TRIVANDRUM

It was time to leave Pune and head South, we took a taxi to Mumbai to catch a flight to Trivandrum. The flight proved to be difficult as the ISL stuck again. Good thing we opted for the plane, as the alternative was a 44 hour train ride…. On the last 20 minutes of the 90 minute flight, we could see an endless sea of palm trees. It reminded me of the ‘Palmar’ national park North of Buenos Aires. But this was a true sea of palms!

The ISL hung around for a few days and forced a visit to the hospital. We tried to hail a rickshaw to get to the hospital, but we could not find one that understood ‘hospital’ or ‘doctor.’ So we went to hotel to try and find someone who spoke English to help find a rickshaw. Funnily enough, he hails a rickshaw, and says ‘hospital’ and we are off. Our Canadian accent does seem to cause a little trouble with some Indians; after several attempts to ask for something, they say “Oh! Yes.” So we reached the hospital and were admitted quickly. We saw the ‘casualty’ doctor right away. The synonyms are great aren’t they!

Before long I was lying down on a bed with some iv. Within minutes I was feeling better. But once it was all pumping though me, I headed back to see the doc, and started to feel dizzy, the next thing I knew I could hear an old time radio that was in another language. “No, he is OK” someone said suddenly. I opened my eyes as I thought that they were talking about me. I had fainted and was totally dreaming and came to when they were trying to lift me onto a bed. It wasn’t scary at all, but the body just shut down for a second. They decided to give me another iv just to be sure that I would get all the water and minerals back into my system. They also called for a blood test and prescribed some probiotics. Without knowing all that was wrong they wanted to stimulate the good bacteria in my stomach and make sure that I would get rehydrated. That pesky ISL really had it in for me. But since the hospital experience things have been great! In retrospect it was really cool to have had that experience in the hospital, it was clean and super efficient, not to mention the fact that the doctors stayed clear of anti-biotics.

It was almost reminiscent of those American Express adds:

Price of Rickshaw to hospital – 30 Rs. ($0.85 CND)

Two iv’s – 120 Rs. ( $4.00 CND)

Probiotics – 80 Rs. ( $2.10 CND)

Not having to run to the john every 55 minutes –

PRICELESS…

Our time in Trivandrum was short, but with all the associated issues, I was happy to move on. Next stop the beach town of Verkela.