Nanded - March 13th

Our Hospital Visit

When we visited the Sikh temple yesterday we removed our sandals before entering (standard procedure). Joan picked up some glass in her foot within the first three steps. I removed some at the temple but she still had 2 pieces left last night. Joan is a coward when it comes to physical pain, so she refused my offer of surgery with a dull knife!. We found a hospital which called itself a low cost hospital and paid $2 to get Joan fixed. Our first stop was outside the doctors office. Then a nurse collected Joan and brought her upstairs to sit on a bench outside another doctors office. The news spread and 3 more nurses came from nowhere , gathered around, talked about Joan and pointed at her foot. I was thinking they were talking about the glass problem but then they brought Joan, myself and the driver/translator into the office. They sent the driver back outside and then stripped off their uniform aprons. I was getting excited but they all pulled out their cell phones and took selfies with us. After that they took Joan downstairs again to see the doctor. The doctors did a quick scan, found no glass, told Joan to wear sports shoes, prescribed a medicinal spray and sent us on our way.

Addendum : I had soaked my foot in hot water and scraped at it before our doctor visit and must have removed it myself. My foot is still a bit tender. Our drivers answer to the fact that the doctor found nothing was that it must have been all in my head - grrrr|

In the afternoon we visited 2 more Sikh shrines and then headed to the train station.

Joan playing with children

Our Sleeper Cabin

We boarded the overnight train for Pune. We were assigned two bottom sleepers and we would arrive in pune at 06:15 the next days. We were joined by an Indian couple , who both spoke perfect english. We had a pleasant conversation and then they showed us how to make up the bunks. The bunks were rock hard, the pillows were small and the night was warm. I was comfortable but the stopping, starting, and screaming trains we past in the dark made sleeping fitful. The screaming passing trains didn't bother Joan at all, but the rock hard bed did. We arrived in Pune early and both Joan and I were awake but we didn't know we were in Pune. Forunately the gentleman got out of his bed and quickly rushed us off the train. Then he phoned our contact number and sorted out our pickup point before returning to the train. Our pickup contact arrived 5 minutes later and we were checked into our hotel room before 7:15.