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Diarrhea Delhi

We left Delhi after 10 days without having seen much of the city other than Pahar Ganj, its grungy backpacker ghetto. We had arrived after over 50 hours of travel from Kathmandu, only to find the city in the middle of a heat wave. An Indian style heat wave, that is, an excrutiating, painful, difficulty breathing, no chance in hell you're getting a night's sleep heatwave. Here are some of the Indian newspaper headlines from the week (planes grounded!?!):
'Severe Heat Wave Persists in North India'
'Delhi Reeling Under Scorching Heat as Temperatures Soar'
'Several Planes Grounded as Mercury Soars in North India'

So... we grounded ourselves as well, spending one day over 11 hours in an air-conditioned internet cafe (at 15 rupees an hour this was a great deal, I even took naps on the chairs). We managed in only five days to get our hands on two Central Asian visas (Kyrgystan, Tajikistan), which is really quite a feat in the visa world, and we were almost ready to go, when Yann was struck with a case of "Delhi Belly" aka most hardcore diarrhea imagineable. To help with recovery, it began raining everyday in the city, making life much more bearable. People cheered and danced on the streets the first day it rained, actually pretty much every time it rained. We were able to get a full night's sleep for the first time in almost a week. At some point in between the heat and the diarrhea we were able to get to one of Delhi's sights, the Qutb Minar, a nice big old minaret. With some antibiotics Yann started to recover and it was my turn to delay our departure even further, with a similar case or raging excretion. I spent two days sleeping, all day. One evening, Yann ran into Tina and Ryhadd, two Brits that had travelled with us in China, so he left me in the hotel room to sleep while he had dinner. I was feeling much better but not well enough to leave the room so I settled in for a night of television and gatorade. It wasn't long after Yann left that I started getting fairly bad cramps and had to get up regularly to make trips to the bathroom.

I will now give you a lesson on what to DO if you are feeling like you are going to pass out (I learned this from the nurses after my bike accident)
1-Sit down where you are so that you cannot fall and hurt yourself
2-Place your head between your legs to try to get the blood to rush there
3-Do not get up until you are certain that your fainting spell has passed, or call for help

Here is a lesson on what NOT to do if you feel like you are going to pass out: Leap off the toilet, with your underwear around your ankles in an attempt to make it to the bed across the room. This was what I did, and in doing so ended up passing out, smashing against the bed frame (and consequently waking up). I managed to drag myself off the floor and onto the bed, still not having regained hearing or vision and lay sprawling there until I got my hands on a bottle of gatorade. Thanks to that bottle which I had left on the bed, I was able to regain some energy (as well as my senses) and feel like I was going to live. By the time Yann got back almost four hours later I was pretty much hysterical, not so much because of my predicament (I think my underwear were still hovering around my ankles at this point), but because by now I thought Yann had been kidnapped.

So don't ask us for any Delhi travel advice, although we can recommend a great internet cafe and a hotel with a decent toilet (good flushing abilities), for both, turn off the main bazaar at the public urinals/ chicken stand, you can't miss the smell.
The possible culprit? Emilie chowing down on train food to the shock and dismay of other travellers...

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

coucou mes deux amours,

Il me semble que ca fait longtemps que je vous ai ecris. A lire votre recit, je crois que vous avez eu des moments assez douloureux, bon pour conserver le poids mais pas a conseiller du tout. Peut-etre serait-il bon que vous mangiez moins de nourriture locale, un bon BIG MAC de temps en temps ne vous fera pas de tort.

C'est sur que la chaleur n'aide pas, le changement climatique, connais pas au Quebec,la temperature n'est pas tres belle depuis le debut de l'ete, ce n'est pas les 50' mais bien les 20'.

Faites attention a vous, on lit vos courriels a chaque fois qu'il y en a mais j'ai fais ma paresseusee je n'ai pas pris le temps de vous ecrire


On vous embrasse et faites attention a vous, on vous aime beaucoup beaucoup

Matante denise et mon oncle Raymond

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paradiso(angry) said...

raging excretion....I LOVE your euphemisms guys.

Papa