I fell off my bike

Yup.  And since then I’ve been in a crappy Indian hospital, received 3 crappy stitches, and have had the wound reinfected (not surprisingly).  But I’m getting ahead of myself, so let me start from the beginning.

After some relaxing time in Kerala we took a flight out to the Andaman islands, one of those hidden gems that is sure to be overrun by backpackers in the next 5 years, with resorts then running those backpackers out in 10; think the towns on the Turkish Med like Oludeniz or the Thai lsland of Koh Samui.  We actually had never heard of the Andamans, but our buddy Dan who we travelled Tibet with (who is on an 18 month around-the-world trip with his wife) said he was gonna be there in the end of November and that we’d like it a lot more than Goa.  Di and I did some research, and these islands sounded perfect.  The diving was supposed to be spectacular, the water turquoise, the sunsets purple, and the beaches white.  There were also plentiful beach huts on offer, what else could you want?

The Andaman and Nicobar islands are in the Andaman sea and are actually much closer to Myanmar and Thailand than to mainland India.  The Nicobars are off limits to tourists as there are still indigenous tribes living there who want no contact with the outside world (ie confrontations have been really hostile in some cases).  We first flew into the capital of the Islands, Port Blair, and immediately we hopped on a 3 hour ferry to Havelock, the island most popular with travellers.  We checked into a dive ‘resort’ which was just a bunch of tents and huts on the beach.  We talked to the dive centre and decided to do some scuba a couple of days after we arrived, just to give us some time to check out the island.  The next day we rented a bike to do some exploring.  The nicest stretch of beach was on the west side of the island, while most of the accommodations were on the east.  So we headed the 12 kms through the jungley heart of the island to check out the nicest beach, also called beach 7.  The road there was bumpy and full of potholes, some massive, but we made it and hung out there all afternoon.  It really was stunning and it felt like we were the only ones around.  After watching the romantic sunset we hopped on our bike to go back, and this is where ego/stupidity led to some poor decision making.  Since the Andamans are so close to the equator, when the sun sets, it gets dark pretty much instantaneously.  So about 5 minutes into the ride home it became super dark, and in case you’re wondering there are no street lights here.  Our light that we had was broken, in hindsight we should have tested that before leaving.  So instead of hiring a tuk-tuk to take us home I just thought we could make it by moonlight, I mean how hard could it be?  About 15 minutes later I blindly hit a deep pothole and my right knee came down hard on the gravel, cutting it open about an inch and a half.  Even though it was pitch black out, a bunch of Indians must have heard me fall as I was surrounded by them within about 2 minutes.  They pointed me to the nearest (and only) hospital, which was a free government clinic in the heart of town.  When I say the heart of town, I mean the only T-intersection around with a couple of T-shirt stores and one or two food stalls.  I walked in and found the head nurse, who quickly attended to Di first.  Good thing she did since Di had a small bruise developing on her knee, and you know how bruises can be such a huge emergency.  I, on the other hand, was only gushing blood to the point of my foot being completely covered in red, but I could wait.  She gave us a couple of tetanus shots and wiped Di’s knee clean with a cotton swab and saline.  Then it was my turn.  She basically doused my open wound with alcohol.  That…frickin…hurt.  Then she threw in a ton of Iodine for good measure before using her bare hands to stitch me up with what looked like rope.  It sucked having no anesthetic but that was the least of my worries at that moment as cleanliness was a bigger concern for me.  Thankfully the needle came out of a sterile pack.  Anyways, she put in 3 stitches and she tied them as tight as she could.  I told her that she was going to make my tissue ischemic, but she said that since it was on my knee where there’s lots of movement she needed to make it as tight as possible or else it wouldn’t stop bleeding.  After dressing my wound she gave me some antibiotics and we were on our way.  I was not confident at all with the stitching job but there were  5 Belgian doctors staying where we were so I bee lined it to them (they were sitting around talking about their days diving, eating chocolate they brought from Belgium, and smoking cigars; can you be more stereotypical?)  Anyways, they had a good laugh with the size of the silk sutures but they said the job was quite adequate and should do the trick; only the scar would be larger than if they did it.  That eased my concerns a bit but they said I shouldn’t do any diving for a few days.  We were unhappy about not being able to dive, but in hindsight that was a good thing as everyone there basically told us the diving was only mediocre at best.  Especially since we were heading to Thailand to dive in places like Ko Lanta people told us not to waste our time diving in Havelock.  So Di and I just relaxed on the beach for 5 days, hanging out with other travellers.  Most were backpackers (well pretty much everyone except the Belgians) who were there to dive and chillax on a beach, a crowd we definitely got along with.  It was good seeing our friends who we travelled Tibet with too.  In addition we got in a day of fishing and Di caught a 4 kilo Pocari that was super tasty, not bad for her first time fishing.

The wound seemed to be improving and I changed the dressing at the government clinic twice.  Though I kept trying to get the lone doctor to look at it he basically said he couldn’t because he was too busy (which he was) so I just had to go to the dressing room and have the nurses do the work.  However, on the day we were to leave, my leg started to hurt, and I knew that was not good.  We first caught a ferry to Port Blair before taking the overnight flight to Bangkok.  By the time I arrived in Bangkok, my right leg looked like it belonged to an elephant.  We quickly checked into our guesthouse, and the owner pointed us to a private modern hospital catered to foreigners.  The ER guys took a look and told me what I already knew, the wound was re-infected.  The general surgeon came down and froze me up before cutting away the sutures and the dead and infected tissue, re-cleaning everything and irrigating out small bits of remaining gravel.  Luckily the hospital here has given me excellent care and the surgeon and nurses have been fantastic.  So now my leg looks size normal (and not size elephant) again, but I’ve had to go for a daily debridement and dressing change.  He kept it open to make sure everything was drained and it looks like he’ll suture me back up in the next few days.  He made a comment about how he’d try to minimize the scar but I’d definitely have one on my knee, and though it wouldn’t interfere with function he joked that I might not look as good in swimming trunks.  I responded that I don’t look good in swimming trunks anyways so it’s all good!

 India was an extremely intriguing and diverse country.  Though it probably was the most difficult place for us to travel, we can now definitely see how many people absolutely love it (and also how others absolutely hate it).  The poor infrastructure and city planning, awful train system, and the crushing poverty are certainly negatives that can really frustrate the most seasoned travellers.  In fact many of us were quite astounded that India gets compared to China so much; it really still seems light years behind China in many respects.  However, it was the amazing heart of the people and their palpable sense of passion and warmth that really left a lasting positive impression for Di and I.  Something about their incomparable love of song and dance, something about the sparkling eyes of the average Indian and their ability to convey all their emotions with a glance, something about the addictively amiable head bobble, just something about the soul of this country permanently affects the substance of your heart and the genuineness to your smile.