APR 30, 13 (2/2) .. IT NEVER CHANGES .. FOOD POISONING ..

By Cap Chastain April 30, 2013 Food Poisoning, Kodaikanal 2013

Prior to leaving Ooty yesterday .. I had planned to go to Munnar.  It was ‘tentative’ but it was a case of IF I CAN I want to do so.  Munnar is an extremely attractive tourist destination in the Indian state of Kerala west of Kodaikanal.

It NEVER CHANGES .. when you get sick .. you always and forever and constantly ask yourself .. when and where and how did it happen? What did I do wrong that I can change in the future.

Way back in 1990 .. immediately prior to my first trip here to India .. the nurse who gave me my immunization shots for India .. one Nancy Stewart .. told me ..  “There WILL! .. come a time when YOU MUST eat food!  You VERY-WELL-MAY get sick but if you don’t eat you WILL suffer major internal organ consequences far worse than merely getting sick.”

THAT day-of-reckoning came for me on a train from Bombay south to Pune when I was so hungry I could have eaten a horse.  I could actually ‘feel’ my body ‘shutting-down’.  Heeding Nancy Stewart’s words I actually ATE RAILWAY FOOD .. something many travelers will NEVER DO.  The food always looked good but until that day .. I had faithfully REFRAINED from eating railway food.  HOW DO YOU DO THIS?  Simple .. you bring your own snack food on board with you.

WELL?  The railway food WAS EXCELLENT .. and to-this-day .. I freely eat railway meals.  ONWARD.

Yesterday .. Monday the 29th of April .. during the trip from Ooty back south to Kodaikanal .. and I think it was in the city of Coimbatore (Ko-am-ba-tour) where we stopped for lunch in the below VERY PLEASANT facility .. I picked up a MAJOR attack of food poisoning.  That is ‘our’ tour bus.

LUNCH 003

What a misnomer!  GERMAN HOTEL.  Go figure!  But it was a very pleasant facility all-things-considered.

LUNCH 004

LUNCH 001This little park for the children was outstanding.  As I said above .. all-things-considered it was an excellent facility.

LUNCH 002OR .. was it at breakfast (in six days of eating at that restaurant in Ooty I had never gotten sick!) that I picked up food poisoning.  OR .. was it from eating one of my peanut brittle food bars (to this point in the trip I have never gotten sick from one of my peanut brittle bars!) that I picked up food poisoning.  In any event .. I got sick .. I got very sick.  The first ‘clue’ is when you burp and there is this ‘odd sickeningly sweet taste’ and YOU KNOW you are going to be sick.  And I believe it happened in the above restaurant.

I had ‘chicken noodles’ aka ‘chicken chow mein’ .. the meal was HOT .. a very good sign .. and it ‘tasted’ satisfactory .. another good sign .. but bottom line I got sick.

So Munnar HAS BECOME VERY IFFY.  Last night was a bad night. Today I feel so weak that I MUST BE UP AND GOING .. it has been my experience that you never recover from food poisoning with bed-rest. You recover by getting up and moving (I washed my blue jeans this morning).  You recover by FORCING FLUIDS like crazy.  You recover by doing something that you DO NOT FEEL LIKE DOING .. eating food.

AND?  At two o’clock in the afternoon here Tuesday the 30th of April .. I am beginning to ‘feel sort-of kind-of decent’.  Yep!  There are still some ‘rumblings’ down below and some ‘gurgling’ in my stomach.

THANK THE GOOD LORD for the fact that they have ‘certain-adult-products’ here in each and in seemingly every pharmacy (as they do in the United States!) and I have the guts and the common sense to use such adult-products. It would be STUPID not to do so!

Time to press publish .. and jump over to Blogspot and show you some phenomenal scenery from the bus ride yesterday from Ooty South to Kodaikanal.

Smiles .. Cap

BY THE WAY .. FOLLOWING THIS POST IS .. ‘ZILLA ASKS .. PART VII ..