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Standish is a villlage on the outskirts of Wigan just off the M6. There is a Spar and a Somerfield and lots of Kebab shops.....So why are we back here exactly 8 days, 6 hours and 27 mins after we left.
Well it has been a pretty hectic couple of days. After our last update we had a fantastic train journey to Delhi (more later) and checked in to an OK hotel in Paharganj (the really busy backpacker bit of Delhi). We woke up the next day ready to face the hecticness of the city. The morning was uneventful and we arranged our transport round Rajasthan and had a yummy lunch then headed to the Red Fort for a bit of sight-seeing. We got about 100 yds inside and I (Laura) tripped on the perfectly even tarmaced road and looked down to see my ankle looking a very different shape and about three times the size it should be.
A nice American guy stopped to help and administered a bit of first aid using a shemag whilst Gareth went off to get help. We then ended up in the back of a police Jeep heading to the state hospital. As you can imagine a state hospital in India is not the nicest place in the world to be but being western seems to put you at the top of the priority list (which is very wrong but now was not the time to argue) so I was stretchered in and given an injection of pain killers. I was then taken in for an x-ray swiftly followed by another when the doctor pointed out that they needed to x-ray my ankle not my foot. The whole x-ray experience was pretty hairy as not only did I have to be exposed to two doses of radiation for my own x-rays but the room also doubled up as the x-ray waiting room so I had several more doses whilst I was waiting (unlike in the UK the poor staff here are not behind any protection so are exposed to these rays all day every day). I was then given a cast up to my knee for two weeks, a prescription for some pain killers and had to hop in to a rickshaw back to the hotel.
Those of you who have been to Delhi and particular Paharganj will know this is not the most easy place to recooperate. The roads are hectic and the rickshaw home was frightening and every bump in the road was killing my ankle. The hotel itself was on the busiest street and getting outside (especially with no crutches) would be pretty impossible. Even the bathroom in our room had a one foot step up which is pretty difficult to hop up and I don't need to explain the dificulties with cold showers and squat toilets.
So there we where facing two weeks lay captive in a less than wonderful hotel room in a pretty awful city which the night before we had decided we could not put up with for more than 24 hours ...this is when travel insurance comes in to its own. After a few phone calls we had a flight booked home for the next day and I got to travel in Virgin's Upper Class so I could keep my foot elevated. So I am now home and have been to the hospital this morning ...thankfully they have removed the bulky cast and have given me crutches to get around which is a godsend as my good leg was killing from all the hopping. All my ligaments around the ankle are torn and the ankle bone is chipped so it is pretty painful and still very mishapen. They have said that I will need to rest it for at least two weeks but then we will be back off to India to start where we left off ...the trekking in Nepal is now looking more difficult but never say never and hopefully I will be fit enough to go ahead as planned.
We were incredibly lucky with the timing of the accident because out of every place we will go to in the whole trip the Red Fort probably has the most westerners and English speakers and Delhi has the best hospitals (although I am not sure this was one of them).
The whole experience of the last couple of days has made us like India more. We were in and out of the hospital in an hour and a half with x-rays done and the cast on and everyone was very helpful (although Gareth did get directed into a live foot surgery to find someone who could speak English) and what's more the whole thing was free...which is excellent for the other people in there as some of them were so poor. At the airports I was given a wheel chair and pushed around everywhere which is a very handy way of jumping queues (which is especially useful at Heathrow) and we got to wait in the first class lounge. The Upper class flight home was a nice treat but the service and food on this £1200 ticket was not a million miles away from that we got with a £5 ticket on the train to Delhi.
So if this 'travel' blog from Standish has given you a great urge to visit the place the next two weeks would be a very good time to do so and that's it from us for a couple of weeks but keep your eye out for our return when I am fully recovered.
All the Best
Laura and Gareth
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