega-activity/constant illness really is responsible.

Whatever the cause (and however unwelcome), I am pleased with the outcome: I think I lost somewhere between 7-9 lbs. I had gained a little bit of weight over the months of June and July - like 5 lbs - so really I'm just at a more normal weight now. As a matter of fact, I now weigh the exact same as I did on my 21st birthday, which is kind of a nice thing to be able to say to myself.

The change is oddly noticeable to me, which is strange because usually my weight loss is never drastic enough to be seen anywhere besides in my face. The Boy didn't seem to notice much of anything, and Kathypath said she couldn't see a difference. Beccarah didn't remark on any changes either, and so I assumed that the pounds were just evenly lifted off my body in a not-so-noticeable way.

I made it home.

Landing at Paris Charles de Gaulle, I rejoiced. First off, everything was so clean and shiny in that airport (terminal two, mind you) that I felt I could lick the floors. And the lines we waited in? They had ropes defining them, and people actually formed a single file line accordingly. And the shuttle bus? Brand spanking new. The express train? IT WAS AN ACTUAL EXPRESS TRAIN, appropriately labelled as such on the train information boards.

These are the things I never appreciated before this hellish trip of mine. I never thought about how clean things are, how smoothly trains/cars/buses glide along the tracks/streets, how INCREDIBLY AWESOME it is to have fixed fares and proper labels for everything.

I arrived in Paris at 5.30 on Sunday morning. I passed through passport control in just under five minutes, and by the time I was on the other side, my baggage was already circling along the conveyor belt. I picked it up, made use of a nearby (clean!) toilet, and then picked up the shuttle. It showed up after three minutes wait (on time! on time!) and I bought a (fixed price!) ticket into the city. Approaching the train platform, I saw that the next train was only minutes from departure and I quickly hopped abord. I settled in, and the train departed (on time!).

The whole experience was so fluid and easy that I felt like telling everybody on the train, "Do you see how well this whole thing is working? Did you notice how easy it has been???"

I refrained from doing so, though.

By the time I got to my station, it was daylight and Paris was slowly waking up. I strapped on my backpack and stepped outside, happy to notice that nobody was on the street as I began to giggle with glee. My steps became lighter and I set off in a fucked-up semi-skip down the sidewalk -- difficult to do with a backpack on, I'll tell you that much. But, damn, it felt good to be back.

I have spent the last 20+ hours snuggling with The Boy and telling my horror stories to those who asked the inevitable "How was India????" question. Today, I took care of some administrative tasks and walked around much of the city. I was so glad to be here, I was almost dizzy with happiness. At one point, I turned to some friends and said, "Is everybody still on vacation? I feel like Paris is so sleepy..."

They looked at me strangely, and said that they thought things were more or less back to normal. And I realized that it's just that I have been living in such chaos for the last month that everything here feels so nice and easy and gentle. Today, I think I was more relaxed than I have been in a long, long time -- even before I ever left. I guess going away and going through such insanity made me realize that my life here isn't really all that difficult. I'll do my best to retain that feeling for as long as possible. It's an amazing way to live, appreciating the simplicity of everyday tasks with such enthusiasm.

I am currently feeling good but am having some serious eye problems as a result of the sandstorm on the train to Delhi. My vision still has not been completely restored, and I am getting a little worried about it, as I am sort of half-blind right now. I am calling the optometrist tomorrow to see if my eyes may be a little infected.

The whole blindness issue caused me quite a scene at the FNAC today, where I was berated by a worker for not reading the signs indicating where I could buy a certain product. I had told him on two occasions that I had vision problems and could not make out any of the words on their signs or product labels, and that he would need to describe to me in words what the packaging looked like and where I could find it. I ended up finding the wrong product and he made me feel like a dumbass for not being able to read the labels ("I already told you it needs to say SD! SD!"). Hopefully he felt shitty when I said, "Look, I've told you twice that I am almost blind, so I was going on what you described to me. Sorry for the mistake." His response, "Yeah, well... whatever." The whole thing made me feel for anybody who is handicapped in a way that isn't immediately obvious to others. It was as if he didn't really believe me.

In the end, I was able to buy the product that I was looking for, which has thus allowed me to upload some pictures to my computer. I am still working on them, but I thought I would share a first one straight away:

During our 20+ hour train ride from the desert to Delhi, there had been a raging sandstorm. The windows on the train could not shut, and I ended up getting tons of sand in my eyes. My hands were filthy and I did not have any glasses, and needed to remain as attentive as possible during the night on the train. There was no way I could take out my contacts, and the sand and the wind, coupled with too many hours of dirty contact time ended up destroying my eyes. Upon our return in Delhi, I was almost completely blind (more so than now) but could not close my eyes because they burned too much. Immediately after arriving in the hotel, I pulled out my contacts and sat for 15 minutes with a wet washcloth over my face, practicing deep breathing techniques while trying to work my way through the pain. Eventually, my eyes stopped tearing so much and I was able to snag a photo -- my face is shiny from the tears and the washcloth. Here's what I looked like at that moment.

I think that pretty much describes how I felt for the last 10 days of our trip. And that was before we ever even called the doctor.

More photos to come...

So yeah. We're still here. In-sane.

After a 20+-hour train ride - complete with sandstorm - we arrived in Delhi on Thursday morning and beelined for a nice hotel. Before leaving, my parents had offered to shack us up in a swanky place for one night of our travels -- partially because I think they wince at the idea of us roughing it at hostels all month, and partially because they are generous and awesome like that.

Their offer could not have come at a better time. Just before the train ride, I started worrying about a growing girly infection that I obviously had. Upon arrival at the hotel, I could hardly walk and was grimacing in pain (and I'm pretty good with that kind of pain). I bit the bullet and called a doctor, who had a hard time masking his surprise at how bad the infection had gotten. My diagnosis includes three different infections, so the problem had quite clearly spread with lightning speed. I have absolutely no idea where I got it from -- perhaps it was wading around in the fetid flood waters? I have been put on antibiotics, and have been handed all kinds of other treatments, and have had to see the doctor three times since arriving. He was very strict and told me I could not fly, as the infection would only worsen. No matter: I wouldn't have been physically able to sit in an airplane for eight hours anyway.

Meanwhile, K started feeling sick again, and was eventually back to the vomiting party she had experienced two times before. As I was already seeing the doctor, I asked him about her condition, and she eventually agreed that he should come see her. Turns out she was massively dehydrated and had a serious stomach infection. Her dehydration had gotten so severe that he had to hook her up to an IV -- which was cool because she is a pretty tough chick but has one big phobia: things going into her veins. So that was fun.

But here we are. 24 hours later and we have lived to tell the tale.

I am so incredibly thankful to my parents for helping us out. Had we not been in a nicer hotel, we would have never called the doctor. I cannot imagine what kind of state we would have been in had we not done so. I am 100% sure that neither of us would have been able to fly. They have been amazing and I will need to find a proper way to thank them.

So. Tomorrow we fly out. Finally. This has been a complete nightmare.

I haven't been able to post because I have been stuck in a weird-ass desert town with no phones (again, the floods are to blame). No phones means no internet - Indian desert towns aren't exactly hip to wifi yet. Or anything other than dial-up, for that matter.

So much has happened since my last post that I don't even know where to begin, and I don't actually think I'm going to tell thqt tale just yet. It will have to wait for when I return and am NOT sitting in someone's living room that acts as a pseudo-internet cafe.

Let's just say that after K and I got stranded in the desert during our camel safari, literally miles and miles away from civilisation, and K started vomiting non-stop for several hours, we decided we had had enough. We had to hike back to a road (that was also rather jacked due to the floods) and flag down a jeep full of young guys who then drove us to the nearest city. From there, K was able to rest for the next day with a bucket next to her, while we bemoaned our situation.

From day one, this trip has been cursed. It has nothing - or very little - to do with India itself. But we have been doing everything we can to remain as positive as possible, and yesterday's nightmare was so overwhelming that we are just DONE. Officially finished. I cannot find any enthusiasm for this trip any more and am just dying to get home at this point.

Together, we both decided we would like to get back to Delhi as soon as possible, and to leave India at the earliest flight available. Why spend four days waiting around Delhi - spending money for hotel and what not - when I can change my flight for 100 euros? This was a hard thing to accept, as neither of us are the type who give up easily. I have never come home from a vacation early. I have never had a terrible trip.

But this one? It's been bad.

Oh my God, how many things can go wrong in one vacation? Wait a minute, I take that back -- no need to tempt God with such musings. Frankly, we've had enough.

We arrived in Udaipur at 7 am after taking a night bus, and awoke to pouring ran and freezing temperatures. Both of us had sensed the onset of a cold the night before, and were dismayed to see that our illness had become a full-blown respiratory infection by the time we woke up. With no rain-proof clothing, we hitched a ride from a rickshaw into town and settled into our guesthouse on the lake, falling quickly asleep after a restless night on the bus.

Imagine our surprise when we woke up a few hours later to find our guesthouse was flooded in, with the biggest flood in Udaipur's history since 1972. Cold, sick, and overall miserable, we waded through the waters to find ourselves some food, as our guesthouse's kitchen had also flooded and we were starving. We wandered the streets a bit in the rain (this IS a beautiful town) and then headed in for an early night.

The next morning, K was violently ill and could not leave the hotel room. I had aches, pains, and a fever, and was in no mood to wander through the sewage to find food. I ate some toast and we remained miserable in our hotel room for the entire day. No television, no entertainment other than watching the flood waters rise.

Yesterday, we at least had the energy to change hotels, and we found one with a tv. Besides an occasional foray out into the city for food, we were pretty much stuck inside all day -- both of us hacking like lifelong 80-year-old smokers.

Today is the first day we have had the energy and motivation to actually go outside. Although we're not fully recovered, it feels great to be able to walk a few steps without groaning, or to not get dizzy at the end of a hill. Udaipur is a beautiful and peaceful city, and I suppose of anywhere to get sick, this is the ideal place (minus the flooding, of course). It's a shame that we can't just fall magically in love with the place -- the mules and elephants roam the streets freely, the hilly and curvy roads are incredibly scenic, and the people here are the most friendly and mellow of anywhere in India to date - but we'll squeeze the most out of our last day here while we've got the energy to do so.

We're anxious to feel back to full-speed, however, and hopefully by tomorrow that will be the case. We're heading on to Jodhpur in the morning, and will continue on to Jaiselmer from there. We're both very excited about the camel safari in Jaiselmer (camels!) and are just praying that we won't hit another disaster in our next destination. I have been entirely impressed with India and have enjoyed this country immensely... I just would really, really like it if our string of bad luck could come to an end.

Also - our pictures suck because we bought a really shitty camera at some stand. India is so colorful and so beautiful, and all the pics are washed out and bland. Damn shame.

At any rate, forward we go.