Doing Shots
Wednesday, July 16th, 2008Normally this phrase associated with us would have conjured up visions of last call and tequila. This week it had a different meaning – immunizations!
The trip planning seems to be in a lull right now. Not everything can be as exciting as buying a one way plane ticket. However, there are still a lot of things to tackle, even if they are not quite glamorous. We’ve spent some time reading up on what shots are recommended for travelers. There is a ton of information and opinions on the web about what you need. Most of it seems by and for backpackers who have no money or health insurance. I even saw a “tradeoff” chart showing the likelihood of getting a disease and risk of death vs. the cost of the immunization. Did you know that 200,000 people die from Typhoid every year? (or so the brochure from the doctor’s office claims)
Thanks to good ol’ KP’s preventative care, we are were able to get our shots for almost nothing. I did mine a while ago and Eric finished up this week with a pretty sore arm. We’re now generally protected from Tetanus, Typhoid, Hepatitis A, and Polio, as well as having a stash of Malaria pills.
Aside from reading about the variety of bad stuff that can happen when you’re traveling, we’ve also been checking country entry requirements. It turns out we’ll only need 3 visas for the whole trip. We got the one for Australia online. Our passports are en route back from the Indian consulate with Visas. (Is it just me or is it really unnerving to put your passport in the mail?) Finally, we can get the one for Egypt on arrival there.
Shots and visas are fairly minor things, but they felt like progress this week!
halftime