Mitchell’s on Tour - Thailand, Vietnam, India & Nepal

We arrived in Kolkata 4 days ago to a human cesspool of waste. Although we found it completely confronting and couldn’t wait to get out, we had been booked a tour into a game reserve outside of the city and were looking forward to going.

Less 24 hours after we landed I (stephanie) started to feel sick. I spent the day with diarrhea and the night vomiting. I was completely beside myself and just wanted to fly home. I woke David to let him know and soon I was sobbing and the boys were awake. Things didnt get any better the next day and we moved to a cleaner hotel.

Around dinner time I called the doctor (36 hours was all I was giving this thing to pass before I needed help!). He came and gave me some antibiotics and other medications but advised that if it continued (I was up to the toilet every 10- 20 mins and once the vomiting passed -about 12 hours - the nausea was so terrible that I wished I was vomiting) I would need to go to hospital.

The nausea did impove a little by the 3rd morning but the diarrhea continued and we were taking a 17hour train ride to Dehli the following day. I was really worried that wouldnt I do very well in the state I was in. So I decided to go to hospital.

It was easy making the decision to go but once I got there, I suddenly felt terrified. I had my trusty bag of needles, gloves, alcahol wipes, but I didnt have an IV canula and the place was not particularly clean! I asked the doctor about the re-use of needles. He was very polite and assured me that everything was disposable in the hospital, so I bucked up my courage and was admitted to the ward.

I spent the night (an experience that deserves a blog entry all of its own) on a glucose drip and seemed to take never ending amounts of medication. It was a very frightening experience and I didnt really start to feel better until just before I was discharged the next day.

I was a difficult patient and called the doctor several times to check my (lack of) progress as the nurses didnt speak very much English and kept trying to feed me!! I felt like dying so food was not high on the list of my things to consider. I cried A LOT! Which the nurses found bewildering.

Finally, after a midnight visit from the doctor my diahrea cleared up (not sure what he changed) and the next day I was on the train still feeling seedy but happy to continue our journey.

The comedic phrase “I want my mummy” rang true for me in the last 2 days, and I caused poor David and the boys a lot of turmoil talking about going home on the next available flight.

Tonight we are in Delhi, and Jordan is taking his turn to be sick. Both boys and David have been unwell over the past few days but dont seem to have the extreme reaction I had. We spoke to a traveller at dinner that assured us that it is “normal”  to be sick in the first week in India.

I have become the germ nazi and and purchased some chux cloths and disinfectant and cleaned all the nobs and handles in the hotel room, as well as insisting on the frequent washing and sanitising of hands for all the family (much to their chargrin).

Tomorrow we are keen to see the red fort and book our airfares to Nepal but we will just have to see how Jordan is feeling.

Our first 24 hours in India have been mixed, ranging from awe as we flew over the Ganges Delta region of Bangladesh and India and over rural plains and waterways near Kolkata international airport to the chaotic traffic and never ceasing horns on the streets as we made our way to the ‘Back-packer’ accommodation area.

The Lonely Planet guide speaks of Kolkata as simultaneously noble & squalid, Cultured and desperate and ‘a festival of human existence played out before your very eyes on teeming streets where not an inch of space is wasted. While we’ve seen hints of the culture in buildings from the 1800’s now almost derelict (even though still fully occupied) and our visit to the Victoria Monument, a huge white marble building similar in shape to the US capitol building which was started as a monument to the then Queen Victoria and finished after her death as a memorial showed aspects of the nobility of Kolkata we have seen far more of the (every inch) packed, squalid and desperate in our short time here so far.

Kolkata is known as the City of Joy but for us there has not been any joy so far in this city. We have read numerous travellers accounts of Kolkata (and Delhi where we’ll head to next) as a place to not spend any time in due to the pollution, traffic chaos, touts and constant attempts to get more (even hostel owners, shop keepers and taxi drivers will subsequently ask for more than they have already advised is the cost just to see if they can get it!), and general difficulty in getting from A to B and I think we’ll be glad to move on. Our accommodation in Thailand and Vietnam was good but our first pick here was not great although there wasn’t a lot better within our price range but we’ll try and better this one in future days.

We have seen a few things that we were expecting (sort of)….
- I remember a couple of years ago seeing a commercial on TV (I don’t remember what it was for so it obviously wasn’t very effective!) which featured Adam Gilchrist from the Australian Cricket team in an old yellow taxi in India…..I had also heard that India had a number of old English cars as taxi’s but I was amazed on our arrival to see that there are hundreds of them…..in fact the only taxi’s in Kolkata are old yellow cars from about 1950 in various levels of disrepair and semi-repaired damage. We’ve also seen quite a few broken down on the sides of the road so their insides most likely match their rough outsides.

- We love Indian food and now we have it cheaply! It’s not so clean on the streets and some of the places road side stalls are operating are distinctly disgustingly dirty it’s great to see the vast array of foods we love all around us. We ate indoors last night but plan to eat from the stalls tonight, moving from stall to stall and sampling different Indian food ranging from about 3 to 18 rupees each (9 cents to 56 cents).

Tomorrow we head to Sunderban Tiger Camp in the Ganges Delta region where we’ll spend time on the canals and waterways of the national park. While we’re staying in a tent there (yes, in a Tiger reserve!!) it is part of a resort so we expect the standard to be pretty good. The likelihood that we’ll actually see Royal Bengal Tigers is not high (there are approx 280 of them in the reserve which is very large (the largest mangrove forest in the world) but we’re sure to see many other animals and if nothing else we’ll get out of the clog and smog of Kolkata for a couple of days. On Sunday night when we return from Sunderban we’ll be staying at a hostel right next to the Kolkata railway station where we’ll catch our overnight train to Delhi on Monday afternoon (17 hours). It’s a run down mansion built in 1890 but the proximity to the railway helps.

We had our first laugh about India today (and we haven’t even left Australia!) after sending an international SMS to a tour guide in Rajasthan. We found his details in a few blogs and wanted to check availability and cost. We sent the SMS from the web however Luke had the the actual mobile with him and was staying with friends.

Immediately after sending the SMS it seems that the driver called the number. Luke, thinking it was a wrong number (an Indian man saying he was calling back!) asked who he was calling for. The response was fast….He Knows! After a few attempts with the same response Luke changed tack…..Maybe you have the wrong number. The response….no, he contacted me on this number! Next attempt - Maybe he’s changed his number….you can understand the callers response now…he’s just received an SMS from this number, immediately called it back and this person thinks the number might have been changed - Hmmm. Luke’s last ditch effort was to say this is my number which ultimately brought about the end of the call (and probably more confusion for the Indian man!).

 Oblivious to what has just occurred Stephanie called Luke a minute later to see how he was going and he told her the story only to receive laughter as she puts it together and tells him it was an international call meant for us.

We sms’d him back, this time on David’s number and 15 seconds later (you guessed it), a call but this time we knew who he was……He know’s!