India + Sinusitus = The Trip of a Lifetime.

I'm pretty sure travel magazines make lists of the worst places in the world to get sick, and I'm pretty sure India is 100% slam bam #1 on that list. But we just HAD to verify that for ourselves. I'm also pretty sure that when people hear you're sick in India, they insantly think "food poisoning". Ooooh no. No no, that would be too simple, too quick, too low-maitenance. Let's have a plateful of the worst throat/head/sinus infection you've ever had in your LIFE. It began Monday and the haze is just now beginning to clear, thanks to antibiotics. There really is nothing comparable to feeling like death warmed over when it's 90 degrees outside, you're being eaten up by mosquitos, you've run out of bottled water, and Sudafed has ceased to have any affect on you whatsoever. Nat remains unscathed while Matilda battles through the thick of it.

According to my extremely hazy memory, we left the orphanage Wednesday, after meeting the lovely group of British boys volunteering there and watching a fireworks show with the kids for India's Republic Day. We took the train to Bangalore (aka, all 3 of us sat on one seat with 3 Indian men opposite us, boring holes into our brains with their zombie eyes), stayed the night with our friend Shanthi, and took a flight to Goa the next morning. Considering tickets were $31 US, we couldn't complain, but during the descent my sinuses felt like I was getting knives through my eye sockets..

Whining aside, Goa is a pretty ideal place to be sick. The Arabian Sea is shockingly clean in comparison to the rest of India, and the amount of Westerners here helps us feel a bit more at home. Yesterday we stayed at a place populated strictly by pudgy, elderly British couples in their 70's , most of whom live here for the winter. Today, Nat and I scoured 7km of beach and found us a cleaner place closer to the water and a slightly younger, more diverse population.

Hope to get some pictures up tomorrow.

Did I mention Goa is the malaria capital of India?