Dear All,
The blog has been quiet for a very good reason!
After a week of diarrhoea, we decided that was enough and tuktuked dan off to a medical clinic recommended by the lonely planet. He was admitted Thursday afternoon.
The clinic is spotless and too expensive for Indians so there are only foreigners here. We contacted our travel insurance company straight away and they were amazing and helped us out with everything and its all covered.
After blood, stool and urine tests dan was put on an IV drip and two different types of antibiotics for the bacterial infection and the parasite..eeewww…sounds nasty but once the antibiotics go through he will be as good as new.
The doctors arent sure where the bacteria or parasite came from, it could have been food, or food, dishes or glasses that were washed in infected water..they don’t know. But he is feeling a lot better. I left the clinic for a walk and came back and he had eaten all the biscuits that came with my cup of tea!
The clinic has been really helpful, I was staying in a bed next to dan in our own room with a bathroom. There is a nurse just outside the room and the doctors drop in at least 5 times a day to check up on him. Breakfast, lunch and dinner are provided for dan and I.
After over a week of talking about poop though im looking forward to talking of other things…
The clinic is in the wealthy area of Delhi and straight across the road is a small collection of shops and cafes! Woohoo, so while dan has been resting I’ve wandered across the road and had a cup of coffee and a piece of cake in a very nice café above a book shop. My favourite shop is called Fabindia, which sells gorgeous printed cotton and silk shirts, cotton pants and skirts, cotton , silk and cashmere scarves and beautiful bed linen and printed fabrics. Ive enjoyed wandering the shop and looking at the pretty prints and colours..if only my backpack wasn’t so small!!I did manage to squeeze a scarfe in…
Dan was released from the clinic yesterday. We were there almost a week as he had to be re-hydrated and then treated with antibiotics. Dan didn’t feel well at all so the doctors kept him in to monitor him until the diarrhoea was over.
So finally yesterday we waved goodbye to the clinic and made our way back to Pharaghanj in delhi where a chuck of hotels, restaurants and shops are.
Today we decided to visit the Red Fort. Agreed a price with an auto rickshaw driver and we were off. However something was definitely off when he started driving in the wrong direction…eventually we told him to stop and he argued with us that he couldn’t drive to the red fort so he was driving us to his mate’s taxi stand so that we could pay for a taxi to get to the red fort..arrggh, sometimes its just frustrating, if you cant take us to the redfort just say no!easily solved, we didn’t pay him a cent and hoped in the next rickshaw which was 2 seconds behind and arrived at the redfort.
The Red Fort was built as the King’s residence in Delhi. It was built in the 16th century with red sandstone from Agra and White marble from Rajasthan. The evil son that put his father (the man who built the taj mahal) lived at the Red Fort. Inside the huge walls are a mosque, beautiful gardens and white marble buildings. The main buildings were used as reception areas for guests and the king and queens sleeping quarters. There was also a huge building which was the bathroom..that apparently is so big so that the King could offer it his 300 ladies in waiting!popular man..
The funniest part of the day was the security checks to get into the Red Fort. There are separate queues for men and women to go through metal detectors, be patted down and then to have bags checked. Although we were at a tourist attraction, there are more Indians than foreign tourists, actually in the Red Fort I could count the number of foreign tourists on one hand. Walked through the detectors, got roughly patted down and then plonked my bag down on the counter to be searched. My bag is a decent size and is filled with paper, pens, tissues, lip balm, hand sanitiser, pills, beads, ipod…and the rest. However the one item of interest to the female bag checker was my fluro pink highlighter. I’m guessing she pulled it out for personal interest rather than a security risk. It was pulled out “what’s this?” I pulled the cap of f and explained it was a pen, the other ladies were all interested by then, “AAh, not lipstick?”…I almost felt like replying with “If I ever wear that shade of lipstick please shoot me”..but refrained. She was happy with a squiggle on her page and then I was allowed to leave with my high security risk highlighter. I giggled all morning thinking of fluro pink lipstick…
The Red Fort is in the old part of Delhi, where the shops, people, cars and dogs are crammed into very small spaces. We wandered along and found the Jalebi shop…one that I was particularly interested in. It serves the sweetest fried goodies I have ever tasted! Jalebi’s are dough squiggles (it really looks like a squiggle!) that are fried and then soaked in a sugar syrup. The outside is crunchy, but the dough is soft and the sugary syrup goes everywhere..but they were oh so good and will satisfy my sweet tooth for the rest of the week.
All around Delhi we have noticed huge street signs saying “Work in progress, Commonwealth Games 2010”..however looked more like demolition than work, so hopefully in a few months the city will be shining for the Games.
Early tomorrow morning we are on a train for Jaipur. Train leaves at 6am and arrives in Jaipur at 10.30am. Planning on staying 2 or 3 nights, but have no ongoing tickets so will see what the city is like.
Hope all is well at home,
Happy Birthday Grandpa for the 2nd Dec.
Love lots,
Jess xox
