Have I told you WHERE I am going in India? It is to a city called Hyderabad which is one of the high-tech centers of India. Anyone who has been in the computer services industry knows that India grows systems engineers like toadstools after a rainstorm. No one knows why, but they have great programmers there.

I actually get around to opening the Lonely Planet guide for Hyderabad. Here is what it says:

"Hyderabad is naturally a magnet due to its Muslim heritage. Warangal contains
the ruins of Chalukyan-style architecture, while near Vijayawada there are ancient
Hindu sites. Nagarjuakonda provides evidence of early Hindu-Buddhist societies and
in the south, Tirumala and Puttaparthi are two of the most visited pilgrimage sites
in the world."

And that was in English!

= = = =

My main mission today is to get back to the clinic in McLean to get the hepatitis B shot and the Tetanus shot which will round out the five-shot-monty, I need. I also go to the local chain drug store to get the prescriptions of Malarone and Cipro filled.

While I am at the pharmacy, I pick up a large, jumbo, extra-strength, valu-pak supply of Imodium AD.

Here's one of the things I've noticed since I've made a big deal out of this trip. When people find out you are going to India they immediately treat you like you are four years old.

    "Don't drink the water, over there," someone will say.
    "Have you been," I ask?
    "No, but I know people who have."
    "Did THEY drink the water?"
    "No. They were told not to."
    "By other people who had not been?"
    "Maybe."
    "So as far as you know this 'don't drink the water' thing might be nothing more than a ruse perpetrated on Westerners by Indians to make you drink very expensive bottled water. Much like the Evian scam."
    "That's possible, I suppose. Evian. That's pretty good."
    "Well, I am NOT going to drink the water, but I have read the same articles as you have and talked to the same people you have, so I was not going to drink the water even before I talked to you."
    "I was just trying to help."
    "And I will look both ways before crossing the street and I almost always wear clean underwear."
    "Shut up."

This is why I have so many friends.

I had been told on Saturday that the best time to come to the clinic during the week is between 3:00 and 4:00 in the afternoon: After the lunch break, but before the kids come home from school with the earache.

At 3:01 I walk in to find the waiting area looking like a bus station in - Hyderabad. There are people groaning, people sneezing, people coughing those really juicy coughs, and lots of children crying.

Thank God I got those first three shots on Saturday. I HAVE to be protected against SOME of this.

The receptionist is juggling phones, patients, the computer and a fax machine.

A guy with thick glasses and a stringy beard is talking to the receptionist saying he had been scheduled for an MRI but once he got on the table he couldn't go through with it.

I move a step closer to him and start humming a monotone - hmmmmmmmm - just to see what would happen, but he didn't react. I guess I'm not on the CIA's frequency. A young woman says she needs a meningitis shot and a hepatitis shot. I wonder where SHE's going.

My turn and I tell the woman I need hep B and tetanus. She enters my name into the computer and tells me it will be 15-20 minutes.

My cell phone rings. I take it outside. It is a producer for Bill O'Reilly asking if I'm available for the show tonight. Am I available for the show. Other than having a little light something in the Oval Office with the President, there is almost nothing which will keep me from canceling any previous engagement to get my mug on TV.

    "Give me a second, Dan," I say. "Let me get my Palm Pilot out and see what's doing."

I count to seven, not having moved my hands at all, and say, "Ah, yeah. Sure. I can do it. Live or tape?"

    "We're taping at six. We're going to talk about the Jeb Bush thing."

We chat about what Bill's position is. I immediately adopt the opposite position so they will want to use me, and the deal is done.

I walk back in wanting to say to SOMEbody, "That was the O'Reilly Factor. I'm going to be on tonight. Eight O'clock. Ho hum." But I can't think of any way to work it into a conversation with the receptionist and, looking around, I'm not certain how many of the others will still be, you know, with us by eight O'clock.

Another young woman walks in and asks the receptionist how old she has to be to have an examination without her parents' permission. The receptionist tells her sixteen is the age of medical consent. The young woman nods and takes a clipboard with the forms to fill out. I slide over to try and see what she's hiding from her folks.

The previous young woman is apparently a friend and comes over to ask her what's wrong. The second woman says her neck hurts and she doesn't want to wait until her mom gets home from work to have a doctor see it.

I am more than a little disappointed.

The first woman says she has to get shots (are you ready for this?) so she can start at the University of Virginia in the summer.

You have to get the same shots to go to India as you need to go to Charlottesville.

A man walks in and asks if he can get a tetanus shot.

    "Certainly," the receptionist says.
    "I was told tetanus was in short supply. That one of the main labs that produces the vaccine burned down or something."
    "No shortage here."
    "Good. I'll run home and get my shot record and come back."

My name is finally called and I walk back with a nurse. She tells me that she can give me the hepatitis shot but they are in very short supply of tetanus.

    "We have to save that for people who come in with lacerations," she said. "So you can get the hep shot here and go somewhere else for the tetanus, or you might want to get them both somewhere else."

I tell her about the conversation the receptionist just had outside so she leaves to tell the receptionist, I assume, to eep-kay er-hay ap-yay ut-shay on the etanus-tay thing.

When she gets back I tell her there appeared to have been tetanus serum sufficient for me on Saturday and, unless there had been a LOT of lacerations on Sunday there should be approximately the same sufficiency now.

Second, I am going to India on Wednesday and if ever there were an analog for a laceration, that had to be it. I then described India as the country equivalent of the cook in Chaucer's "The Cook's Tale". In which, although I hadn't read it for a long time, I believe the cook was described as having "a running sore below the knee."

See what a seven-and-a-half year undergraduate course of study at a liberal arts college provides?

At that she went into the "Authorized Personnel Only" room and came back with two syringes.

She jabbed me with the bedside manner of Ben Casey with a hangover first in one arm, then the other, and took my yellow shot record and the detritus of the procedure, walked out through the draped opening and left without a word.

Sheesh!

= = = =

By the time I got to the Fox studios for the O'Reilly taping there were spots of blood showing on both arms of my shirt.

The makeup artists got just a little nervous, until I explained I had become, over the previous 36 hours, a human pin cushion getting ready for my trip to India.

    "You know, you have to be very careful about drinking the water," the hugely attractive woman putting on my makeup said.
    "Really? You know I've heard something about that, but I'll have to look into more closely. Boy. You sure learn a lot of interesting things working at a job like this, huh?"

What! WHAAAT! Leave me alone.

Tuesday May 15:

I have received about a thousand e-mails from readers telling me not to drink the water.

I decide to check the weather for Hyderabad. The high temperature today will be 39 Celsius.

The formula for converting Celsius to Fahrenheit is multiply the temperature in Celsius by 1.8 and add 32. Regular travelers know that about anything from about 16 degrees C. to about 29 degrees C. will be more-or-less comfortable.

39 degrees C is going to be … NOT comfortable. It will be 103 degrees F.

The humidity, however, is only 29 percent so it is a DRY heat. Much as a blow torch.

The reality is, you learn to multiply the temperature in Celsius by two and add the 32 which isn't exact but it's enough to tell you whether you need a sweater or a short sleeved shirt.

Speaking of long division, the exchange rate between the good old greenback and the rupee is about 47 rupees to the dollar. You can spend hours and hours trying to remember which way to do that, so the experience traveler practices before leaving home.

To figure out how much something is in USD I will multiply by two and divide by 100. So, if my hotel costs 5000 rupees per night it will be about 100 US. Close enough.

I have a few remaining things to buy, so I decide to go to Wal-Mart. The problem with going to Wal-Mart is: You go in looking for an international power adapter and you walk out with that and a new Glock-Nine pistol you happened to walk passed.

I know you can't actually walk out with it because there's a waiting period which reminds us of one of the funniest scenes in the history of The Simpsons. Homer walks into a gun store named "Blood Bath and Beyond" looking for a gun. He is told the waiting period is three days. Homer says, "Three Days? But I'm made now!"

I actually picked up a toilet seat cover decorated in plastic tiger skin (And! It's Padded!) in honor of my trip to the home of the Bengal Tiger, but I suspect the MdofS&P might have wanted a vote on this particular piece of haute décor so I left it on the gun counter. I am giggling as I walk away wondering whether anyone will see the humor in a tiger-skin toilet seat cover in the gun section.

I also picked up some insect repellent. It is Deep Woods Off! with 100% DEET whatever that is. All I know is the other stuff had less DEET and I want the maximum protection from things landing on and nibbling on me.

I have so much protection - interior and exterior - that if I DO catch something I should be the poster boy for the missile defense system.

I also buy a bathing suit. It's not that last year's bathing suit doesn't fit any more. Nothing like that. At all. It's just that I'm tired of it and I want this year's look. Where better to get the latest in fashion than Wal-Mart?

I actually find the International Converter/Adapter Set by American Tourister. I can now safely travel to the UK, Africa, Ireland, Europe, the Middle East, Australia, China, New Zealand, N/S America, and Japan.

And it "Includes Convenient Travel Pouch!" Isn't this great?

To Be Continued