Sleep deprivation and problems with the law

The start of the trip has basically been a sort of giant endurance event whereby circumstances contrive to deny me of any sleep at all for as long as possible to see what happens. The flight involved my being disturbed at least every 30 minutes and whenever I tried to get some sleep by someone behind me who appeared from the constant wriggling and prodding in my back to have either a half dozen restless children or a large and amorous octopus who'd taken a liking to her tray table on her lap. It turned out that in fact there were only two children, but whenever the one went off to sleep she would carry it forward to a cot from where she'd collect the other squalling brat to come and resume the assault on my back. Happily, Charlotte was kept awake throughout because the women in the window seat across from her went to the loo every half-hour, which allowed us to get our minds into diagnostic mode by unkindly wondering if she had some sort of bladder infection. In fact it was probably that she drank about twenty cups of water through the flight; every time the stewardess came past with a tray she would take two and I would glance across the aisle and smirk at Charlotte, whereupon the baby behind me would boot me in the kidney. Aside from that the flight included the last salad I can safely eat for three weeks (thanks to all those of you who offered this in lieu of e.g. places to visit when asked for advice about visiting India), and has made me decide to tell the mother of each little bundle of joy we bring into the world over the next few weeks the importance of controlling junior on aeroplanes, particularly the 0400 from Chennai on the 12th November. It gives me a warm glow of satisfaction to know that the provision of such invaluable aeroplane etiquette means I am educating people here, rather than merely having them educate me.

I therefore didn't sleep between 0830 and 2300 London time (0330 India time) at all. Before I go into all the other ways I was prevented from sleeping, I should say a little about what I'm doing here. As part of the medical course at Guy's King's and St. Thomas', you're able to spend three weeks of the Obstetrics (pregnancy & childbirth) and Gynaecology (women's problems) rotation and of the Paediatrics (children) rotation abroad, and four of us from the grad course have arranged to come to Vellore to do this. Apart from me, there's Toyin, who some of you may know and some may remember from my Ethiopia missives. Toyin is my clinical partner on the course, did extremely well on her USMLEs (American medical exams) over the summer except in that she therefore didn't have a summer holiday, is profoundly disillusioned with the quality of the GKT teaching as a result of her revision, and has an extremely curious accent. Then there is Charlotte, who was on the flight with me. Her last trip abroad was her honeymoon in September, and she used to be at Goldman Sachs and so was fond of saying at the end of lectures in our first year, "If we'd seen a presentation like that at Goldman, someone would have been fired by now." Finally there's Ben, who's a tall, very pale Lahndahner who constantly amazes us by having or having had most of the illnesses we study (gynaecology being the exception thus far, although we all have high hopes for him). We're all here because we preferred India to the delights of the places GKT send you, which tend to be either inbred Kentish hellholes ( e.g. Gillingham) or seaside resort towns-cum-retirement homes (e.g. Worthing).

Charlotte and I passed the remainder of the flight watching some quite bad and some quite good films (the Devil Wears Prada was good, X-Men III plotless, and that one with Jennifer Aniston and Vince Vaughn dreadful), and in Charlotte's case by displaying her diplomat's-wife skills by getting a business card from the gentlemen between her and the woman with cystitis. We got in to Chennai (aka Madras) at 3.30am, and having spent an hour or so collecting bags and changing money, headed out to decide how to get to Vellore. We eventually settled on the bus, and one of the two men who'd been following us around trying to get us to pay thousands of rupees to take us places agreed to take us to the bus stop for 200. For this, he said, he would "catch the bus for us!". As the prepaid taxi firm had quoted 260 for the same trip, this seemed entirely reasonable. It was only as he headed off into the night to get his "vehicle" that Charlotte commented, "Oh god - I hope it's not a tuk-tuk." Sure enough, our man chugged up in his auto-rickshaw, and we set off into the night like a large yellow lawnmower with extra seats, Charlotte clutching the field dressings which she had promised her husband Arthur she would have to hand in the event of using a taxi in India. The journey wasn't too hair-raising, although the lack of any real traffic laws is interesting; the hair-raising part came at the end when the driver appeared to be turning into a lane of oncoming traffic and hollering at someone coming the other way. It turned out that he really did mean he was going to catch the bus for us, so we hopped on and set off for Vellore.

It was at this point that my second attempt at sleep was foiled. Buses in India have TV screens showing Bollywood films, and when these are played at ear-splitting volume throughout the three-hour trip, sleeping is a virtual impossibility for longer than the time between songs and/or fights. In Bollywood films, this is not very long.

By the time we finally arrived in Vellore and found the hotel Ben and Toyin had booked us into, we were both feeling well enough that we decided to get set up at the hospital before getting some sleep. Thanks to the love of paperwork here, this took bloody ages, but by about 4pm we had our ids promised to us in the morning, so we headed back to the hotel and precipitously collapsed into our respective beds.

At about half past five, someone hammered on the door. I didn't wake up, but eventually, when whoever it was began trying the handle, Charlotte opened it to find one of the hotel staff outside.

Him: "The manager needs to see you downstairs right away!"
Charlotte: "Um - why?"
Him: "The police are downstairs and say your visa is not complete."
Me: "Are the police downstairs now?"
Him: "Yes."

After brief discussion, we headed downstairs to find, to our total lack of surprise, that there were no police there. Instead there was a rather self-important looking man behind the desk who had evidently replaced the kindly elderly gentleman who'd been there when we arrived. He claimed that we had to go to the police station at 7pm to see the policeman, otherwise he'd get into terrible trouble. We eventually negotiated our way into going straight there (he claimed that we had to go at seven, we point-blank refused as we were so tired), and headed off to the police station with a guide from the hotel, Charlotte still in her pyjamas. At the police station, our helpful guide instructed us to sit down while he went to find out what was happening. He came back and told us to wait. After about five minutes of waiting, we had had enough and went into the office, where it emerged that:
(1) We needed to register with the local police station (this is not mentioned in any guidebooks)
(2) The policeman in question wasn't there, and no one else could deal with the trivial paperwork in his absence.
(3) This meant that our helpful guide had evidently intended us to wait around for an hour and a half until the policeman returned.
(4) This was not important at all, and we could come back the next day between 7 and 8am.

So we traipsed back to the hotel to talk to the man behind the desk again.
Him: "So - you found the man?"
Me: "No - he wasn't there, so we're going back tomorrow morning."
Him: "There will be no one there then. You go back at 7pm."
Me: "No - we're going to bed."
Him: "No no! You must go tonight, or I am accountable!"
Me: "We're going back tomorrow morning between 7 and 8. It can wait until then."
Him: "The policeman will not be there then!"
Me: "We have just been told that he will, so we will go then."

At this point we repaired to bed again, seething at the fact that these incompetent bastards had got so over-excited at having foreign guests they'd told the police we were here and then woken us up two hours before we could do anything about it. At around 7pm, someone banged on the door again, so I leapt up, unbolted it, and opened the door in utter rage. One of the lackeys from downstairs took one look, said "Ah - sorry..." and ran for the stairs. In the morning, when we finally went to the police station, we were seen immediately by a policeman who accepted copies of our passports, put some vital stamps on the photocopies and some other bits of paper, and told Toyin and Ben who had arrived the previous night and been turned away from our hotel, that they could come back in a day or two to register.

Happily, Charlotte and I had had a hotel recommended by one of the doctors, so the four of us immediately decamped there, leaving the worst hotel I have ever stayed in behind. So - should you ever find yourself in Vellore, don't stay in the VDM lodge. Not only are the staff largely imbeciles, it is right next to Vellore's largest nightclub, which meant I was effectively sharing a room with most of the dancefloor, and it is also home to several pigeons who attempted to break in through the window at around 4am.

So I'm quite tired. But the hospital looks great.