Off the beaten path tour

Th Lonely planet recommends mosquito avoidance, so as to avoid malaria, japanese B encephiliatis and dengue fever. Well even though I'm the mosquito magnet, a short time ago I was trying to ascertain whether Rich had dengue fever.

I feel I was the absolute picture of serenity and Zen when he showed me what he coughed up (sputum, tinged with blood. At least that was my unprofessional diagnosis. He thought maybe it was coloured due to him finally having some food and he chose tomato soup for dinner) and assumed it was more likely that he had a chest infection.

And so this is how one ends up leaving the guidebook behind and going "off the beaten path" as it were, and ending up at the local Emergency Room.

After the bumpy ride out there, which must have been brutal for Rich on top of his intense chest pains, we show up to this run down edifice that looks like it hasn't been used in years and the auto-rickshaw driver calls out to someone seated nearby to find out where the entrance to emergency is located. No wonder he couldn't find it, it was ridiculously quiet and poorly lit.

So in we go, and we're standing there with two military men who are guarding a guy on a rope-leash, the rope leading to his wrist which is wrapped in a metal brace.

Rich said, "Do you see the rope on that guy?"

Yes, it's hard to miss a detail like that.

The doctor asked Rich to sit down, & asked a few questions. The assistant, a man who is the same age and gender as the doctor asked "your name?" "where from?" and "your father's name?". (This is the assistant who moments before was taking the fingerprint of the guy on the rope.)

I'm trying really hard not to stare at my surroundings like I've landed on the Moon. Firstly, if I thought the outside was run down, the inside was worse. I don't know if that was a bed pan in the middle of the wide open examination room, just sitting there, but I didn't want to know, I'd only just had dinner the hour before. The best I can do to describe it, because I couldn't take a picture, was to compare it to a scary movie I saw many years ago, which I don't remember the name of, but these teenagers kept getting killed in this old abandoned school. In the movie, the school building was a total ramshackle place - the paint was chipped, the fence was broken, it looked like the roof would cave in any second.

The doctor ripped a piece of paper into 4 pieces and on one piece wrote out a prescription. He told us to get the prescription filled and bring it back to him to examine it.

Then, as we were leaving by the Emergency entrance, the power went out and everything went black, while Rich was still standing on the top stair.

The rickshaw driver laughed in a "It figures" kind of way.

Since that first time the power went out at the Ashram while I was extremely indisposed, I have never let my flashlight leave my side. So I turn it on, Rich climbs down and waits in the rickshaw while the driver walks me to the pharmacy. (This I took a picture of but it's not very good. I was trying not to be so "Wow, wait till the folks back home see this" but I didn't succeed. Which reminds me, wait until my dad sees the picture I took of the butcher shop here.) Then I have to wait at the pharmacy, while he goes back to check some details with the doctor.

One more question "Where from?" from the pharmacist

"Canada," and I'm thinking how can I act more Canadian, so we're not confused for Americans? I want to say "Hey, you can't choose your neighbours, right?" Figuring they must know, there's all that tension with Pakistan, but really, I just want to get back to Rich and get him back to the hotel, safe and sound. So I say nothing but "Canada."

Often people respond "Canada's a cold country."

Yes, but that keeps the mosquito population down 6 months of the year and right now, I think that's a major bonus of the winter season.

Happily, it is a chest infection. Happily, she says. I'm mean, Rich is in pain, but it's not Dengue fever so he doesn't have to worry about that, plus my level of hysteria, had it been the mosquito borne illness. Forty Rupees later (that's $1.20 Canadian) we have medication - antibiotics and a painkiller for Rich to take for the next five days.

A doctor's visit, brief consultation and meds, for $1.20.

This isn't far from the Moon after all.