Delayed at the border...
Trip Start
Mar 23, 2010
1
9
26
Trip End
Aug 10, 2010
Where I stayed
Kathmandu, Nepal
Sunday, April 4, 2010
8pm: Hop on a 3 hour bus ride to Sunauli - border town along the India-Nepal divide. Meet 3 Americans who are also planning to cross the border.
11:30pm: Walk off the bus into a desolate bus stop, all streets pitch black in this ghost town.
11:45pm: A local Sadhu (holy man) shines a flashlight at us, and helps us find the border
11:55pm: Wake up border officials to fill out the paperwork to leave India and enter Nepal
12:00am: My stomach starts hurting again. I pop 500mg azithromycin (antibiotic).
12:05am: We walk across the border and are greeted with some old, cracked-out, Nepalese people. We decide to call it a night here, find a hotel, and leave for the 8-hour Kathmandu bus ride early in the morning (6am).
1:00am: I find myself in a very sketchy room, with bloody bedsheets that look like they haven't been washed for a year. I begin to feel nauseous and vomit all over the bathroom floor. A very bitter taste envelopes my mouth; no doubt the taste of the partially dissolved antibiotic.
I continue to vomit throughout the night, some of them were projectile. I was starting to run out of drinking water to replenish myself.
5:00am: I start to feel cold... in fact, I start to feel very cold. I put on a sweater, it wasn't enough. I put on thermal underwear, long pants on top. Socks on my feet. Another sweater on top. A toque on my head. I sit there shiverring in my layers of clothes for about an hour. The temperature in the room was probably 25C. I lie there wondering if I had contracted malaria (the border town was in a high-risk malaria zone), but I doubted that the symptoms can come on so quick. I was too weak and in to much pain to consult my Lonely Planet.
7:00am: The vomitting has stopped and I feel warm, albeit incredibly weak. The Americans from last night knocked on my door and told me they were heading off. I kindly requested they grab me a bottle of water and some juice.
9:00am: I woke up feeling much better, but extremely weak. I decided I will try to jump on that bus ride to Kathmandu afterall.
That bus ride took nearly 9 hours and felt like the longest ride of my life. At times, the bus would stop for 30 minutes at at time as the bus would bake in the sun to a mere 40C. Although I felt like crap for the whole ride, I eventually made it to Kathmandu. I didn't eat anything that whole day until 7pm where I only had a few spoonfuls of white rice.
I found my way to a nice hotel that night ($20 USD, yes that gets you a pretty nice hotel over here), and went to bed right away. I woke up the next morning with most my strength back. I thought I would treat myself to some replenishing food. I ordered a Western breakfast for the morning, and a hamburger and fries for the evening.
Big mistake. I suffered that whole night clenching my stomach as it attempted to digest this overly rich food. Had my digestive tract been in better shape, it would have been no problem. But it wasn't, my stomach was still very weak and what I thought was some much-needed, good, nourishing food was completely rejected by my system.
I'm going to spend today to heal myself and then head off to start my trekking tomorrow morning. I hope it's all good by then!
Comments
Dam man.. seriously take care of yourself! Go see a doctor if you get a chance, malaria..
Arrgh..i wish you listened to my advice about Dukoral. Hope you got through the worst of it. Nepal should be amazing! Let me know how the yak tea is.. actually maybe you should be wary of that too. Warm wishes for pathogen free provisions for the rest of your travels!
S*it son, are you all right? When I used to fast a lot (for religious reasons), I once stuffed myself with kimchi and lots of spicy food after and suffered greatly... FUK! son... nan zuh han!
hope you recover soon! keep us updated
wow, u better recover soon! cuz that awesome part of the trip still lies ahead of u buddy! keep us updated, wish ya all the best!