Gabe was heading home, so we headed out to the airport...it was sad to have to say goodbye – but all good things have to come to an end :-(
The next day we decided to take an easy day, as none of us was feeling that great. After looking around Connaught Place we decided to buy some “supplies” and have a picnic in the park. It was really great hanging out, with a picnic of Olive and Sun Dried Tomato Foccacia, tomatoes, cake, and a really good bottle of Indian red wine.
Picnicking in the park at Connaught Place:
The night sky in Delhi:
The next day, we all felt even worse than the day before – but Brock and I decided to head out for the day and see the place where Ghandi was assassinated...
...but the Auto-rickshaw driver took us to the wrong place - so we ended up seeing where he had been cremated instead. It's an amazingly green and beautiful park now – not at all what I'd imagined Delhi would be like.
The site Ghandi was cremated:
As we were near the Fort, we made our way there and had a look around.
The Red Fort in Delhi:
Intricate stone work:
The next day we all felt really sick. Not only did we all have really bad flu symptoms – but I'd started with dysentery – not pleasant.
We suspected that we might have swine flu – as it felt like everyone in Delhi had flu and we'd seen a poster with the symptoms on and could tick them all off. Hygiene is not a priority here, and coughing over food doesn't really seem to be a problem, so it's easy to see why these things spread so quickly.
So we headed out to the hospital and I got some anti-biotics for the dysentery. It turns out the swine flu clinic was the other side of town, so we headed out that way and ended up being prescribed the Indian version of Tamiflu, and Jo and Brock were given a test for Swine Flu.
We got back to the hotel and...things seemed to get a lot worse. I felt zoned out all of the time, and spent most of the time sleeping or running to the bathroom. Brock gave his doctor a call to see what he thought, and he recommended a trip back to the hospital.
So we headed back to the hospital, and the doctor said I had gasto-enteritis and needed to stay in for a few days to get things sorted out. I've seen a few articles that say that Doctor's in Delhi have a reputation for doing as much as they can for foreign patients in an attempt to get more money from them. And whether that was what happened in my case I'm not really sure – but it certainly felt like it.
It took me five hours of constant negotiation with the hospital before I could finally get treated – because the hospital seemed reluctant to say what they were going to do and how much it was likely to cost.
The Travel Insurance company were really helpful and tried there best to help out. But even so – it felt like hard work.
Finally I was taken to a bed, hooked up to a drip and ended up being stuck there for three days being given loads of medicines – including some asthma stuff which I didn't need and ended up refusing to take. But thanks to Jo and Brock for the magazines and visits.
After three days I was itching to get out of the place even though I still wasn't 100%...and all I kept thinking was – maybe it was time to go home.
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On a personal note – I'd really like to thank Jo and Brock for looking after me in Delhi – especially for bringing me “supplies”. It would have been a much worse experience if I'd been on my own.
And if they'd not been there, I'd have ended up flying home...and would have missed out on some of the best times on my trip.
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