Almost HEAVEN!

We are in Jaipur now, known as the Pink City. It is beautiful and feels like nirvana after Delhi, which was really intense, to put it mildly. I got quite sick there and learned firsthand what the term “Delhi Belly” means. After four days of increasingly bad dysentery (on the third day I threw up and thought I was going to die, and although I’d hardly eaten in days and nothing at all in a couple days was still in the bathroom every ten minutes. Ew!) I was so weak I didn’t know what to do.

Finally I surrendered to the evil wonders of Western medicine. Having been to a hospital on my last trip to India that seemed like something out of a WWI movie (as sick as I was, I was pretty sure I wasn’t going to EVER get better if I stayed there, and eventually fled to the relative** (see description of our room below) safety and sterility of my blessedly air-conditioned hotel room) I held out for as long as I could. I shuffled down to the local pharmacy, a couple doors down on the main bazaar (we’d moved to a cheaper and much less nice room at the Hotel Shelton, where we begged in vain for days to get a second towel, as we’d used one of the two we were given to sop up the water on the floor (the showers here have all been sans stall – meaning, you stand on the bathroom floor, which is marble and quite slippery, and the water comes out of the wall all over the room, like a ship’s bathroom. It isn’t bad, but wet marble floors are a deathtrap for anyone, not to mention this accident-prone writer, so we naively used one of our towels as a bathmat.) Unfortunately, the hotel staff saw how we’d treated their towel (filthy with stains and worn down to a nice 40-grit sandpaper, which I happen to like as it’s great for exfoliating) and refused to bring us any more during our week-long stay. The room wasn’t bad although we had to ask them to clean it upon moving in and even still were afraid to touch the walls.)

In India you don’t need a prescription to get anything, you just walk in and ask for what you want. I didn’t know what to ask for, and I don’t speak Hindi, so I just pointed to my stomach and said, “Sick. Belly.” The man gave me some pills – very strong antibiotics which made my extremities (and my brain) tingle in a somewhat frightening way. However, they did the trick. Some sort of thing I’d never heard of – noxiprocin? Anyway, I didn’t know what to do, couldn’t imagine the benefit of sticking it out any longer and the natural medicines Adam brought, which I prefer, didn’t seem to be working. It has been years since I’ve taken antibotics and I’m pretty sure there is not a single organism alive in my body now, but I will take it all in trade for the ability to walk upright and put food in my body.

Now I am completely recovered and back to feeling myself again – full of energy, curiosity and enthusiasm, ready to explore and eat the world! Adam has been a great travel partner, taking very good care of me, all the logistics and doing his business as well. It’s been amazing to see how much work it takes to do what he does. I envisioned a sweet, relaxing trip wandering through colorful bazaars, chatting with locals, bartering and drinking chai. While much of that is true, he is doing it all on his own, and it is far from relaxing. In reality he works long hours, slogging through miles of markets and piles of objects to find beautiful pieces, worthwhile businesses and people he can trust and wants to work with. He also must track each item he finds, the cost of purchase, packing, shipping, customs, unloading and marketing that piece, how many he bought last year, how much he paid, how many he sold, how many he can buy this year and on and on and on...all on India time, which means everything takes longer than you think.

Meanwhile I went exploring on my own a bit. Saw and rode an elephant yesterday, and I have finally managed to edit the FIRST of what was supposed to be our daily video podcast! The technological problems have been unbelievable. Still, all in all, a big adventure and lots of amazing footage and experiences.

PS - this tip from my friend Missy came in VERY handy when I was sick!! I didn’t bring Alka Seltzer, and they do not sell it here (or any American pharmaceutical products) but they do sell something like it called ENO and I put it in a lime soda (they give you a bottle of soda water, a small dish of fresh lime juice and a small dish of simple syrup – it’s make your own!) and it did help. What a great concept! Alkalize the system, I learned that in my yoga teacher training, how important that is, and yet I never equated ALKA seltzer - !! Funny!