Saturday, February 12
Dungarpur to Lunavada – 150 K
I ate very little for dinner in our lovely extravagant setting last night. Rice and bottled water (nothing else) – that sounded safe but even that was not able to settle in my stomach and by the middle of the night I was sick… AGAIN! This time was worse than before (with a fever) so needless to say I didn’t ride my bike again today. In fact, I called my travel agent and asked her to check to see how much a flight out of Mumbai on the 21st would cost me. She is looking into it for me because if I can’t get better by then, it makes sense to come home.
A few of the other riders had decided to take a taxi at noon and make the most of the morning at this “high point” of the tour so I joined them in the taxi to the next hotel. Surely they wouldn’t put a sick person in the front seat… but they insisted that it didn’t “pitch” as much in the front and they all took dibs on the rear seats.
Today was a LONG HOT day for the riders – one fellow said it was 44 degrees Celsius (you’ll have to do the conversion) but on the pavement they were all suffering and by the end of the day, the van had picked up so many of the riders that they were crammed in like sardines – just like REAL Indians! That’s how they ride – at least none of our folks were hanging out windows or riding on top or on the bumper.
As soon as I arrived at the hotel, I asked one of the leaders if I could get an appointment with a doctor and it was arranged for 6pm at a local clinic. I wish I could say I have pictures of it, but I don’t. Let me just say that we have a lot to be thankful for in America. Don’t get me wrong, everything that needed to be sterile was sterile, but the facility itself was nowhere close to anything we would consider clean, in fact it was about as dirty as everything else. After a consultation with the doctor and a urine sample, they put me in “Special Room – 1” on low bed with a clean, colorful sheet. One fellow took blood with a sterile needle and another hooked me up to IV fluid (again very sterile) hanging on a steel, white pole welded to the bedside. Jan (my friend & nurse) and Ricardo (one of the tour leaders) stayed with me through the whole process and chatted as the IV replenished my much needed fluids.
The tests showed an infection and I was given a prescription for yet another antibiotic (different one) and three other items to get at the pharmacy across the street. We walked across the street escorted by the doctor’s assistant and he proceeded to pull my medicines from the shelves at the pharmacy, writing & stapling the directions for each on the appropriate packet. I understood my instructions, paid 280 Rupees (about $5) and we got a tuk tuk back to the hotel where I immediately took my meds, dug out my sleeping sheet, covered my pillow with a pillowcase that I got from my mom before the trip, and climbed in to sleep. It’s funny how comforting a silly pillowcase from home can be. J Thanks Mom!
This hotel was a DIVE…. Ugh!!! Everyone else took bucket showers in their bathrooms and most had only a squat toilet in the floor… which wouldn’t be so bad if they had been somewhat clean, but they were filthy! I’m glad I missed most of it! It was the worst so far – but it was a bed and a locked door and I could rest peacefully even though the sounds of traffic and voices went on all through the night.
