Delhi Belly and One Long Train Right
Scary Time at New Delhi Restaurant
After the meeting, we all go to a restaurant called Aroma (very good food, nice selection).
After supper, John gets up to go to the washroom and I hear someone say, “A man has fallen.”
It’s only when I look up that I realize that it’s John. Marlene, the retired nurse is there in a flash and props John up on some chairs. John’s eyes roll back and then they look vacant. I’m so scared. Then John gets violently ill.
Garima is trying to call an ambulance but no answer. Marlene, Paul, and Garima support John and get him into a rickshaw to go to the hospital. I crawl in as well.
By this time, John comes to and is acting like his normal self. He makes the fact that he doesn’t want to go to the hospital very clear. Marlene says his pulse is back to normal so we turn around and go to the hotel.
I give the hotel John’s clothes for cleaning. We get him drinks and electrolytes which I have handy in my medical kit. Garima finds us a doctor who will come to the hotel. John refuses. He throws up three more times in the night before finally settling down. I book a late checkout for our room.
Come morning he is still feeling weak so we forgo the morning tour of New Delhi. I put my foot down and ask Garima to send a doctor to the hotel. The doctor feels the worst is over writes a prescription for John to take the next 10 days and orders probiotics and electrolytes. I get the impression he’s seen this before.
Shopping in New Delhi
With John sleeping, I go out to fill the prescription, get food for our upcoming train trip and buy him some light fleece pants and a warm top. He didn’t bring them because he didn’t realize things cool down so much at night.
The pharmacy doesn’t open until 10:30am so
I shop the sidewalk vendors lining a street of traditional shops. I find cheap Nike knock-off sweat shirts and sweat pants. He’ll probably leave them in India but they will fill the need for now.
After resting all morning, we leave the Perfect Hotel with our small group in cabs for the train station. It takes a long time because the traffic is so heavy.
Eighteen Hour Sleeper Train to Jaisalmer
The station is packed with all kinds of people. Second class trains are jammed with people, some
hanging out of the doors. We watch people running on the tracks and jumping onto the trains as they leave the station. Garima tells off an insistent beggar who is harassing our group. She threatens to call the police and he leaves.
Our train pulls in at 5pm. Our group is spread out in through two sleeper cars . The compartments are open and each compartment is set up with three beds on each side. Two more berths are across from the main compartment.
To start the middle beds are folded up so we can sit in the seats. A group of architecture students and a soldier sit 
are in our compartment of six. They are so friendly, especially Amrit whom we speak to a lot on the 18 hour trip. We all share food and we taste many new things. There is almost a party-like atmosphere.
It’s nighttime and we pass people warming themselves and cooking on fires beside the tracks, the flames giving a warm glow to their faces. Some people appear to live beside the tracks.
At 10pm all the beds come down, we put our sanitized sheets, blankets and pillows on our bed. I also use my sleeping bag and pillow sheets. These are handy to have if there is any concern with cleanliness. I used mine because the train gives only a bottom sheet and I like to have a sheet between my body and the blanket.
Then things get scary…it can be put off no longer. It’s time to go to the washroom. Each coach has one squat toilet and one Western toilet. The washrooms are stinky and gross, with scary stuff floating in the squat toilets. I am glad that I purchased a female urinary device designed to help us Western girls who haven’t mastered the squat toilet. They are called Go Girls or She Pees. Here is a link to find out more. I’m not ever going on a trip without it. This device makes dealing with the train washroom much easier and a face mask helps with the smell.
The air conditioner kicks in during the night and I’m freezing. 
I manage, while staying completely under the covers, to put on a pair of leggings under my pants and a few sweaters over my top.
In the light of morning, we pass some people working in their fields. A group of are people all holding a very long. thick hose while the man at the end waters his fields.
We pass a flock of wild peacocks. They are India’s national bird and not allowed to be kept as pets.
We spend the rest of the morning speaking with Amrit and his friends until we arrive in Jaisalmer. We hire a porter to carry our luggage up and down the stairs of the bridge over the track. There is a 
jeep waiting for us and we are off to our hotel.
I have always liked the idea of India. However, Delhi Belly and dirty washrooms put me off. Almost everyone I know who has been to India got some form of stomach bug.
Having said that, I’m sure it’s a fascinating place to visit.
You are over the bug in a day and the only dirty washrooms I’ve dealt with were on the train. I find the washrooms on the European trains equally gross. We are totally loving India. Overall, it is cleaner than I expected. Visiting India is totally worth it.