Travel Along With Me

We woke around 7:00a.m. We had to give Texil fever medicine. He had a temperature of 103.8! The medicine took the fever down pretty quickly thank God. We ordered room service for breakfast. Texil and Kali were both still having some diarrhea but were feeling well enough to take a trip to Kempty Falls.

We left our room around 9:30a.m. We walked to the station to get our bus tickets and then walked to the bus stop. The bus was old but comfortable. It had high back, cloth chairs. There was a newly wed couple that sat behind us that spoke English. We chatted with them for awhile. The bus ride was about 30 minutes long. It was mountainous roads that we drove on. The bus had difficulty making the turns if there was another vehicle passing.

When we got to Kempty Falls I was surprised how large it was. The top of the waterfall was above the road several stories high and the bottom of the falls you had to take a cable car down to it. We first hiked up to the top of the Falls and took some pictures. We hiked back down and took the cable car to the lower part of the falls which I thought was the most beautiful. Near the lower part of the falls was several hotels, shops and tourist attractions.

We let the kids paddle boat in a man-made pool of water and play in the falls. We saw one of the largest bee hives hanging in a tree nearby. We also had some snacks from a local vendor.

On our way back to the bus Texil began to walk like a cowboy (legs apart and shuffling side to side) and said “uh oh mom!” I knew right away what he was going to tell me. He had to go diarrhea. We hurried to the public bathroom (which you had to pay for). The Indian gentleman who took care of the bathroom was tickled at watching us. He watched as Texil would holler to me what he needed and I would give it to him (toilet paper, underwear, etc). Finally I just tried to squeeze into the bathroom with him to help him. When we left the man just smiled at us. I am sure that he had seen several foreigners with stomach problems while there.

The drive back to the hotel was beautiful! I enjoyed looking out the window at the beautiful mountain scenery and the different people that we saw. The living conditions constantly baffled me. It was hard to wrap my mind around all the poverty I saw.

When we got back to the bus station we began to walk back to our hotel. The kids were tired and not feeling the best (though they did have a good time on the trip). Tilak to them on back to the hotel and I stopped at a market to buy some fresh fruit, nuts and veggies for the kids, Tilak and I to have.

The kids laid down for a short nap. Tilak went to town to exchange some of our money to rupees for our trip to Rishikesh tomorrow. I sat down and read. When the kids woke I assisted them with some of their homework. We then watched some National Geographic (in English)! We ordered Domino’s Pizza for supper. We all enjoyed some familiar food.

My stomach began hurting that evening and I went to bed early.

We all woke around 7:00am. Kali was feeling a lot better but then I began to feel badly – stuffy and achy probably from all the pollution my body was taking in. We ordered room service and ate in the sun room of our room. The hotel had corn flakes that they served with warm milk. After breakfast the kids and Tilak left to ride the cable car to Gun Hill and I decided to spend the morning in bed.

At Gun Hill there were more beautiful mountain views to see. There were also man-powered kid rides. Texil found several magic stores there as well and Texil found himself some “treasures” there. When they returned to the room they were thrilled about their magic toys they had bought and we spent a couple hours playing in the hotel with them.

We decided to eat a late lunch. We all left the hotel to find a place that we would hopefully all like. We actually found a Domino’s Pizza! We were thrilled about that. Above the Domino’s Pizza was an American-looking coffee shop called Café Coffee that we decided to check out. It was the cleanest restaurant that we had been in and the furniture was modern. They even had a western toilet with toilet paper!!! We decided to eat there. They had French fries and the kids were thrilled about that. The food was good.

We rode on some cycle rickshaws around town after we ate. When we returned to the room the kids played with the magic toys and Tilak and I went to the sunroom. He read to me. It was relaxing.

I then decided to walk to the market and buy some fruits and vegetables (apples, bananas, carrots, nuts) for us to snack on when we needed something to eat between meals. When I returned we took the kids to play on the hotel’s playground and Tilak and I walked around the gardens. The hotel owner came outside with a small puppy and the kids and I cuddled it for awhile. We decided to eat in the Dining room of the hotel that night. They don’t serve supper until 8:00pm though. We went back to the room to wait until supper and the kids fell asleep. It was too late to cancel the meal and so we woke them and had them come to the dining room with us. Kali slept through dinner and Texil was too tired to eat and so once again we had a lot of food that was going to be wasted. Tilak and I were embarrassed about this. We put some of the food in some napkins and put them in our jacket pockets so that it looked like we ate more than we did.

We went to bed shortly after returning from supper. Texil soon woke with a fever and so I gave him medicine and sent him back to bed.

When we got to Dehra Dun train station we learned that the taxi’s did not begin running until 7:00a.m. We had an hour and a half to kill. Kali began to say she was sick on her stomach. I took her to the bathroom and the smell in there, she said, made her begin to throw up. I took her back out to the platform where Tilak and Texil were. She began crying and saying that her tummy hurt and that she did not feel well. She told me she needed to throw up again and so I took her to the edge of the platform and sure enough she began to throw up again and again and again. My stress level was rising. I did not have a room to take her to to lay down. I did not know what was wrong with her. I was half way around the world in a filthy country and I knew that it would be very hard to have medical care should she need it. Some Indian men came up to us to offer assistance to a hospital if we needed it. We told them that we did not think that would be necessary at this time. They then offered some ayurvedic medicine and antacid medicine for her. I gave her the antacid because it was the only thing familiar to me. We thanked them for their kindness and they went on their way. At 6:30am we found out that some of the taxi drivers had arrived and could take us to Mussoorie. I was very relieved!

Our taxi driver’s name was Vishal and was another friendly and helpful man. We had to have him pull over once during our drive to let Kali and I get some fresh air. Her tummy was feeling badly and mine was too (a combination of my nerves, pollution and car sickness). We made it to Padmini Nivas Hotel at 8:00am. I was pleasantly surprised! It was a top of a beautiful mountain with gorgeous views. There were gardens all around it. The air seemed much cleaner and the noise was less. I was very grateful because all I could think of was getting my baby girl to the room so that I could take care of her. We were shown 2 nice rooms. We chose the cheaper of the two but were pleased with it. The room actually had 2 beds!!! The kids would have one and Tilak and I would have one. The room also had a shower and a sun room with a gorgeous view of the mountains.

As soon as we put our stuff in the room I laid with Kali in one of the beds. We stayed there for the morning, cuddling in between her throwing up and running to the bathroom with diarrhea. Tilak and Texil went out to explore the town together. When they returned Tilak took over with Kali and Texil and I went out together.

The town had a cozy feel to it. They were trying to adopt a “cleaner and greener” focus in town in an effort to better their town. They actually had trash cans along the sidewalks and stores. There were also signs that listed fines for disposing of garbage incorrectly. As we walked around we noticed there were a variety of foods available and the restaurants appeared cleaner than what we had seen so far. We walked up and down the roads looking at the shops. The roads all had gorgeous mountain views. Texil enjoyed playing a shooting game (shooting b-b’s at balloons) offered along side the road. He bought himself a Hanuman necklace. He read in our tour book about magic stores in this town and so we began searching for them during our walk. Most of the Indians that we asked direction from did not speak English and so we did not have much luck until we found a boy close to Texil’s age who spoke great English and gave us direction.

When we returned back to the room Kali had finally been able to fall asleep. We all decided to lay down and rest for awhile. I was feeling a little achy and sick myself. When we woke Texil and I went walking through the gardens there at the hotel and swung in a bench swing looking at the mountain view and watching the sun set. When we returned to the room we ordered room service for supper and watched some T.V. Most of the shows of course were in Hindi language and so we had no clue what was being said. The National Geographic channel was the only one we could find with the English language.

We gave Kali some rehydration powder in some water and had her sip on it as she could. We went to bed at 8:30pm. We all slept together.