Sickness on travels

---

have two stories for you which shouldn't become dinner table conversations as both relate to being ill while travelling. I'm now at the station in Deheyan near Turpan still in Xinjiang. I'll tell the latest story first as it just happened and im still in good spirits and then the first from Tajikistan . Today I spend the day on a Tour with Chinese people to a mixture of sights around the oasis city of ancient times. We visited ancient Buddhists caves ransacked by Europeans in the first decades of the 20th century, whole ancient cities in the middle of a big river which was hacked from the bedrock and a couple of other interesting sites including flaming mountains and some 12century tombs. For lunch, under a beautiful trellis of grapevines fully laden ready for harvest, a meal of pilau-like rice with mutton and some nice chilli chicken and noodles. Both were reasonable but as I was eating the lukewarm rice I didn't really like the energy it was giving me. All was fine - we got back to the hotel and I went to the loo which all went normally. But after getting on the bus for the 45 min trip to town with the railway station I started getting those horrible 'loose' bowel feelings. After swallowing a couple of diaherra tablets i just prayed. By fortune I was sitting next to a couple of Germans one of which could speak excellent Chinese. Of conversation was interesting ranging from what we do, travel stories and the basic enjoyment of speaking english for the first time in a few days.

As fate goes praying doesn't actually work when biology is at play and so after a while of a bummpy ride through the rocky desert I declared to the German girl that i wasn't feeling very well and that maybe we would need to stop. They both looked at me a little worried, surprised and generally concerned. Their comment "Just hang on we are only 15 mins from the station" didn't really help much as I'd been waiting for 20mins and just hoping that my prep-era church service was going to pay dividends. Eventually I just declared that the driver had to stop and I made way for the bus door with the pretty girl saying something like "He's sick; stop". I ran a few yards behind the bus, dropped my pants and ......... oh what relief. Oh what pleasure - I even giggled at the craziness of the sutuation! I cleaned up and then jumped back onto the bus. Lets just say the enlightening conversation certainly was somewhat stunted. Its pretty lucky we stopped in the middle of the stony endless plane because otherwise I'd have ended up in the middle of town with no where to run. I now have a 11hr train ride ahead of me but those pills should kick in so i'm not worried.

The other story was from when I was in the Pamirs in Tajikistan heading towards Krygyzstan. I'd been travelling with a French guy Nathaniel with whom I'd rented a 4x4 for the 2nd part of the pamirs trip from Murghab to Sary Tash. He was having altitude related cold flu symptoms and had been ill a couple of days. We had decided to cut short our journey by a day and were heading north to Karakul and then onto the border. Unfortunately, after 2 flat tyres we got stuck in the tiny somewhat depressing village of Kara kul on the shores of a lake with the same name at 3900m. I was the only one to eat some cracked wheat type stuff for lunch but it was clean and i wasn't really worried. The problems started as I woke from a deep sleep at about 1 in the morning with those horrible feelings of stomach ache. In retrospect I should have taken myself outside and forced the situation. This is fine in retrospect but at the time I was half asleep it was almost zero outside. As must be obvious, eventually I did end up outside being sick in the street. Feeling much better I returned to bed for a few hours. Getting up for 7 oclock was pretty hard but I knew that Nathaniel was pretty ill and really needed to get down to some oxygen so i forced myself. As it turns out the 4x4 wasn;t ready and we lay in the reception/eating room waiting and waiting. An Australian couple were staying in the same place and gave me pills to take which was a help. All I really wanted was Mum's couch, her soft touch on my forehead and some sympathy. I was sick again in the street as another party was leaving which was quite funny as the look on the flemish woman's face was, "lets just get the hell of here to some civilisation". I was feeling pretty crap but when we finally set off it was in the back of a russian jeep I at least new the end of the day was closer. The action came 30mins or so latter as we begun to climb the pass. The krygyz driver guy stopped to clean the sparkplugs so I got out to take some pictures. There must be something related to a change in motion because all of sudden it was urgent. I've never really before felt like this. I just couldn't hold it anymore. I shouted a request to Nathaniel "Man, can you get the loo paper" and just dropped by dacks............ ah relief!

The driver was somewhat concerned but we all laughed and just got going. Some more pills and Sary Tash was getting closer but with only a border to get through. The first section of the check point went fine but in the visa section the army private happened to 'lose' my registration slip. I'm absolutely 100% sure it was in my passport when I gave it to the driver. So after 15 minutes of me trying to explain that i;d registrated in Khorog he wrote on some paper asking for $5. I was relived. "Oh fuck you must be poor to go through such dramma for half a pint in Edinburgh" I wanted to say but he would have understoof fuck and that would have caused a delay. Being the somewhat stubborn person I am I crossed out his 5 and wrote 3. After some more discussions and telling he I was sick and he had better be careful otherwise his office mightn't be so nice to sleep in he took the 3 dollars and we were off again. Getting through the krygyz border was slow but uneventful and finally we arrived in Sary Tash. Nathaniel hitched to Osh and I fell asleep in the Guesthouse waiting for my hitch the next morning to the Chinese border in a massive old russian truck along the worst road of my life.

So as you can imagine I've lost a but of weight. I'm a bit annoyed as I'd thought I had a iron stomach but I suppose things change.

The internet time just ran out after I had checked my prose so sorry for all the mistakes. I don't have time to fix all the mistakes again.

The other funny quote is from the 4x4 driver who knew propably 3 words of english. Thevehicle wouldn't start in the morning of the flat tyres and so after finally push starting it with the help of the nomads we had stayed with he said; "fuckin Russian Jeep".

---