I'm not sure we could have had much worse luck than we've had in India. Conned, scammed, poisoned and robbed, with broken laptops, mouldy clothes and an insurance policy that won't pay out.
Here's the story of how we came to be home in England, with Ric in a wheelchair, when we should be sunning ourselves on a beach in Kerala.
The 2,256km journey from Rishikesh to Cochin took 25 and a half hours, two flights, three rickshaws, three buses, one ferry, three subways and one train. One of our bags was stolen on the train, leaving us minus one ipod and costing us three hours sat in the damp office of the Old Delhi railway police.
Despite the horrendous journey, we arrived in Fort Cochin in high spirits; this was India's second chance to impress us. First time round we'd encountered some problems; mainly being scammed into a car tour costing us £450 that we didn't want to spend. We hoped the south would be different; more relaxed and more diverse, and upon arrival we were excited to begin the second part of our Indian tour.
However...India had other plans. On our second day in Cochin we decided to hire bicycles and do some exploring, but the bike hire shop had no bicycles left, only scooters and motorbikes. Given that neither of us knows how to ride a scooter or a motorbike, we walked away, but half way down the street, something made us change our minds, turn around and hire a scooter.
Biggest mistake of our lives!
Before we'd even driven out of the petrol station, Ric lost control and crashed into a wall, trapping his leg between the bike and the wall and taking out a huge chunk of leg in the process.
I won't share the photos of the injury, it's too gory for this blog, but the would went down to the bone, denting the bone, and cutting in half the tendon that allows the foot to move up and down.
We then spent the next six days in Sangeeth Nursing Home, the Faulty Towers of hospitals.
Where Ric had to hop up two flights of stairs to his own operating theatre, where he was kept for six days on a maternity ward, where only three people in entire hospital spoke English, prescriptions were written on scraps of paper, syringe vials were kept in recycled plastic bottles, where rats and cockroaches ran free, where tyres fell off a wheelchair with Ric in it, where I slept on a metal table, the room was cleaned with a besom, and dusty ceiling fans spun dirt around the room all day, where the windows had bars but no glass, the nurses washed their hands with a rusty water valve and a bar of soap, where plastic gloves were kept in metal jars and reused... the horror stories are endless.
The nurses came twice a day to give Ric his IV antibiotics, other than that he received no care from them whatsoever; I had to go out and buy food for him, help him wash and use the bathroom, give him his tablets, get his medicine from the pharmacy. After the second night there, I checked out of our guest house and moved into the hospital to look after Ric.
Being a white man on a ward of pregnant Indian ladies, Ric attracted his fair share of attention. Every visitor to the ward popped their head to oggle Ric in his bed. Every person I encountered - rickshaw drivers, guest house owners, transvestite waiters - wanted to visit Ric, and bring along their friends and family too!
For me it was extremely frustrating, it was near impossible to communicate with anybody and only one lady there was remotely interested in helping me. After two nights in hospital Ric wanted to speak to his parents; even though there was a cordless phone in the hospital, and all of the staff had mobile phones, not one person would give me a phone to take an incoming call from England. In the end Ric had to hop into the nurses station to take a call, to which the staff accused me of making him walk, claiming that I had a phone of my own and wouldn't let him use it. It was horrible.
After six days we were allowed to leave, but because Ric's a big lad, they wouldn't get him a stretcher, he had to hop down the stairs, despite the doctor ordering him complete bed rest.
Ric spent the following week in bed, unable to move out of the hotel room apart from to return to hospital to have his dressings changed. I spent my time running around trying to arrange flights (with Ric travelling as a medical passenger), ordering us take out food from local restaurants, and generally trying to keep Ric entertained.
Qatar airways were fantastic at getting Ric home comfortably; he had a wheelchair for every step of the journey, and was given four seats to stretch out on. The great service stopped at Manchester though, where I was left carrying three heavy bags and pushing a wheelchair through customs unaided!
More great news came from the insurance company, who won't pay out a penny for Ric's medical treatment or the flight home. It seems the UK law regarding motorbikes changed this year, meaning we aren't covered.
Now we're back in Huddersfield, to the safe cleanliness of the NHS. According to the doctors here, Ric's foot was set in the wrong position by the Indian doctors, so his tendon hasn't healed and he still can't move his foot. His wound is infected, surprise surprise, so they can't do anything for the tendon until it's completely healed.
It feels like it's been a while since we had some good news or some good fortune. We're hoping Ric will be on his feet by Christmas, but until the infected wound clears up we can't know anything for sure. In the meantime, at least we have bacon and good old British weather to keep our spirits up!
Here's the story of how we came to be home in England, with Ric in a wheelchair, when we should be sunning ourselves on a beach in Kerala.
The 2,256km journey from Rishikesh to Cochin took 25 and a half hours, two flights, three rickshaws, three buses, one ferry, three subways and one train. One of our bags was stolen on the train, leaving us minus one ipod and costing us three hours sat in the damp office of the Old Delhi railway police.
Despite the horrendous journey, we arrived in Fort Cochin in high spirits; this was India's second chance to impress us. First time round we'd encountered some problems; mainly being scammed into a car tour costing us £450 that we didn't want to spend. We hoped the south would be different; more relaxed and more diverse, and upon arrival we were excited to begin the second part of our Indian tour.
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| Faulty Towers |
However...India had other plans. On our second day in Cochin we decided to hire bicycles and do some exploring, but the bike hire shop had no bicycles left, only scooters and motorbikes. Given that neither of us knows how to ride a scooter or a motorbike, we walked away, but half way down the street, something made us change our minds, turn around and hire a scooter.
Biggest mistake of our lives!
Before we'd even driven out of the petrol station, Ric lost control and crashed into a wall, trapping his leg between the bike and the wall and taking out a huge chunk of leg in the process.
I won't share the photos of the injury, it's too gory for this blog, but the would went down to the bone, denting the bone, and cutting in half the tendon that allows the foot to move up and down.
We then spent the next six days in Sangeeth Nursing Home, the Faulty Towers of hospitals.
Where Ric had to hop up two flights of stairs to his own operating theatre, where he was kept for six days on a maternity ward, where only three people in entire hospital spoke English, prescriptions were written on scraps of paper, syringe vials were kept in recycled plastic bottles, where rats and cockroaches ran free, where tyres fell off a wheelchair with Ric in it, where I slept on a metal table, the room was cleaned with a besom, and dusty ceiling fans spun dirt around the room all day, where the windows had bars but no glass, the nurses washed their hands with a rusty water valve and a bar of soap, where plastic gloves were kept in metal jars and reused... the horror stories are endless.
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| Hand wash? |
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| Well done for recycling! |
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| Hospital corridors; apparently they're building a lift! |
Being a white man on a ward of pregnant Indian ladies, Ric attracted his fair share of attention. Every visitor to the ward popped their head to oggle Ric in his bed. Every person I encountered - rickshaw drivers, guest house owners, transvestite waiters - wanted to visit Ric, and bring along their friends and family too!
For me it was extremely frustrating, it was near impossible to communicate with anybody and only one lady there was remotely interested in helping me. After two nights in hospital Ric wanted to speak to his parents; even though there was a cordless phone in the hospital, and all of the staff had mobile phones, not one person would give me a phone to take an incoming call from England. In the end Ric had to hop into the nurses station to take a call, to which the staff accused me of making him walk, claiming that I had a phone of my own and wouldn't let him use it. It was horrible.
After six days we were allowed to leave, but because Ric's a big lad, they wouldn't get him a stretcher, he had to hop down the stairs, despite the doctor ordering him complete bed rest.
 |
| Ric's prison cell for a week! |
Qatar airways were fantastic at getting Ric home comfortably; he had a wheelchair for every step of the journey, and was given four seats to stretch out on. The great service stopped at Manchester though, where I was left carrying three heavy bags and pushing a wheelchair through customs unaided!
More great news came from the insurance company, who won't pay out a penny for Ric's medical treatment or the flight home. It seems the UK law regarding motorbikes changed this year, meaning we aren't covered.
Now we're back in Huddersfield, to the safe cleanliness of the NHS. According to the doctors here, Ric's foot was set in the wrong position by the Indian doctors, so his tendon hasn't healed and he still can't move his foot. His wound is infected, surprise surprise, so they can't do anything for the tendon until it's completely healed.
It feels like it's been a while since we had some good news or some good fortune. We're hoping Ric will be on his feet by Christmas, but until the infected wound clears up we can't know anything for sure. In the meantime, at least we have bacon and good old British weather to keep our spirits up!
