An Indian Medical Adventure - the only part. Hopefully.

Last post I mentioned my hobbling and pain. Nay, agony. Well, having two weeks to go I figured being sensible was probably the best thing to do... so I went and saw a doctor in the next town (Hospet).

I have a new hero.

Yesterday I popped into an Ayurvedic practitioner for a quick bit of acupressure and asked his advice on the inflamation... Long story short, he said he'd sort it out for me. And I don't think there is any way I could have done this by myself. What with my utter lack of Hindi, for one thing!

He called the hospital this morning at 6.15am to get a ticket. The lines opened at 6am - but already 21 people had gotten through. I met him in his therapy room at 11.30 to head off at 12 for the possibly 1pm appointment. He got us a VERY good price on a rickshaw, whose driver waited for us and brought us back.

We got to the hospital. Chaos. Well, actually in was very well organised but to my foreign eyes it looked like chaos. He barged through the crowd of people gathered around the 'reception' area and picked up my ticket. We then waited and waited and waited and he kept popping back in to check whether it was my turn yet. This hospital was pretty low-tech and so there was no announcement system. Of any kind. People just kept asking and asking and asking...

Eventually it was my turn. He barged my through the crowd to get weighed and asked my age. I then had to pay for my appointment. Except the payment desk was unmanned. When someone turned up to take charge, the receipt printer broke down, so everything came to a standstill again. He grabbed my receipt and pushed it forward to the woman who registered me properly and charged me.... 70 rupees to see the doctor. That's very roughly a pound.

I then got herded to another area and waited to have my blood pressure taken before finally getting in to see the doctor. Actually, the weigh, pay, blood pressure happened really quickly. The lovely doctor spoke English, was extremely sweet, confirmed it was a bad skin infection and gave me a shopping list of drugs to pick up from the pharmacy... which came to a total of about two quid.

And then we got back in the rickshaw and returned to Hampi.

When I met him in the morning I, naturally, asked him why he was doing it (ie did he intend to charge me a heap of money for the priviledge) and he said because he was concerned and wanted to help. And he was true to his word.

I went to him later and paid for a wonderful back, head and shoulder massage by way of thanks.

It's nice to know there are genuinly nice people around, isn't it?

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The rest of the day - before and after the appointment - which took up about four hours with travel and waiting - was spent wandering around ruins, streets and shopping. And reading. HOW MUCH am I loving having time to just chill out and read read read.

People come to Hampi for one day. Arriving in the morning, leaving the same night. They are really missing out on this place. And I'm glad I ignored advice to stay in Hospet. This place is ... something else.