“River Dog”, Mark Shand

It feels a fitting evening to write this review, curled up on the sofa feeling rather miserable due to the side effects of my typhoid vaccination this morning. Not only that: Mark Shand’s book ‘’River Dog’’ is about his journey down the Brahmaputra and through rivers of bureaucracy. Ah, the resonance. The description ‘’Kafka-esque’’ is arguably used too liberally by people with a story to tell no worse than a rather long wait at the Post Office. But I wager that I have just cause to use it following my eventful morning. How difficult could getting vaccinations be? Well, firstly, it seems most Greek people are at best dimly aware of the concept of having tropical disease vaccinations (holiday destinations being defined by the question ‘’which island?’’) and entirely confounded as to where you could get such alien things in this country. It took asking at least 10 people (in parallel with my friend Lisa who was also looking for vaccinations), and finally, someone at work, who phoned a friend, who phoned another friend, who recommended a website (in Greek, naturally), which had a phone number for a clinic, who then gave me the address of another government clinic, which doesn’t do reservations but where you just have to pop in (only on weekday mornings, obviously). Lisa & I chose this morning to brave it. For those unfamiliar with the plight of the non-Greek speaker in Greece, the first thing involved is walking into a huge building with no reception (there never is, for some reason) but a huge list on the wall of medical departments, written in Greek. Sadly, my Greek extends to ‘’Happy New Year’’ and ‘’W****er’’, and not ‘’Tropical Disease Immunisations’’. So, we then walked around until we found a person and after some gestures (‘’Injection! Injection!’’, said thumping one’s arm) were directed to another hallway where there was a scrum of people holding their passports. We waited in the line, handed over our passports (why?) and then got given a piece of paper which had a date in mid March written on it. Ok, we explained, Lisa is going in 2 weeks, so that’s too late, we need to see someone sooner. No Speak English! (This is a frequent and amusing phenomenon when a minute earlier the person was having a fully comprehensible conversation with you in English, and is indeed simultaneously translating what you’re saying to their Greek friend and laughing, but claims to have lost their linguistic skills in the past minute). We pushed; we were told ‘’absolutely no appointments!’’. At this point it seemed we would be chalking another one up to experience and I would be buying an Easyjet flight pronto.

But the saga continues! We went to a pharmacy as Lisa had heard from someone you can actually buy the vials of the vaccinations at the pharmacy and could take them to a doctor to be injected (also untrue, as it happens). There, we started explaining incredulously what had happened to us and the pharmacist was very confused – no, you should have definitely got straight in! There’s no need to wait in a queue! He had a consultation with the Dr Scholl orthopedic shoes sales representative (seriously, no joke) and they decided to phone the clinic. Cue 5 minutes of shouting, gesticulating down the phone, and then suddenly Lisa was put onto a woman speaking English, telling her that ‘’of course’’ we would have an appointment straight away, come back! So (are you getting tired yet?) we then head back in. And discover that the office we need to get to is behind a door that is being physically barricaded by the woman who previously refused us entry. At this point, being foreign was actually in my favour, as said woman was about 4 foot 10 and hence a deliberate move towards the door allowed me to push through whilst, and I am not exaggerating here, about 15 Greek woman shouted and surged towards the door, screaming madly at Lisa and I. We found the English-speaking Anastasia who was giggling away and then led us along a corridor, down a staircase, into the basement, past a big pile of cardboard boxes, along another corridor, and eventually to a door marked ‘’Ebola’’ (in Greek). But of course! We popped in and were then told to wait outside. Ok… 30 minutes later (not that there were any patients in there, mind, it was important coffee-drinking time) we got in. Success! Er, no, too early. Lisa started explaining that she needed her Hep B injection. No no no no no! Sorry? No! You cannot have that in Greece! Lisa starts to clarify – I’m going to Argentina, it’s important I have it. No! We only give injections to poor people! Don’t you know how Hep B is spread anyway?!?! Lisa: No. Mad Doctor: Sex! Right, so none of that then. Likewise, it’s ‘’impossible’’ to have a Rabies vaccination because you only have that if you get bitten, apparently, contrary to pan-European medical opinion. All of which reinforces my wise decision to have never involved myself in the Greek medical system thus far. There is a good ending for the story for me at least (Lisa has decided to go ahead and take the risk, for of course she has the lovely Yiorgos at home) as I did manage to get the typhoid & polio which luckily for me are known in the Land of the Ancients. However, the only malaria tablets available are Larium, which are no longer prescribed in the UK as they are seriously dangerous for you and have severe side effects. The doctor did in fact acknowledge this but informed us that no alternative is available in Greece. Oh well!

This whole experience was in fact considerably less traumatic than my early experiences in Greece with the police, electricity company, telephone company so on and so forth. But it’s good to have a reminder of what I (on the whole) don’t have to deal with any more. A swift Starbucks and post-match analysis cheered me up whilst my typhoid-induced headache began.

Which is all an extremely long way of saying that I could empathise with Mark Shand’s bureaucracy nightmare which went so far as to ruin the premise of his book – being the first person to travel the full length of the Brahmaputra. When I got to the last 20 pages and he hadn’t entered Tibet yet I thought ‘’hmmm something’s up’’. Which indeed it was. The other big theme of the book was the support of the team of people around him throughout the journey. Rather reminiscent of Edmund Hillary and Tenzing, it was impressive to see what Shand achieved and yet he was constantly followed by various porters (including a group of barefoot 9 year old girls at one point) doing exactly the same journey except with all his luggage on their backs and setting up and dismantling the camp every night. I’m not one to speak, of course, about to head to India and Bhutan with a group in a truck with a driver, guide and cook. Perhaps one day I’ll be an independent explorer but I’ll need more than 25 days a week vacation unfortunately.