You Must Be Her Caretaker

The first day in Leh was spent in the hospital and at the mechanics. Sarita had a urinary infection (is it polite to mention it? or is it one of those illnesses where one talks about it in hushed tones?). She went into hospital the evening we arrived - the Disprins were just no longer cutting the mustard.

The hospital was quite deserted. I had to carry forms from doctor to administrator and back again, and buy syringes and so on. They had a special ward for foreigners. There were three other girls on continuous oxygen treatment - altitude sickness. After Sarita was put on a drip and we located a pillow for her, I wanted to go home - it was now past midnight. The nurse asked me where am I going? Home. No, you must be her caretaker for the night. I see. Sarita was feeling a lot better already, and she was presumably going to sleep through the night, and I had ridden a motorbike the entire day and was quite exhausted and there was just going to be no way I was going to sit next to her all night and watch her sleep peacefully. So I hitched a ride home. It was a tight ride - three people in the front seats, and the guy next to me was yelling me stories about him moving to South Africa to do tourism work, and I couldn't get a word in, and my face was becoming increasingly more moist with his breath and spittle.

The next day I brought her breakfast (orange juice and biscuits and bananas) and spent the entire morning trying to get the nurses to do the three tests they needed to do, using a mixture of helplessness, gentle persuasion - and generally just hovering around until they walked over to Sarita's bed. The hospital was very busy - all the wards had their iron gates opened and there was all sorts of activity going on. The hospital was very understaffed - but very friendly- and ill equipped. They had a cardiology ward, though - behind the curtains in the medical ward.

All tests were fine, Sarita was much better, and I dropped her off at home for some rest, while I had the bike fixed and checked over for the terrifying Manali-Leh highway.