(Thanks to life not going exactly as planned the posts from this trip are somewhat out of order right now. That’ll be fixed eventually; sorry if it gets confusing. – Seth)
A low rumble. Maybe a little gurgle. It wasn’t much. But it was enough to know that when I rolled over at 3am I probably should head to the bathroom to take care of it rather than sleep it off. I didn’t realize just quite how much it would take care of me. Spending a few early morning hours alternating time in the bathroom with my wife as we each protested one of the meals from earlier that day was not a pleasant experience at any level.
All of which is to say that getting sick on the road sucks. This time it just happened to happen in India. It was also a reminder that travel is hard and that we’d been at this a while and maybe we should take a break.
Making matters worse, the sickness set in the night before a travel day. We considered rebooking the flights instead, staying an extra night in Amritsar. But we were not sure if the hotel food was part of the problem and really didn’t want to risk that again. We had to rally on minimal sleep to get our bags packed and make the trip from Amritsar to Ahmedabad. That was not easy.
The flights on Vistara were great. But the smell of food brought us back to the edge of sickness and Vistara is among the Indian airlines still serving complimentary hot meals on its longer domestic flights. That made things harder than they probably needed to be.
So did Delhi airport, just by virtue of its regular nature. The part where all connecting passengers must pass through security again, for example. It sucks. Unpacking all my stuff once to get past the screening was challenging enough but doing it a second tie to no particular purpose did not add to the joy of my day.
There’s also the fog/smog problem dropping visibility at Delhi to near nil on the regular. We had an afternoon connection this time so hoped against hope that we wouldn’t see another cancelation. And we didn’t. But we did spend an extra hour in the terminal awaiting our fate (and an inbound aircraft). It was painful at many levels.
The good news is that, as expected, we got better. It took some time, but we got there.
We didn’t see anything in Ahmedabad other than the inside of a hotel room and the road between downtown and the airport. It is nice to see the riverfront construction (mostly??) completed. The new metro system is coming along, too.
Tales from our South Asia Adventures
- Six new (to me) airlines booked; more to come!
- An Amazing South Asia Adventure: Introduction
- A love/hate relationship with Singapore
- A Kuala Lumpur visit that was not to be
- DLD 272: Customer service is hard
- Getting sick sucks
- Pulling the rip cord: We’re bailing early on India
- DLD 273: Outsourcing your holiday mess making
- Slowing down: The tourist bus from Kathmandu to Pokhara
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The travel blogs don’t often highlight both the good and the bad. The stories of never getting sick while traveling are just stories. The not-so-familiar food and drink while traveling can and does lead to an unpleasant experience. Travel with the days scheduled from sun up to sun down don’t allow for the unscheduled illness. Regardless, India isn’t known for public restrooms so the comforts of the hotel may be the better option.
Having the hotel to take care of our business was very, very fortunate timing.
And I’ve been fortunate to only rarely get ill on the road. Typically less than once a year which means probably less than every 200 travel nights. But when it happens, oh boy does it happen.
I don’t travel like you guys but getting sick is a fear of mine. A cold is one thing but a stomach thing is another. I already have some issues I have to work around so that causes me to be careful where I go.
Get well
The good news is that we got over the worst of it within 24 hours and are mostly back on our game now. And, to be honest, this wasn’t the worst I’ve ever been on a trip. That title goes to a night I spent in an airport hotel near PHL where I very seriously contemplated calling 911 to get myself an ambulance. I was very worried I wasn’t going to walk out the next morning. It was a touchy several hours, likely triggered by a meal catered on SN our of West Africa.