No NHS Abroad: Part II

We've gone to Nepal, so let's take a step back and sojourn to Jaipur, India, and my very first experience of illness in Asia.

Jaipur before the ordeal. 

It was June 2013, and we were about one week into our travels. Having escaped the chaos and filth of Mumbai, we had unintentionally found ourselves on a 24-hour bus journey with only a packet of crisps for sustenance. We had taken the road less travelled with a detour to Ellora caves (I recommend highly, by the way, but that's a tale for another day), and were now righting our way back to the official Land of Tourists: Rajasthan. Rajasthan is famous for its palaces and forts, and queen of all palaces and forts is the city of Jaipur and the most prestigious castle of all: The Amber Fort.

Not knowing how to prioritise, we made a list of all the things we wanted to do in Jaipur. And then we started from the bottom. Let me tell you now that you should never save the best to last in India. There will be obstacles. There is such a thing as Indian Time, and this will contribute avidly to your obstacles. But in our case, there was illness.

It came on quite suddenly. I woke up, and my travelling pal was no longer there. Immediate panic. When I found him throwing up, I was a little relieved. At least he was where I could see him.

But when the morning came, it seemed that a clean-up operation was in order. There was lots of sick, particularly on our shared mosquito net. Jolly good, I thought, this will be excellent training if I ever want to become a midwife, as I rinsed the net in the shower (at one point I did want to be a midwife, so please refrain from calling this irrelevant). My second tip for India, and any travels really, is that if you have a sickness bug, go immediately to the doctors. In a foreign country, it won't 'clear up' like it might in the UK. Oh no. I fall for the 'it will just heal itself' trick every time, and this has resulted in many infected blisters and more unfortunately, the acceptance of Rennies as treatment for diarrhoea. No, my friends, your foreign illness will not go away by itself.

Anyway, we thought it would, so asked for a room change and some tea to settle my pal's tum. I went down for breakfast. When I came back up to our new room, however, the innocent boy who had been sent to deliver tea was standing intrepidly in the door way, as my friend lay on the cold hotel floor, stark-naked, and quietly moaning. I ushered terrified boy away. When my companion asked for more tea later on in the day, I reminded him of the no-towel incident.

Jaipur, after the incident, at the Amber Fort.
Just before this picture, an elephant had sneezed on us.

It was this incident that sent us to breaking point. We should go to the doctors, we decided. On arrival, however, the doctor was not there. We were disappointed. We had felt so brave in making a decision. Anyway, Indian Time came and went, and the doctor finally arrived. He nodded knowingly. He had seen this before. Sticking a drip in the arm, a needle in the bum and some colourful tablets down the throat, he wrote out a payment slip and told us to call him in a week to confirm we were still alive. Fortunately for all involved, we were.