April 16th-17th - The journey home - with an unexpected souvenir

We all woke up tired after last night's festivities. Mike and Andrea packed while I stayed out of their way and watched some of the fine Indian TV that seems to populate a large number of channels of Nepal's programming. Afterwards we all went back to Just Shakes for breakfast before bidding Mike and Andrea goodbye. It seems hard to believe that our trip is over after we've been together for the last month. It seems like it all went by so fast that we were unable to properly enjoy it or take it all in at once. I'm sure Michael and Andrea feel the same way about their entire journey as a whole as well.

After they departed, I took my sweet time packing and taking a shower. It kind of felt like packing up to leave my dorm room after my first year of college. You can't believe the experience is over. You have so many memories and it's sad to pack up and leave the empty room. Blaine, Bethany and I went out for some lunch which turned out to be quite disappointing, before I took a taxi ride to the airport. Once there, I paid for my departure tax as well as some digestive biscuits and a bottle of water. There were some ladies washing the floor on their hands and knees, so I split my remaining rupees in half and gave them each 120 rupees.

Once again, I had a business class ticket to the Delhi airport. I enjoyed my space and had a little Whiskey to celebrate the trip home. I was so busy enjoying my accommodations that I didn't pay attention when they offered me the non-vegetarian meal on the flight. By the time I opened it and realized my mistake, I figured that I might as well eat it. The meal consisted of a small salad and some shriveled turd looking sausages that tasted awful.

As went descended into Delhi, I was reminded what a total polluted trash dump the city is. You can literally see the garbage on the streets from the air as you land. The skies are so polluted that when I looked directly into the sun as we landed at 4PM, it looked like the moon. The entire thing was a hazy white ball. The smell at the airport remains the same as you get off the plane - hot, humid and rank. I was not looking forward to the idea of once again dealing with the idiots at the airport who never can give you a straight answer. Once I got in, I found that once again, Air India had canceled all of my original flights and I would now be taking a different way home. The morons at the service desk had no idea what flights those were but I was told to just wait and eventually it would all get figured out. While Air India was busy screwing me and several other angry passengers, one of the more highly rated idiots got out a blank piece of paper and pen and started sketching his girlfriend. I really wish I had a small digital camera with me, as I didn't want to dig out my big camera to take a picture of this putz, drawing his girlfriend while surrounded by angry customers who wanted to know the status of their flights. It probably would have won an award for photo of the year. Resigned to my status of having no rights or service from these yahoos, I decided to go take a seat.

While waiting, I hung out on the plastic chairs in the transfer terminal and ate some digestive biscuits and drank some bottled water. After about an hour of sitting and reading, I started to get a funny feeling in my stomach and decided it was time to head to the bathroom. I was not looking forward to the prospect of a toilet with a shower instead of toilet paper.

Along the way, something out of the corner of my eye caught my attention. When I bent down to pick it up, I noticed that it was a $100 bill. There was no one within 30 feet of me, so I had no way of figuring out who it belonged to. I pocketed my newfound luck, not knowing that it would be the highpoint of the evening.

I continued along the length of the terminal to the only known male toilets. As I walked, I could feel my stomach start to churn and it literally became a case of me pushing people out of the way as I raced to the bathroom in an effort to head off disaster. I rounded the corner to the sound of the toilet showers emanating from the male locker room to notice a small handicapped bathroom directly next to the men's room. I quickly opened the door to find the glorious site of a western toilet with toilet paper.

The race was narrowly won as I exploded as soon as I sat down. This was some bad diarrhea, as bad as any of my bad days on the trail. I had hoped that it would pass, but would unfortunately find out, that I was mistaken. Less than thirty minutes later, I found myself back in the same bathroom again with the same results. I decided that I didn't want to sit down in the terminal again, so I made my way back up to the Maharaja lounge that I had spent time in on my way to Nepal. I once again walked in without any question and took a seat on a couch and tried to put my feet up and relax. When the attendant came around, I asked for a soda then immediately regretted it as he asked to see my boarding pass. I didn't have one yet because I had no flight status for my trip out of India. We got into a short debate about the fact before I told him to just forget the soda and he left. He returned with a coworker about 20 minutes later and told me that I had to leave the lounge because I didn't have a valid Maharaja pass. I tried to explain that I had flown in on business class but this was to no avail. Evidently I was allowed in on my trip to Nepal because I was departing on business class, but I wasn't allowed in on the flight back to the states because I wasn't departing in business class.

I headed back downstairs to ruminate my stupidity in asking for a soda while I fought with terrible stomach cramps and spasms. While enjoying the firm support of the white plastic chairs, an old friend showed up - that stupid goddamn feral cat. It still was around and the same size as when I had first seen it. Not wanting to pass up the opportunity, I dug out my camera and managed to snap a couple of pictures. After about a half hour in plastic chair purgatory, I was approached by a passenger passing through in the Maharaja lounge. He had witnessed the fact that I wasn't feeling well as he walked by to go through security, he reminded me that I was in India and could most likely bribe my way into another lounge.

I headed back upstairs and managed to bribe my way into the Clipper lounge for $22. It was all the cash I had left on me except for my $100 bill. Once inside, I tried my best to relax, although it was now about midnight and I was fighting exhaustion. I had some hot chocolate and choked down a couple of small pastries to try to put something in my angry stomach. While waiting, I checked in with my parents via Email to try and let them know what was going on.

Shortly after using the internet, my stomach got a lot worse and I was forced to head back to the bathrooms in the back of the lounge. Thankfully they had western toilet paper as well. The next two hours were a blur of up and down, up and down as I continually walked back and forth to the bathrooms. My time spent outside of the toilet was spent trying to sip Coca Cola or Sprite to calm my stomach. At times, the stomach pains were so bad that I was doubled over. The poor bathroom attendant gave me such a pitied look every time I passed him by. To give you an idea of how bad things were, when I first made my trip to the bathroom in the lounge, there was a fresh roll of toilet paper. They had to replace it with a new one before I was done, and then I burned through half of the new one.

I was doubled over in misery on a chair when someone from Air India tapped me on the shoulder at about 2AM. They finally had my luggage and flight sorted out and wanted to give me my boarding pass. I schlepped all of my crap back downstairs and completed the boarding information they needed. Fortunately the morons from earlier in the evening had went home and I had some competent people to interact with. They realized that I really was not feeling well and they gave me a pass back into the Maharaja lounge (that I got kicked out of earlier) and called a doctor.

The doctor came and asked me some basic questions and then gave me some pain pills and other medicine. I was told to take it with some awful tea that had salt and sugar mixed in with it. This witches' brew was accompanied by some forgettable biscuits that could only have been made with compressed cardboard. About 20 minutes or so after taking the medicine, I started to get the feeling where your chin starts to feel heavy. I knew what that meant, so I quickly rushed to the bathroom and just barely made it to the toilet in time to throw up. I threw up everything until I was just gagging and dry heaving. Mountains of fun were now coming out both ends and I couldn't wait to get the hell home.

After cleaning up as best I could, I returned to my things and the couches and did my best to relax and rest. I was still stricken by the occasional severe stomach cramps. I find that when one is really feeling under the weather, it's quite easy to develop a real acute sense of gallows humor. It was with that sense of humor that I delighted in watching the morning news report in Delhi at around 4:30AM as they went over the air and water quality reports. Delhi was something at like 370ppm of crap in the air, and the result was so far off the top of the graph of what was acceptable that it was laughable. They also gave their water quality report that 100% of samples of tap water tested were brackish and non-drinkable. As terrible as I felt, I at least knew that it was temporary and silently praised the fact that I didn't have to live in this city.

After a couple more hours of bliss, it was time for me to go through security and board my flight. The wait to go through security was tense as I was playing a dangerous game. Since the metal detectors are worthless, they give everyone a quick hand check. This leads to long lines and delays in getting through security due to a lack of workers. This put me in the dangerous position of gambling on which line would move quickest as I had committed myself to getting through security before the next run to the bathroom would occur.

Fortunately, I made it through without any problems and after about 30 minutes of waiting on the other side, we started boarding our plane. It was during boarding, that I started having that old familiar feeling again. I was trying my best to get on the plane as quickly as possible, but the airport workers, who seemed stuck in the 18th century with pen and paper everything, were not helping. As we got closer to the plane, literally there were people every ten feet checking your passport and boarding pass before letting you go any further. This occurred the entire way down the extendable hallway to the plane. By my count, there were seven stops you had to make in about 80 feet to show your boarding pass and passport to get on the airline. And after the fifth person, I lost. I just couldn't hold it anymore. I crapped my pants.

Not since the age of about four or five had I managed to soil myself. As you can imagine, I was shocked and horrified as to what just happened and extremely pissed off as well. I went through the other two checks and then made a beeline for the bathroom as quickly as possible. I did my best to clean myself up as I swore under my breath at the airline. By sheer fortune, I had neglected to pack my clothes that I wore on my trip into Nepal into my checked luggage. After I landed in Nepal, I had gotten them washed, and they still were safely in my carry-on bag. This was a lifesaver as I was able to get out of my dirty clothes and put them in a plastic bag before cleaning up and changing into a clean pair.

Fortunately for me, I had a bulkhead seat on the flight into London, so I was able to stretch out. The airline even had personal video on demand for each of the seats. I fought off sleep long enough to make it through the Bourne Supremacy before falling asleep during Cars. When we got into London, we deplaned again, and repeated the security rigmarole. I then boarded my flight to Chicago were I was also fortunate enough to have a bulkhead seat which allowed me to stretch out and get some sleep. Once there, I met my wonderful mother who had driven down to meet me and drive me back to Detroit, so I wouldn't have to attempt the drive by myself after such a long series of flights out of Nepal.

Epilogue: My stomach was still spasming three days after I got back. I think that I got some bad food poisoning from one of two places. Either the food on Air India, or the bottle of water from Nepal. I don't remember hearing a *crack* when I opened the bottle of water. One thing I've heard that they will do is, just refill the bottled water in Katmandu from the tap and then retop and resell it. Be careful if you get bottled water in Katmandu.