Down and Out in Varanasi

That evening, in response to the unending invitations to dine from a man standing outside each time we passed, we decided to have dinner in the restaurant around the corner from our guesthouse. By this point in the day, I was feeling exhausted and sore from all of the walking in the heat. Also, the thought of solid food was, for some unknown reason, very unappealing, so I decided to order a simple soup, much to the chagrin of the owner, who had so vividly and tantalizingly described all of their home-style Indian dishes.

After dinner, we returned to the room to get some much needed sleep. After lying in our beds for a few minutes, we heard a great racket begin seemingly just outside our window. It appeared that the celebration, of which all of the carts in the streets on our day of arrival had hinted, had begun. From our second story window, we began to here the sounds of shouting, chanting, fireworks and what sounded like the banging of pots. I briefly contemplated wandering outside to join the festivities, but I was so tired that the mere thought was an effort. Finally, I feel into a fitful sleep.

Later that night, I woke up with a sudden urge to make a run to our communal restroom. I had toyed with the thought that I might be getting sick earlier in the day when my legs had begun to ache more than I thought was normal and my stomach had tightened at the thought of ingesting food, but my suspicions were not completely confirmed until that moment. When I awoke, my whole body ached, down to the joints in my fingers and I was unusually dehydrated. I barely made it to the squat toilet in time. As the night wore on and I wore a path from my door to the toilet, I began to think that maybe this was more than a simply case of food poisoning.

There was a table on the landing between our room and the bathroom and throughout the night there were two men about my age, playing cards. At first I was embarrassed at the obviousness of my situation as I rushed past them every 20 minutes, but I soon felt so ill that I ceased to care. After my 10th or so run to the toilet, I decided to ask them if they had ever traveled with anyone with Typhoid or Dengue or if they would recognize the symptoms. As I stopped on my way back to the room to explain my plight, I barely had the words out of my mouth when the room started spinning. The next thing I knew, I was sitting on the floor with both of the men were crouched next to me, looking quite concerned.

After describing my situation, one of the men informed me that he was a medical student and proceeded to ask me detailed questions about my symptoms, accurately describing everything I was going through. They offered to take me to the hospital, but my wariness of Indian medical care overrode my concern of my condition at that point and I thanked them and said that I thought I would wait to see if it got any better before rushing out to the hospital. The medical student then said that if I began to feel better, that I should wait 24 hours to see if the symptoms went away, but if they did not, I should go to the nearest drug store for Cipro, an anti-biotic for the symptoms I was experiencing, until I could get to a hospital. The other man offered me a packet of hydration salts and said that they would be up for another hour or so and if I was still not feeling better that they could take me to the hospital at that time if I wanted to go. I was extremely grateful for both their knowledge and their gracious offers of assistance and went back to my room feeling better overall.

Amazingly, I slept through the rest of the night and when I awoke the next morning, I was feeling somewhat better, but well aware that I was ill. Feeling week, but alert, I decided to walk to the drugstore to pick up a packet of antibiotics and some hydrating salts. Because we would be in Delhi within the week, I had decided to wait to see how I felt up until then and if I was not any better, I would to check in to the hospital in Delhi, where I assumed the facilities would be more modern than Varanasi.