Let's see, I'll take a polio with a side of typhoid

So some of you might be wondering what it takes to prepare for a trip like this. Preparation is an ongoing endeavour, because every few days to a week you're hitting the Lonely Planet to call ahead to book the next budget accomodation (with wi-fi, preferably), along with other minutiae like making photocopies of your passport/visa/driver's license or getting flimsy but important documents laminated. I'll work tidbits about preparation in between future posts, but there's one important one I'll talk about here, which is medical prep.
The first step I took was to go to the local Department of Public Health clinic. They run a non-profit office staffed with travel nurses, and offer a smorgasboard of vaccines for varying prices. A single administration of one vaccine might run anywhere between $30 and $200. Polio's cheap, Rabies is expensive, and the rest fall somewhere in between. They ask you the list of countries you will likely be visiting, and generate a printout describing the risk level of any diseases of concern in each country. Since the printout is in prose and not itemized, you have to sift through and put together your own list. At the same time you consult with a travel nurse. Mine was very good at helping me assess the risk level, such as whether you'll be in a rural or metropolitan area (rural = higher risk for most diseases). That's an important point about assessing risk - you don't *have* to get all the vaccines you're supposed to. You don't even have to get any at all, and many people don't and are fine. But you want to leave home with a sense of security about where you're going, and most people are willing to put down a few benjamins for that achieve that.
So you put together your list of vaccines, and when you refer to the vaccine price menu, you balk and decide to call your (shudder) HMO instead. My HMO wouldn't be able to provide any shots until after a phone consultation, which wouldn't take place for another two weeks. But free's free in the face of a ~$1000 vaccine regimen, so I decided to hold out. To justify the travel nurse's consultation time (which they charge you for anyway if you don't get any shots), I took my first adminstration of HepA/B which is called Twinrix.
Long story short, over the course of the next month and half (three further visits to the HMO) I got in addition to the childhood/high school/college shots,
HepA/B, DTP (diphtheria, tetanus, and pertussis), Typhoid, Polio (booster), Rabies (3 shots over 1 month) and Japanese Encephalitis (3 shots over 1 month). I also got 300 days worth of doxycycline medication to protect against Malaria. Since this medicine makes me sick, I'm looking to get my hands on some Proguanil before I get to the Keralan backwaters.
Luckily, there is little need for concern over malaria in metropolitan Bangalore, which I'll cover next post . . .