In a nutshell

There was one singular experience on our trip that I keep recalling on a near-daily basis. On the train from Jaisalmer to Delhi, Andy and I purchased our dinner from the attendant. It was a box containing roti (bread), rice, dal (lentils), mutter (peas) and paneer (cheese). Simple but quite tasty. We had the box and it's contents to deal with once we finished. I remembered seeing a garbage sign at the end of our train car so I took our containers in that direction. I realized once I got to the end of the car that I had been mistaken and that the garbage container was at the other end of our train car. The train doors were open at this end and the attendant was standing in front of them because we had just pulled away from a station. He smiled to me and made a motion for me to toss my garbage out the open doors. I smiled back and said, "No, it's alright. I can walk this to the other end and throw it away." He made the motion out the doors again and I said "No really, it's alright. I just can't litter so I'm going..." He took the garbage from my hand and threw it out the open doors. He smiled once more and brushed his hands together as if to say "that takes care of that!" I was dumbfounded. I was going to walk the 30 feet to the garbage can and think very little of it and he thought that was ridiculous and a much better option was to throw the cardboard and plastic out onto the tracks. Out of sight, out of mind. Done. Sheesh.

During our three week tour Andy came up with several new slogans for the Indian Tourism Bureau whose current slogan is: Incredible !ndia (yes, with an exclamation point!).
Our favorites are:

• Accidental India
• Roll the Dice with India
• India: A Real Piece of Work
• India: We Mean Well Enough
• India: Growing On You Since 1947
• Catch! India
• India: We're All Here (my personal favorite)

My only contribution was 

• India: You'll Be Thankful You Wore Closed-Toed Shoes

It's incredible here, to be certain, but let's call a spade a spade. It's time to have a more honest and straight-forward slogan so that people can have an inkling of what they might be stepping into (literally!) as they step off the plane here.

Wrecked

It wasn't the ending to our vacation that I had been planning for. How could it have been? Somehow, I managed to get out of bed and get dressed and get in the van to the airport. Aching and freezing (in the tropics!), we made it to Singapore without incident.  I was feeling like I had made some progress. I kept saying, "I'm at 50%, I'm going to be fine." For the next 24 hours, Andy got to go out one last time with Mark and I got to lay down and try to get over whatever it was that had a hold of me.  I would have moments where I was good, I could take Oliver outside to play and moments where I would call to Andy because I was too exhausted to change a diaper. When we said goodbye to Mark the next day (Sashka was in the US), I reassured him that we would be fine, I was getting better all the time. I lied. Things went downhill once we got to Delhi. I woke up the next morning in searing pain. I couldn't breathe. My lungs were on fire, it hurt to move, I couldn't bear weight. All that was on my mind was getting to a hospital, any hospital. I was getting scared. I knew I needed help but was I really about to subject myself to an Indian hospital? What if this was Dengue? An embolism? What if they couldn't help me? What if they made it worse?

Not so luckily for us, we were in the most precarious place for any outside communication.  We had to call our insurance company and we had to get an internet connection to see where a semi-decent hospital was located. Andy was on the move, he ran to the internet cafe (of course, our hotels's was not working that morning...nor was their phone?????) and made the calls, looked things up, paying for each minute and frustrated that he couldn't find out more. I sat on the stoop of our hotel trying to breathe, holding back tears, and shielding my face from the over-curious eyes bearing down on me.
When Andy and Oliver returned, we had a plan: a good hospital was only five blocks away. The ride over in the rickshaw was excruciating. Every bump sent a stab of pain to my lungs. I was sobbing, what was awaiting me? Would I receive quality care? Would I be waiting around for hours?
When we first walked in the hospital doors, we saw a sign that read "casualty viewing." Andy assured me that this was just a waiting room and the translation was bad, but I was panicked. Two steps into the hospital and I am thinking I just passed the morgue. We're off to a great start!
Barely breathing, I check in and give a brief history and am directed to a bed. There is blood on the sheet. Fresh. I make them change the sheet. I get eye rolls. It just keeps getting better. The pain overwhelms me and I start crying again. My nurse comes over and assures me, "We will take good care of you. Stop crying! Nothing bad will happen! You're not going to die!" If you say so lady... did you see that sheet? The man at the reception desk was taking video of Oliver on his phone and showing it to everyone that walked by. I got upset. Are patient privacy laws not a "thing" here? Is he allowed to video anyone that comes in? That's my kid! I don't want him on your phone! Andy told me to relax and my doctor just shrugged his shoulders. Fabulous.

I got hooked up to an IV and am given pain medication. What kind? Who knows! Will it be alright to nurse my baby? It should be just fine! Fantastic. I was given oxygen and told they were ordering a full blood panel, EKG and a chest x-ray. Wonderful, let's get this show on the road; I was pretty sure the woman next to me had Tuberculosis. The EKG looked like something that dated back to Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman's time. They put clamps that looked like jumper cables on my ankles and wrists. I joked, "You're not going to jump start me, right?" My tech said, "Yes...yes." Oh boy.  It was normal.
I got wheeled to the x-ray room and I am pretty sure the tech in there did not stand behind anything as my x-ray was taken. That seemed safe. My x-ray was normal too. I got wheeled back into the emergency room and put in between two different patients. This time, I was sure the person next to me had Tuberculosis and I sent Andy and Oliver outside; this was no place for a baby. My nurse came around to recheck my IV and take blood for the panel. I made her change her gloves. She wasn't going to and she had been seeing every patient down the line. When I told her she had to change her gloves before she touched me, she rolled her eyes. I guess Universal Precautions aren't a "thing" here either. Wonderful.

I tried to breathe and rest all the while staying vigilant for clean gloves. If whatever this was wasn't going to kill me, I wasn't about to get some blood-born illness that would do the job. My fever was 104 and I was told to wait four hours for my blood work to come back and that I could check my results online. I was given fever reducing pills, pain medication, the website to check my results, and a bill for $20 American dollars for three hours of care and the tests. We paid and left. I slept mostly soundly for eighteen hours back at the hotel. Opening my eyes required so much work. That night when I finally did open my eyes, we checked the website for my test results during one of my awake moments and they were not in yet. I fell back asleep and Andy cancelled our overnight train tickets and booked plane tickets (thank goodness). We woke the next morning and I felt haggard. I couldn't even carry Oliver to the car. Somehow, we got to the airport and on a plane and made it to Dehradun. It's still a blur, I don't remember the flight at all. When we got home and got the bags in the house I only had the energy to sit. We checked the website again, maybe they meant twenty-four hours? Still nothing. I had the doctor who comes to the health center at school read my results when they came in (four DAYS later) and she said I clearly had a virus. They can come on fast and strong and linger for days. I had a fever for five. And still did not feel one-hundred percent one week later.

So, that's the end of the five week adventure. It wasn't an easy or painless one, but it had to come to an end. I learned that tropical viruses are no joke. When I look back at those five weeks, the fun and positive memories are what stand out; not the sick and frustrating ones. I would do it all again in a minute (well, maybe leave out Jaisalmer) because beyond all the adventures and the food and the fun, I learned so much about myself and how I respond to stress and how much reshaping my outlook will benefit me and my family. That alone was worth every rupee spent.

Ahhh...Thailand

I just reread my Singapore post; it's interesting what I chose to write about (my haircut) and what I didn't (the fear of a corrupted population that runs so deep that anything "corrupting": alcohol, the casino, r-rated movies, get so heavily taxed and edited that you either can't afford them or can't stand them). Oh well, what's written is written. On to Thailand!

Thailand is heaven. Truly. Shear bliss. The energy, the food, the views, the water....it's all paradise. I feel like we saved the best for last with our vacation. I am so grateful we had eight days to relax, decompress and lay in the sand.

We spent five nights on Koh Lanta, a small island south of the mainland, and three nights in Phuket, on the mainland. Koh Lanta was perfect for us. Dubbed the "family-friendly" island, there were kids and babies everywhere. Oliver was in heaven. He had so many playmates (a dramatic change from our first four weeks of him being the only baby anywhere) he was able to "socialize" at his level again. It seemed we were the only non-Swedish family on Koh Lanta. Everyone at our hotel was Swedish and they all seemed to be either retired or taking their government-sanctioned eight weeks (!!!) paid parental leave. When we asked our new Swedish friends about why we only heard Swedish being spoken as we walked down the beach they explained that Thailand is very popular for the parental leave (no kidding!) and that everyone in Sweden speaks highly of Koh Lanta as a great place to get away to Thailand, but still be able to have your countrymen around you. Personally, it was fantastic to be surrounded by Swedish women, mothers in particular. They were very warm and welcoming and so confident with their mothering and their bodies; it really did my heart such good to talk with them. No matter their shape, they all wore bikinis with their heads held high, such an un-American thing to do. They thought it  was fantastic that Oliver was eating fistfulls of sand and running around bare-bottomed (after he pooped through all his swim diapers one day).  I felt a renewed sense of beauty and confidence as a mother in a way I have yet to feel in India. They all complemented each other and praised everyone's children. I kept thinking that this is how it should always be: a mother-hood. A sisterhood that supports and embraces and encourages. Never points fingers, makes accusations (never once did someone tell me Oliver looks cold), or belittles. It was refreshing. I fell in love with Swedish people as I fell in love with Thailand.

The food was out of this world. There was a couple of years in college when I would try to get out of ordering dinner with friends if it was Thai food. Ugh, not again. I really don't care for this. I rediscovered my love of Thai food in Chicago and then fell head over heels for it this trip. I swam through bowls of Tom Yum soup and waded through Thai green curry on a daily basis. Andy and I gorged ourselves on the fresh seafood and discovered that Oliver loves all things from the ocean. Since a growing portion of what he eats comes from our plates he would *scream* and point at our plates when they arrived at dinner and then sign "EAT! EAT! EAT!" until we would cut up a prawn, or a piece of fish or give him a spoonful of green curry (he loves it as much as I do). The three of us indulged at every meal leaving the table with round, happy tummies. Andy and I drank fruity drinks and lounged in the hammock outside our bungalow or napped next to Oliver in the sand. We discovered lemongrass margaritas are our new favorite drink (to my great dismay, you cannot buy lemongrass here) and had several. I would go back to Thailand just to eat and drink, the meals were a vacation themselves.

I had a Thai massage on the beach and ran barefoot from one end of our beach to the other every morning, my knees never hurt once. Andy went birding while Oliver and I built sandcastles and swam in the ocean. I didn't want to leave. But I got on the ferry to Phuket anyways and I am so happy I did. Our view of Phuket is exactly what our view of Koh Lanta was, the ocean and our hotel. We never left our beach. We didn't have to.

Our hotel in Phuket was quite tranquil, perfect for our last few days. We made some friends from Pittsburg, expats living in Singapore, and hung out with them during the days and nights. We again ate and drank everything we could get our hands on. We all slept soundly at night and Oliver would play until he fell asleep on a lounge chair by the pool. We were relaxed.

On our last day in Phuket, I very quickly came down with something. I was in the pool with my expat friend and suddenly was covered with goosebumps and my hands went numb. I got out and sat in the sun but couldn't stop shivering (it was only 92 degrees out).  I tried laying down on a lounge chair but couldn't stop shaking. Everything hurt, from my scalp to my toenails, I just ached.  I went to the room and fell asleep. After a few hours I woke up and started having hallucinations: I thought the Buddha statue on our porch was Andy. I thought I saw Oliver flying. I thought I was hearing things. I was freezing and in horrible pain. I know Andy and Oliver came in and out of the room. I know at some point Andy put on the movie "My Fair Lady" (one of my favorites) for me and I heard Audrey Hepburn's voice drift in and out of my consciousness. I had no concrete thoughts other than being scared. I had never felt so incapacitated. Not after my abdominal surgery; not after my cesarean; not after being depleted by Colitis; I was a shell and a barely conscious one at that. We had to leave the next day to go back to Singapore. I wasn't sure how I was going to get out of the bed let alone survive a plane ride. I drifted in and out that night alternating freezing and baking under the covers. Andy found our reserve antibiotics and I took the first round and hoped everything would be better in the morning.