February 28, Tuesday & February 29, Wednesday
Same as in Mumbai, construction debris is just left on the streets
No, that's not a sale on motorcycles; they just park them wherever they want !
Check out the cars driving on top of the white lines, and the motorcycles weaving in between
Downtown New Delhi. Little yellow and green tuk-tuk like the one I'm in.
My tuk-tuk driver.
On the way, I took these photos from the train of the Chhatarpur Temple, the second largest temple complex in India, dedicated to Goddess Katyayani
Hope that this is part of my city tour on Friday
This time I waited and got off at the last stop, the Huda City Centre. The Internet had indicated that there were two hospitals near this stop: Fortis and MAX (Hopefully I could get the Japanese Encephalitis shots.) I was lucky and from the elevated train spotted both hospitals near the station. I opted for the Fortis Hospital since it was the most modern. Remember I told you about the driving here? Well I had to cross and 8 lane highway to get to it; that means about 12 cars across the way they drive here. I took my life in my hands and ran across the first half, then did the same with the traffic coming from the other direction. MADE IT ! It took me a while to find the entrance gate to the Fortis, since it is encircled by very high fences. The guard at the gate asked why I wanted to enter the hospital, so I explained about the injection. He indicated NO with his head. Turns out the hospital is still under construction; the outside looks finished but the inside is still being worked on. Wonder why there was no mention of that on the internet ! #%&$%^&#*# So back I went, across the 8 lanes of traffic, to get back to the metro station, then had to cross another avenue, 6 lanes of traffic this time, but again with a median in the middle. I got to the MAX hospital and went to the information desk, explaining what I needed. I was asked if I had a prescription for the injection. “No, in Canada you don’t need a prescription, you just go to the travel clinics and they tell you what you need for your trip and give you all the injections.” She asked me to follow her to the pharmacy area across the hall, where the gentleman behind the desk confirmed that I needed a prescription. I asked the young lady if it was possible for me to see a doctor at the hospital, since I was already there. She told me I could go to the Emergency Room to see a doctor ! OK, we all know what a trip to the Emergency Ward is like in Canada; you could be there for hours, even when it IS an emergency, which it was definitely not in this case. But I decided it was worth checking out, so off I went to find the Emergency Ward. Tiny room,….. with 4 beds…… and a desk. That’s it ! Only one person in one of the beds and a nurse at the desk. So I explained again what I needed and the nurse went to get a doctor (female). I explained again what my problem was and without hesitating, she wrote out a prescription, then asked if their pharmacy had the injections on hand. I responded that since the person behind the desk had indicated that I needed a prescription, I assumed they had the serum on hand. WRONG ! Back at the pharmacy desk, they confirmed they did not have any, but the guy made a lot of phone calls to different places to try to find some. NO LUCK. He told me the medication has a very short shelf life and there was a shortage at the moment. A very nice lady who was waiting for her prescription suggested I try another hospital, the Artemis or the Paras, both in the neighborhood. We ended up having a nice chat. It was almost 5 pm by then so I decided to call it a day. I’ll call both hospitals tomorrow to see if they have the serum on hand before trekking out there.
Near the hotel, and all around the Gurgaon highrises, I've seen pigs running around. Not our type of pink pigs, but the big hairy type. They are absolutely EVERYWHERE. They don't appear to belong to anyone, they reproduce like crazy and rummage through all the garbage in the streets.
A pig under the trees
Highrises in Gurgaon
More pigs !
The ground around these highrises have just been left as is. Full of rubble and garbage. People just throw plastic bottles, wrappers, plastic bags and whatever on the ground. It is like that everywhere I've been here.
And smaller buildings are just plunked along the way, with smaller businesses.
Highrises with a row of tuk-tuks waiting for clients
Back at the hotel, I Googled again about the serum and found out that quite a few children have died in recent months from Japanese Encephalitis. The government is taking measures to have more of the serum produced (but they will probably inoculate children who are at high risk first, so I may not get it after all). I sent a message to the Ottawa Travel Clinic to seek their advice. Maybe I can get an injection in another country.
I started Googling to find flights and hotels in Nepal (my next stop on the way to China) and booked both.
I then looked up a “favourite” I’d tagged earlier about Excursions in China. One of them was 18 days and covered a lot of the areas I had wanted to see. They have a group leaving on April 6 so I’ve sent them an email enquiry to see if they have room for one more. If this works out I can actually purchase my airline tickets in, and out of, China in order to get my Tourist visa. KEEP YOUR FINGERS CROSSED !
What a day this has been. Oh, and I have a Delhi City Tour booked for Friday !
There’s an HBO movie channel so I watched TV all evening and into the wee hours.
Wednesday: I wanted to get an early start today to go to the Chinese Embassy to request a Tourist Visa. Somehow it was 11 am by the time I left the hotel by taxi to get to the Sikandarpur Metro Station for the half hour ride to downtown. Everything went smoothly however. Wasn’t sure what to expect with their metro system, but at this end of the city (Gurgaon) it is an elevated metro and quite modern. At one point it goes underground so there wasn’t much to see. Met another lady from France and we chatted during the metro ride. (There had been a lady from France on my flight from Mumbai as well.) I had a city map and had made notes about which metro station to exit and which street to take to get to the Meridian Hotel on Raisina Road, where there is an agency that handles all Chinese Visa applications. Although they had indicated that you could print the forms from their on-line web-site, the form could not be opened, or the instructions; so I knew that today I was unlikely to be able to apply, I would just get the form and the instructions, then head to a travel agency to book some flights in and out of China. Kind of hard to do when you have no idea when you are going to get to China, let alone leave it !
From the Meridian (at least on the map) it looked like Connaught Place, in the downtown area, was within walking distance but that turned out to be deceiving. I ended up taking a tuk-tuk to get to the Tourism Agency. {Yvette ! I finally got a ride on one of those crazy little carts ! We had seen some in southern Peru but never got the chance to get in one for a ride. I had seen more in Bolivia but had not dared try them there.}
My tuk-tuk ride
Yvette: Check out the driver's face in the mirror. Remember Athens !
Same as in Mumbai, construction debris is just left on the streets
No, that's not a sale on motorcycles; they just park them wherever they want !
Check out the cars driving on top of the white lines, and the motorcycles weaving in between
Downtown New Delhi. Little yellow and green tuk-tuk like the one I'm in.
My tuk-tuk driver.
When I got to the agency I decided that I couldn’t really book a flight to (and out of) China until I had a better idea of when I would leave India, so I asked about the Golden Triangle type tours. I’ll make a long story short: there were no groups available taking the route and time I wanted to take, so I booked an individual 15 day excursion: my own car and driver/guide, all hotels pre-booked with breakfasts included: Delhi – Pushkar (one of the oldest cities in India, site of Brahma Temple) – Jodhpur (the blue city, Mehrangarh Fort, Umaid Bhavan Palace) – Udaipur (City of Lakes and Palaces) – Jaipur (the pink city, Amber Fort, Lakshmi Narayan Temple) – Agra (Taj Mahal, Red Fort, Tomb of Akbar the Great) – Orchha (Orchha Palace, Chhatris) – Khajuraho (Group of Monuments with erotic sculptures) – Varanasi (Ghats on the Ganges River) – Delhi (return by night train). I leave on Saturday March 3 and return on Sunday Mar 18. That means I can’t submit my request for my visa to China until I get back, so I won’t leave India until Friday March 23. At least my travel dates are starting to firm up.
I took a tuk-tuk back to the Metro station and rode back to Gurgaon. On the way, I took these photos from the train of the Chhatarpur Temple, the second largest temple complex in India, dedicated to Goddess Katyayani
Hope that this is part of my city tour on Friday
This time I waited and got off at the last stop, the Huda City Centre. The Internet had indicated that there were two hospitals near this stop: Fortis and MAX (Hopefully I could get the Japanese Encephalitis shots.) I was lucky and from the elevated train spotted both hospitals near the station. I opted for the Fortis Hospital since it was the most modern. Remember I told you about the driving here? Well I had to cross and 8 lane highway to get to it; that means about 12 cars across the way they drive here. I took my life in my hands and ran across the first half, then did the same with the traffic coming from the other direction. MADE IT ! It took me a while to find the entrance gate to the Fortis, since it is encircled by very high fences. The guard at the gate asked why I wanted to enter the hospital, so I explained about the injection. He indicated NO with his head. Turns out the hospital is still under construction; the outside looks finished but the inside is still being worked on. Wonder why there was no mention of that on the internet ! #%&$%^&#*# So back I went, across the 8 lanes of traffic, to get back to the metro station, then had to cross another avenue, 6 lanes of traffic this time, but again with a median in the middle. I got to the MAX hospital and went to the information desk, explaining what I needed. I was asked if I had a prescription for the injection. “No, in Canada you don’t need a prescription, you just go to the travel clinics and they tell you what you need for your trip and give you all the injections.” She asked me to follow her to the pharmacy area across the hall, where the gentleman behind the desk confirmed that I needed a prescription. I asked the young lady if it was possible for me to see a doctor at the hospital, since I was already there. She told me I could go to the Emergency Room to see a doctor ! OK, we all know what a trip to the Emergency Ward is like in Canada; you could be there for hours, even when it IS an emergency, which it was definitely not in this case. But I decided it was worth checking out, so off I went to find the Emergency Ward. Tiny room,….. with 4 beds…… and a desk. That’s it ! Only one person in one of the beds and a nurse at the desk. So I explained again what I needed and the nurse went to get a doctor (female). I explained again what my problem was and without hesitating, she wrote out a prescription, then asked if their pharmacy had the injections on hand. I responded that since the person behind the desk had indicated that I needed a prescription, I assumed they had the serum on hand. WRONG ! Back at the pharmacy desk, they confirmed they did not have any, but the guy made a lot of phone calls to different places to try to find some. NO LUCK. He told me the medication has a very short shelf life and there was a shortage at the moment. A very nice lady who was waiting for her prescription suggested I try another hospital, the Artemis or the Paras, both in the neighborhood. We ended up having a nice chat. It was almost 5 pm by then so I decided to call it a day. I’ll call both hospitals tomorrow to see if they have the serum on hand before trekking out there.
Near the hotel, and all around the Gurgaon highrises, I've seen pigs running around. Not our type of pink pigs, but the big hairy type. They are absolutely EVERYWHERE. They don't appear to belong to anyone, they reproduce like crazy and rummage through all the garbage in the streets.
A pig under the trees
Highrises in Gurgaon
More pigs !
The ground around these highrises have just been left as is. Full of rubble and garbage. People just throw plastic bottles, wrappers, plastic bags and whatever on the ground. It is like that everywhere I've been here.
And smaller buildings are just plunked along the way, with smaller businesses.
Highrises with a row of tuk-tuks waiting for clients
Back at the hotel, I Googled again about the serum and found out that quite a few children have died in recent months from Japanese Encephalitis. The government is taking measures to have more of the serum produced (but they will probably inoculate children who are at high risk first, so I may not get it after all). I sent a message to the Ottawa Travel Clinic to seek their advice. Maybe I can get an injection in another country.
I started Googling to find flights and hotels in Nepal (my next stop on the way to China) and booked both.
I then looked up a “favourite” I’d tagged earlier about Excursions in China. One of them was 18 days and covered a lot of the areas I had wanted to see. They have a group leaving on April 6 so I’ve sent them an email enquiry to see if they have room for one more. If this works out I can actually purchase my airline tickets in, and out of, China in order to get my Tourist visa. KEEP YOUR FINGERS CROSSED !
What a day this has been. Oh, and I have a Delhi City Tour booked for Friday !
Tuesday: Took it easy today. Went down for breakfast at 9:30 (they serve until 10:30 here. LOVE IT)
Washed a few items. Went out to get a badly needed haircut; I'd noticed a hair salon a short walk away. I also went to get a bit of groceries since I have a bar fridge this time (rare in an IBIS Hotel). I then did a lot of research on the internet, trying to find a travel clinic to get my Japanese Encephalitis innoculation; looks like I may have to go to a private hospital to get this shot. And then more research trying to find an excursion through India’s Golden Triangle. Not much luck. I’m faced again with booking something on my own which usually means much more expensive; can’t find a tour group to join. There’s an HBO movie channel so I watched TV all evening and into the wee hours.
