In Jaipur at the Rambagh Palace for a Gin and Tonic.

Jaipur is a beautiful city, but I arrived there after a 400-kilometer journey.

After all, it’s the distance between Bologna and Rome: three and a half hours from tollgate to tollgate. But India is a different matter: overloaded trucks, swaying buses bursting with undefined human material, sacred cows, and various wildlife roaming about—all on strips of asphalt barely wider than an emergency lane. Not to mention the drivers, all training for the Paris-Dakar rally. Luckily, there’s the scenery. That is indeed beautiful, and to enjoy it in peace, it’s worth letting the chauffeur take the wheel and finally arriving in Jaipur at the Rambagh Palace.

After a day like this (we left at dawn), we arrived in Jaipur, “the pink city,” at the legendary Rambagh Palace Hotel, now managed by Taj.

We were exhausted from that transfer. Finally, we managed to go up to our rooms, and the first thing we did after taking off our shoes was to order two gin and tonics, just to quench our thirst and relax a bit. I glanced distractedly at the room service menu while Larry was on the phone. 25 dollars! Not exactly cheap; let’s hope they at least include the lime! And so they did. Everything was there, even peanuts, but just as I was about to enjoy the most anticipated moment of the last few hours, I realized that the ice was missing. Are they serving me a 25-dollar gin and tonic without ice? I said, are we crazy? I grabbed the phone and gave a dressing-down to the unfortunate attendant, who immediately took action.

After dinner, served in one of those rooms where one imagines wearing damask clothing and a turban, and after a stroll in the spacious garden, I was soon distracted from my meditations and daydreams by an urgent and sudden need to retreat to my room, or rather, to the bathroom.

It was the beginning of the end.

All night long, it was a pilgrimage. By the next morning, I was shivering with cold and running a high fever. The hotel doctor (actually the head of the nearby hospital who supplemented his income by fleecing unfortunate tourists) examined me and advised various antibiotics, two days of complete rest, and even some IVs. Frankly, it seemed excessive for a case of diarrhea, and besides, it was impossible. Two days of rest with all the work appointments I had! And in two days, I had a flight to Udaipur. I simply could not comply with that treatment. I needed an intensive therapy that would get me back on my feet immediately.

I wish I hadn’t said anything. After swallowing a horse-sized dose of antibiotics along with a cocktail of other unspecified pills, I experienced a dramatic spike in temperature and began heading straight toward anaphylactic shock. Larry, who had gone to photograph some nearby palaces, returned to find me disheveled and drenched in sweat.

The situation rapidly deteriorated.

The situation escalated quickly. The doctor, who had become unreachable, was called back, but an ambulance that never arrived was summoned instead; the hotel manager, not knowing what else to do and perhaps moved by compassion for yet another “fool” caught by the ice, loaded me into his car and personally drove me to the hospital, where they gave me a miraculous potion.

I returned to the hotel feeling like a rag, and to make matters worse, with my tail between my legs. I was good-naturedly reprimanded for refusing to undergo the recommended treatment.

The result was that I spent a day and a half in bed without eating. Three hours before the flight to Udaipur, I got up and went out to take the sweatiest photos of my life. Since then, I’ve avoided ice. But as soon as I can, I return to India, one of the few countries that still make me dream. Without ice.