Now what?

I was too tired to fight my way back past the police, after getting there through back alleys to get to the hotel where I'd stashed my main pack before going to the hospital. Giving them a night to clear the street of broken glass seemed prudent too (wading through that in sandals was interesting). The only light point was watching the police continually try to keep the feral cows out of the crime scene.

So, I stayed there one night, chatting with other travellers trying to make sense of it. Not surprisingly, I didn't sleep much, despite my exhaustion. It was also a much worse room than I'd had there previously (literally under the stairs, no hot water, and quite noisy). Rather than go through the hassle of trying to see just how good a room they could get me for my $3, I joined the stream of backpackers fleeing the area in the morning.

The owner was quite disappointed he couldn't convince me to head to his other hotel in Srinagar, Kashmir. The pictures looked lovely, and the scene on a beautiful mountain lake did look relaxing, but I'd decided to stay well away from Kashmir even before this trip. Apparently the claim of responsibility for the blasts was made from Srinagar, which is no surprise. It's been at the center of most of India's problems since independence (I reserve the right to go into that in much more detail eventually). The Kashmiri owner, though, was clearly a proud man, and it really hurts him that he can't get many foreigners to visit his homeland (I think the main reason he opened a cheap hotel in Delhi is to have a better chance to try to convince travellers to go there).

I'm now staying in a part of town called Connaught Place. It's this huge triple traffic circle between New Delhi and Old Delhi, with concentric blocks of classy shops, restaurants, and hotels. A lot of the backpackers seem to have fled Paharganj for the pricier rooms here, and it's been a little tricky finding a room (tomorrow happens to be Diwali, the biggest holiday of the year here). I got kicked out of the first place after a night, since they were booked out.

The owner tried to arrange a spot for me through a local travel agent. They first tried to stick me in a distant suburb, but I knew the 10x premium foreigners have to pay for transport would make it way too expensive to even get to food or anything else (if you haggle with the autorickshaw drivers for a long time, you can sometimes get it down to a 5x premium, but only if you lie about where you're from). Then they tried to get me into a halfway decent place upstairs over a restaurant, but the price quoted seemed high for what it was, and they wouldn't let me talk to the hotel owner about what they charged without the "special discount". The whole situation felt wrong, as it was clear I was getting kinda screwed with all the layers of kickbacks involved. I managed to break away, and pretty easily found a better room on my own.

The whole situation here is still pretty tense. The biggest fear seems to be that the bombs would trigger anti-muslim violence. That is believed to be one of the reasons for the attack (stirring up religious conflict), and I saw a few folks being beaten with sticks on the way back from the hospital. With ~140 million Muslims here, that's no idle concern. However, it appears more likely it was related to a court verdict that was supposed to be announced Saturday, related to a massacre attempted here by Pakistani terrorists a couple years ago (at the Red Fort - the one real tourist site I've made it to here).

That said, level heads seem to be prevailing so far. India seems to have a solid Prime Minister these days (their first Sikh - there are even fewer of them than Christians here, and they were founded as sort of a compromise between Hinduism and Islam). He even went ahead with opening new border crossings with Pakistan for earthquake relief, just hours after the blasts here, as a sign of good faith. That's pretty much the opposite reaction to a terrorist attack you'll see in, say, Israel.

I'm a little torn, at this point, with what to do next. I don't want to turn this into one of those reality shows where the audience SMSs what the contestant should do next, but I wouldn't mind some fresh perspectives (in email, or blog comments). My 3 leading ideas for the last week or so have been:

1. Try to get things going again here, heading away from the big cities. Likely head to someplace like Udaipur, in Rajesthan, which is an overnight train ride from here. There's also the Pushkar Camel Festival in Rajesthan coming up very soon, though I'm not sure if I'm up for quite that much insanity yet.
2. Head to Thailand for a bit. Though the really famous islands and beaches in the south will be hit by monsoons for another month (one of the reasons I was planning to visit there in December), the nothern half of the country is supposed to be about perfect now. This is also where my return ticket to SFO is from, and I think I can change the date of that at any time.
   
3. Head home for a couple weeks, until I feel like I'm really 100% again, then head off in a similar or completely different direction (Scandinavia in winter? Cheaper rates and very little risk of Malaria.).
   

For almost the entire time in the hospital, #3 was the only option that made sense. A lot of this was due to frustration with being there. I was also feeling pretty miserable all but the last couple of days there. I guess this is where I fail to avoid the hospital tangent for a bit. I really will try to be brief.

• Dr. Jain - The gastroenterologist I went to see there. Seemed very competent and highly respected. Having a last name of Jain implies he's a member of one of the rarest, ancient religions here, the Jains, who are limited in what jobs they pursue due to their strict beliefs (think sorta like Amish, but related to Hinduism). It's pretty much like having a good Jewish doctor, only even more prestigious. However, like all doctors I talked to here, there seems to be a massive separation between doctor and patient. Even though there was no language barrier, it was expected that you don't ask questions (I tried, during my 30 seconds a day with him, but usually couldn't get much). You sign a release when you show up that allows them to do any test, procedure, surgery, etc. that they feel appropriate, and at some point, they'll tell you that you can go.
  
• Hospital - Billed as the best hospital in India, and also as the largest private hospital in the world (outside the US), it seemed to be of US standards. I certainly wouldn't have wanted to stay anywhere cheaper. Being in the General Ward with ~25 others in the room (and their extended families sleeping on the floor next to them) meant not a lot of quality sleep. Even the best hospitals seem to be designed to make you want to leave so that you'll get well, and they were no exception.
  
• Bed - seemed like a normal hospital bed, but not adjustable. As I was tied to an IV most of the time, there wasn't a lot I could do but lay there, and I ran out of comfortable positions after a couple days. This was particularly bad at mealtime, since it was expected that even the sickest patient could sit up in a perfect lotus position to eat their meal (and they could). Maybe I could with a few months of yoga, but I was left trying to prop myself on my elbows. On the 3rd day, I saw one of the beds move, and found out there was one secret adjustment crank floating around the ward. By regularly stealing that from deathly ill patients, I was able to find plenty of positions to avoid the back and shoulder pain I'd been suffering.
  
• Food - my first day's meals were plagued by, of all things, excessively spicy food! I knew it wasn't sitting well, and after a day, I managed to get them to give me the Continental option (which, as expected, was the other extreme). It usually consisted of 4 starch courses (unflavored pasta, a potato, bread, etc.), but was redeemed by this really tasty custard drink at every meal. I was also on a food IV the first few days, so actually eating was optional, but I did still drop a couple of belt notches.
• TV - the sole source of stimuli, once I blew through my sole novel (Da Vinci Code, bought off a street kid when stuck at a stoplight on the way to the hospital - fun read, and kinda like College Jeopardy, you can figure out half the puzzles before the main character). Unfortunately, I was closest to the TV, and it was at full volume except from 12-6am. I completely learned the rules of Cricket (it's still a silly game), and I can now accurately predict when the singing and dancing will start in any Bollywood epic (some of which are pretty entertaining). However, Indian soaps are 10x more painful than Mexican ones, as they're interrupted by deafening thunderclaps anytime something dramatic happens (approx. every 5 seconds). The full time attendants that most patients had hired would not permit the channel to be changed during the main 2-hour soap each night, even though the other patients clearly disliked them too (this was the men's ward, afterall).
  
• Fellow patients - all seemed to have it much worse than I did. 2 of the other 4 in my corner were suffering severe cases of Dengue. This didn't worry me too much, as it's only spread by mosquitos, and what are the odds of that here? Then a big, juicy, half-full mosquito lands on me, followed by another. This concerns me far more than the cockroaches running up and down my IV tube.
  

Anyway, this all hopefully gives you a picture of why I really, really don't want to go back there, even though I feel like I got good medical care. If my symptoms come back, I'm popping Immodium and Tylenol until I'm at SFO, at which point I'll happily submit myself for quarantine (as long as it's at Stanford!).

In the meantime, let me know your thoughts. Assuming I manage to stay well, and hopefully continue to get more energy, I'm still torn between options 1 and 2 (and 2 is a prereq for #3 anyway).

I'll also try to upload the few pics I have of Delhi (including a few taken while enjoying a rooftop dinner overlooking the crazy square at the heart of Paharganj - literally directly over the bomb site, and no longer there).