Never a good idea to consume diary product in third and second world countries.

Well I drink lassi (made of milk ?) and don't have issue with them. But that ice cream ball... **** you ice cream ball !

salmonella itt

Getting more sick in Benares



News are bad. Very bad. I thought that I had recovered from the salmonella kind of thing but apparently not.

I've been bed ridden for the past 4 days, losing liters and liters of waters going at least 20 times a night to the toilet (and it doesn't include the number of times I go there in the daytime).

I've lost appetite and barely can eat, am feeling week, and am stucked now in this dump. Unable to stand a 13 hours train ride or a 7 hours flight.

I'm in some deep **** (pun intended).

Came to my ears that I got dysentria which is very bad. The last thing I wanted to happen is to catch this **** and to go and see a doctor here. Just look at how filthy this city is and you will understand.

But I had no choice. I was losing too much water and energy, keeping this way would have been disastrous.

The manager of the hotel got me to the nearest hospital. I will not tell you how much of a dump this place was. I'm grateful he accompanied me tho because I wouldn't have been able to find the place and know where to go once inside.

Many sick indians, I had the feeling to be in "The City of Joy" (La Cité de la Joie). No need to make a picture, you got it.

After waiting quite some time, the hotel manager called me.

- come, this is your doctor ?
- what ? THIS man ? Are you serious ? He looks even more sick than me !
- haha, right, but yeah this is the doc.

The man was livid as a ghost with marks on his face which looked like a skull. I could swear that this man was about to die anytime soon.

Long story short I went out from the hospital with a bag full of medics : antibiotics, immodium, mineral salt to put in bottles of water (since I lost so many) and some other stuff I don't remember the name.

I came back to my hotel room and now I'm still laying down in my bed, unable to do anything. I just hope that tonight I will not go to the toilet every 15 minutes.

I want to leave this ****hole, I can't stand this city no more and all this has made some changes in plans. At first I wanted to travel all around Rajasthan but I've lost so much strenght and energy being sick for 8 days now that all I want is to relax. So I'm gonna stay here for maybe another couple of days and then take a flight to GOA. **** the Rajastan, **** the Taj !

I plan to recover there in Goa for quite some times and then I will go down to Kerala and Tamil Nadu.

This sickness is like a baptism. Now that I got this **** I AM a world traveler haha. Seriously it sucks big time. Haven't eat for a while, lost lot of water and weightn, I'm drained and exhausted. Not easy when you're all by yourself, far from home.

^^

But you know now that you shouldn't eat or drink anything that is not cooked through. And also not from the dishes that aren't cleaned with cooking-hot water. That what you have now can be pretty harmless but people also died from dehydration after such sickness. You should be also careful with malaria. Northern India is not so dangerous with that, but when you go south there are malaria areas. And that one sucks a lot more than ****ting every 15 min.

Well, at least you're getting some good stories right off the bat.

And this is why I haven't traveled to India

you can't control anything and remember of every singe advice. I knew what to eat/drink or not but still I got caught.

and if you're too cautious you eat nothing here and just drink bottled water lol

you cant have control over every piece of dish you put in your mouth, that is just impossible. Now I made a BIG mistake with that ice cream ball but something tells me that what causes my problems now might not be that. Maybe the "hot ginger lemon honey" that I drank many times (is the water boiled ?), or maybe a lassi (with milk right ?), or maybe this chai that an indian offered me (but we drank it from the same pot). You see, there are too many opportunities to get sick when you're in those countries.

now malaria sucks indeed, but dissentrya is no fun and I cant stand no more to see my stamina being drained this way. ****ting every 15mns might not seem a big deal, but count all the hours that you have in one full day and you get the point. Plus it's not ****ting, its pissing by the ass half a litter each time.

my first travel scars indeed

Are you drinking tap water?

nope
even brush my teeth with bottled water

but as I said, who know if they're boiling the water when you order a "lemon ginger honey" kind of tea ?

plus bénarès is really a filthy place, there should be millions of bacterias everywhere here. I aways wash my hands but who knows

i want to get out of this place !!! lol

I wish you all the best OP, get well soon.

On a side note, this plot twist feels like a comedy.

Living in sub western hygienic standards is a pretty big part of travelling the world imo, so you best get used to it, or are you just gonna avoid all places that you think might be "filthy" from now on?

many thanks


"PsychoBEDnication, a free man traveling the world from beds to beds"

Not sure who you are buying the bottled water from, just make sure it is bottled water.

have you ever been to varanasi ?

Pretty much this.

There is a reason why we get the typhoid vaccine, etc.

OP's description so far just sounds like a standard case of traveler's diarrhea. It usually goes away after you get used to the local bacteria. You do have to be very careful to not get dehydrated. Dehydration is much more dangerous than most Westerners think it is.

Imodium is your friend.

This is some serious advice. I remember fake bottled water in China. That water give you same sickness as you are experiencing right now.

As somebody who has been to Varanasi and many other parts of India, plus several of your other proposed future destinations, I can tell you that you either need to get used to it or drastically change your travel plans. It doesn't get any better unless you're going to stay exclusively in high-end resorts. How do you plan to deal with southern India where you eat with your hand off a banana leaf after washing up in a communal sink with no soap or hot water?

+2

I travel with this rather than trust local bottled water:

http://www.steripen.com/adventurer-opti/

fake bottled water ? omg !

when I first got sick being bed ridden for 2 days after eating that icecream the hotel manager told me that it was because I was "too pure".


@ZikZak : dude, since I've came to India I'm sleeping in $9 (700 Rs) rooms with not even ensuite bathroom, shower and toilet being outside. So get of from your mind that I seek luxury and cant live out of my local comfort. I fully play the game of the world travel.

That being said it is not an insult to say that Varanasi IS filthy. It might shock some white knights but that's the truth. You have these everywhere :



And when they are in the narrow lanes you walk in them, no choice. I don't even mention the other big rainy day where all was a mix of mud, cow **** and piss. I ruined my shoes, had to spend 1 hour trying to get them in a basic shape. They were full of ****. I dont talk about garbages, indians have no respect for their own city, I made a video about this that I will upload when I feel better.

Good news is that when I decide to take the tuc tuc to go to the airport (40 miles aways) if I feel like ****ting I will still be able/allowed to do it on the road without it shock anybody.

So true. You need to have a control of what is coming into your mouth. May be what zikzak suggested. I had worked in a absolute country side in India with hygenic standards as bad as they can be including no bottled water in 2 hours drive surrounding. I had my dish set including a pot to boil things.

Look on the bright side. Can't get much worse.

Well i'm learning while being on the road (or on the bed lol), so thanks all for your advices, now I'm gonna use micropur pill for each bottled water bought.

It can get much, much worse.

Yes, he could die. For real.