Dear Immune System,

Dear Immune System,

The entire month in Thailand, we did not get sick once. We were a true team! Sure, there were the occasional MSG overdose quakes from that crazy Thai cooking, but that can hardly be blamed on you. I even began to brag about how strong you were to the rest of the group.

"It's a good thing that I rolled around in muck and ate M&M's off the ground when I was little," I said. "I guess I have done enough extended travel already, so my immunity has become dynamite!"

And then came India.

Where have you been? We have been sick three times in two weeks: hardly a "dynamite record."

First, there was Jaipur. I ate only at nice, clean restaurants and all of a sudden I had a temperature of 102.1. I had to miss time with my host family, three lessons, a visit to a temple right before Diwali (a giant Hindu holiday celebration) and a camel trek into a nearby village. And of course everything in-between. But it did not take too many days to feel back to myself and I thought, "Oh, at least look how quickly my immune system bounces back after its only fall."

But then on the last night in Galder, our village home stay, you lost it again. I had to miss our going away party: the full community celebration with food, music and dancing. I couldn't even stay with my host family on the last night to enjoy a proper goodbye.

And now this! Have you gone on vacation?

Perhaps you are out on the town with the immunity of Dianna, John, Emma, Tate and Jordan? On yesterday's 16-hour train ride, I threw up about seven times, ranking me high for that night's tally between myself and about 8 others from my group. Seven. Really?

Not that being sick on an Indian train is not comforting, with the lack of privacy and all the people, bugs and the occasional mouse. Not to mention the bathrooms with no running water or paper. With eight plus of us taking turns spewing in the bathrooms, they were far from neat and sanitary. There is nothing quite like moaning over an Indian
train toilet--which is little more than a sanctioned-off hole in the floor--watching the tracks pass beneath you with the unidentified splatter marks on the walls reminding you of the hundreds of tourists that have been in your very same shoes in the very same bathroom before.

Now, instead of staying as a pilgrim at the Golden Temple in Amritsar, learning about and experiencing the Sikh faith, I have been in a guesthouse bed next to equally-as-miserable Dianna for the past 18 hours with a fever, aches all over and as weak as a mouse after purging myself of all of my liquids and nutrients.

My stomach's recommendation would be to steer clear of Agra and strike "Seeing the Taj Mahal" off your list of 'Things to Do Before I Die.' Perhaps we are just bitter (we being myself and particularly my stomach,) but in a town used to Western tourists like Agra, three quarters of our group getting food poisoning from Agra's restaurants hardly seems defendable.

Ironically, a few years ago in Agra a scam between restaurant and hotel owners and doctors was discovered: tourists were deliberately being poisoned, sent to private clinics and charged hefty fees, and then the restaurant owners received a cut. The scam was discovered...but it is rumored (and from our experience apparently evidenced) that it still continues.