Hello, it has been awhile! This is going to be a long post.

🙂

I didn’t write last week becuase it was just a normal week in the office. Nothing to report, really. I knew I was going on a work trip the next week so I knew there would be a lot to say. Or so I thought.

Two coworkers and I were sent to Ujjain which is an eighteen hour train ride from New Delhi. This was supposed to be a really fun trip becuase the the festival of Kumbh Mela was happening. This festival is one of the most sacred festivals in the Hindu religion and happens every four years at rotating locations. VisionSpring has five vision camps set up at this festival. We were going to visit these. Long story short, I got food poisoning and most likely e.coli on our way there! Definitely an adventure in a foreign country!

Here is how everything went down:

We went to work on Tuesday and left straight from work to head to the train. I had never been on an overnight train before so this was exciting! I can’t say my first overnight train experience was the best 🙂 hopefully my next one will be much better.

We stopped to get some food to go on our way to the train. We were told not to eat the food on the train and didn’t want to risk getting sick. Hahaha... I ordered an indian rice dish and the other girls ordered similar things. We got on the train, hung out, chatted with our neighbors, and ate dinner around 8pm. We chilled for a few more hours and headed to bed around 11pm. I woke up at 2am feeling kind of un-easy. I wondered if it was motion sickness which I have never had before and then tried to fall back asleep but it never really worked. I was gradually feeling worse and worse. I listened to some podcasts and tried to forget about it. The train was not super smooth and moving so I really did think it could be motion sickness.

At about 6:30am I knew I was going to throw up. I crawled out of my bunk and headed to the bathroom. The funny thing about train bathrooms in India is that everything just goes straight out the bottom of the train and onto the tracks. Hahaha... I threw up 3 times and felt a bit better.

Then for the next several hours... until 12:45pm I tried to rest and keep my mind off of what was happening but I still had to get up every so often to throw up again. I was so happy to be off of that train. At this point I really still thought it was motion sickness and maybe something to do with the food.

When we arrived at the station there were about a million people around. We found an auto as fast as we could and headed to our hotel. I proceeded to throw up again in the lobby (ugh) and again in our room. Finally I was able to take a shower and fall asleep. The other girls went to the camps. I am so sad I did not get to go.

For the next two days I laid in bed and went through many different symptoms of food poisoning/e.coli. I will spare you the details. 🙂

I was hoping to be able to post a bunch of really great camp pics so you guys could see our work in the wild but unfortunately that did not happen. I didn’t get to see any of the camps. On the morning we were heading back to Delhi we walked by the water and I took a few pics. The camps don’t start until the late afternoon and then go into the very early morning becuase of the heat.

Hopefully I will have a more upbeat and happy post next week! I am happy to say I am on the mend and feeling much better!

Rae

^ this is the holy water that everyone comes to bathe in for Kumbh Mela