George, Duke and Wally enjoying pre-dinner drinks at the Mews at Udai Bilas Palace, our hotel in Dungarpur, India

Purchasing guidebooks to India and suffering the side effects of malaria pills.

When Wally received an email in early September 2014 from our friend George, inviting us to visit him in India, we agreed to make it our next adventure.

India had been on both of our shortlists of places to go and having a friend there made the decision a no-brainer. Plus we decided to plan the trip for the dead of winter, which would give us a much-needed reprieve from the cold, gray days of February in Chicago.

“India is an expansive country comparable in size to the United States.”

Wally purchased travel guides (DK and Lonely Planet) while I began researching online. We also got the informative and detailed Blue Guide India by Sam Miller from the Chicago Public Library. Together, over the following three months, we mercilessly altered and tweaked our itinerary in hopes of reducing the amount of time spent traveling. After all, we only had 12 days, two of which would be lost getting there and back. India is an expansive country comparable in size to the United States.

Bitter Pills to Swallow

Two days prior to leaving for our trip, we began taking our daily dose of Malarone, an oral malaria preventative. After swallowing the first tablet, I felt my stomach cramp and was convinced they were giving me the shits.

Wally’s experience was different. He thought it caused him to produce an excessive flow of saliva, and by the second dose I felt it, too.

In addition to the above, we both experienced some of the more common side effects:

• Mouth sores

• Shortness of breath

• Strange dreams

I had a curious dream where my niece morphed into a combination of an Ewok and our calico cat. As she is black, Wally remarked that my subconscious is racist.

I countered that Ewoks are soft, fuzzy and cute. But he wasn't buying it. –Duke