Goodbye Thailand

dear darlings, an adventure to remember, i will remember this fondly.
but, it isnt the end...

elena's birthday dinner, aaaabondanzaaaa italian in thailand!

Moving Towards the End

leaving from chiang rai ro chiang mai to bangkok. a long day of travelling...
from the train. i love the countryside, though it was never mine...

An Honest Update of Events

*NOW FOR THE HONEST UPDATE.

the ambulance ride...

hospital 1...

hospital 2 and surgery prep.

February 11, 12, 13, 14, 15

As irony would have it when something really great happens so does something awful. Around 2pm Elena started feeling under the weather, with chills, stomach aches, a fever and a burning sensation in her eyes. We let her relax for a few hours to see if it would pass, and by 9pm her condition was worsening. We told our guest house personnel who called an ambulance from a private local hospital. When we got there a doctor diagnosed her with acute appendicitis and recommended immediate surgery. We did our best to contact her health insurance and the U.S. embassy in Thailand about what should be done, but the eventual verdict was to go through with the surgery, because it obviously couldn't wait a week.
The unfortunate thing about this hospital was its inhospitality. The nurses spoke really broken English and understood even less, but when we would try to conversate or ask them a question it would result with their laughing and ignoring of us. Then we learned that Thais don’t usually utilize CT scans after official diagnosis from a doctor, they just trust the doctors judgment based on a physical exam, and recommend. As you can imagine, this was uncomfortable, being American we ensure that every diagnosis is in fact Absolute, and to have a general idea of what’s wrong without confirmation is scary. As this was a private hospital, we learned that we had a couple of options dependent on our priorities. This particular hospital had a CT scanner, it would, however, cost 400$, and the surgery itself would cost 1,300$, plus the cost of recovery and medication.
After countless phone calls we were approached by an aggressive doctor who asked us, in fantastic English, what we valued: the patient’s health, or money. we responded that Elena’s health was the most important, obviously, but that finances WAS a factor as none of us had an extra 2,000$-3,000$ lying around.
We knew we didn’t have this kind of money, not even combined, so we were recommended to go to the general hospital, and decided to go for more diagnosis and friendlier staff.
The staff at this next hospital was indeed friendlier and all doctors who examined produced the same diagnosis. They moved Elena into prep mode and by 3am we were well acquainted with the surgeon, doctors, and interns who would be performing on Elena with each of their medical educational histories volunteered and committed to memory. Each and every one of them adored Elena and was excited to exercise their English. She even made some Facebook friends out of the experience. One of which was Rebekkah, a girl who wouldn’t leave Elena for HOURS and who would struggle with a smile to communicate. There is a picture below…

By 4am Elena was wheeled out of her surgery and groggy, started her recovery. There were some high and low points, but over the next 3 days that she spent in recovery she healed and made friends with all the others in recovery.

This experience, alone itself, was the most singular true Thai experience that I can recall, and it’s also the most terrifying to remember. What I know now, is that there are some very severe and distinct differences between the standards of Thailand and America when it comes to hospitals. And while we were in a northern region hospital, it was indeed a capable hospital with capable doct

ors and surgeons don’t get me wrong there. the next closest comparison, which is still a stretch as far as technological and sterile standards go, would be what we know as a general hospital, and a large population of those admitted were people from hill tribes, and some even from the borders of countries like Myanmar and Vietnam.

The first night was the worst.
It was a nightmare.
Upon arriving, for one, it was 230-300are, which permits a grim vision. This hospital was regarded as "the people's hospital" and was very popular, aka, it was overbooked with people. Not only was Elena admitted to a large room where 25 other people were openly in recovery, but there were patients lining the hallways, their clipboards lying on the floor next to them. The corridors/hallways on the outsides of the large recovery rooms were open-aired, which explains how the largest cockroach that I have seen in my life was permitted to scurry across the recovery room floor, and a cat in heat allowed meowing its face off around sick patients. the worst, the worst of all for me, was when we had taken Elena to the bathroom, which happened to be a SQUAT (can you believe it, sick patients, barely able to move squatting to relieve themselves!) for her last potty break before surgery, and we looked around and couldn’t for our lives find her toilet paper. So when I went to ask the office of nurses for some tissues/toilet paper, they laughed and said yes, for 8 baht we will give you toilet paper. And that in itself is the worst most vicious anger I felt in all of Thailand. To this day, I still feel like it is a crime that a hospital could directly ask money from patients for toilet paper. I think that is a human right, toilet paper when one is sick, weak, and hurt. After all these quick harsh realities Brittney and I both had to take a moment, away from Elena, to go have panicked phone calls to loved ones bursting with tears.

Brittney and I went home around 430-500am and finally slept after pulling an emotionally vicious all nighter. Over the next few days we stretched ourselves over going to the hospital, small meals, and naps...

Love day and market excursion...

february 14 2010
happy valentines day, to all our loved ones! tonight brittney and i went out to the local night market(while elena was resting), which was a bit more spread out and handmade than the other markets we had been to. we found a few goodies in the city of chiang rai, that we absolutely love...

Chiang Rai and Teak

February 11 2010
we arrived in chiang mai at 6am, and had a small mix up about how we were going to get to chiang rai. we ended up waiting a few hours for the mix up to clear and in the meantime, we mingled with Rachel, a friendly new zelander. at 1030 we set out on a bus for chiang rai, and we finally got to where we needed by 130pm.
our guest house is the most splendid guest house we've ever seen, and to our amazement, there's a pool! the service is friendly, food cheap, gorgeous teak building, the freezing outdoor pool, comfy beds with down comforters and AIR CONDITIONING! we're in the lap of luxury for a few days. i am loving life with this pool and AC.
elena's birthday, and her mother's birthday, is coming up in a couple days... :)

fabulous teak architecture. i love it...

leave your shoes downstairs...

its weird to how they have pictures of their king any place they can fit a photo...

February 10 2010

shit. one week in thailand. holy moley. we're taking another train today up to the northern city of chiang mai, then a bus to chiang rai. today is the beginning of the trip and tomorrow at some point we will finally be somewhere stable for a few days. i am really excited to make the move from the south, to central, to the extreme north, watching for cultural changes in the types of people we come across... :)

from the train...

The Tiring of Ko San Rd

February 09 2010
our train is a 12 hour long ride. thank god the majority of it is through the night, but like a bunch of babies, we are really excited to be able to poop, bathe, and nap today... back to bangkok.

like previously stated, there is something uncanny about how things dont always move on time here for the general public. we got to our hotel at 10am, and found that it would take from 10am till 2pm for someone to come and "clean" our room. we were dumbstruck and irritated to say the least. i, at least, was crawling out of my skin having not had decent sleep in the past 11 hours and having two days worth of day and night sweat covering me, the smell of fading deodorant with new B.O. and grime clinging to my clothing is enough to make me gag. Yes. it gets that bad.at 11am in the morning we had thai pizza and a walk through ko san road, which happens to be the most americanized road in all of bangkok. let me explain to you the idoicy. the road is primarily white tourists, and it breathes kerouac influenced middle aged and youths looking for alternativisms and besting all the rest at bohemisnism. the only thais who wander the street are vendors, and often they are just as dolled up to match the hippied tourists wandering around. you can get fake hair installed in your head, get your hair knotted into dreadlocks or braids, you can have pints of beer or even mini kegs if you are a group, you can get bamboo tattoos, you can get junkjunkjunk and more junk, you can use atms, go to the local starbucks or kfc, and buy a variety or more useless crap. in the evenings there is vendors who looked like they were in their own celebratory world dancing close to their boomboxes and selling silly glow in the dark and flashlight junk. the trannies also come out, and they DO get service. and its really just a bunch of people looking to party and get drunk in the streets of bangkok with people who look just like them with the same intentions...

now, what we were doing wandering this idoit of a road was trying to find a bookstore where we might be able to exchange or sell our current novels for other ones. what is sickening is how arrogant some of these book vendors are. brittney had bought "water for elephants" for 350baht, a little over 10$, and when trying to sell it in really very nice condition, the highest number that she got from a buyer was 100baht, which is about 3$!! it just makes us so sad. we're used to other readers who read and defend their love for books with a vengence...and it just seems like these vendors of english novels just dont care and want to make the highest buck they can (which, everyone does in the world) with an attitude like we just pooped in their bookstore and are asking for something significant from them.
needless to say we resent that particular road and avoid it unless we need to find a bookstore with a decent english section.
then we ate at a restaurant we frequent when in bangkok, shoshana's middle eastern. yumyum food, with equally as yumyum middle eastern male customers!

Transition

February 08 2010

the majority of our day was spent waiting for transportation that was not moving on time--ever. bus to bus stop, bus stop to highway to tuktuk to train station, train station to bangkok. and not even the train tickets list the correct time of departure and arrival! nor are the arrival/departure predictions by personell accurate! promptness is something to appreciate, i'll never feel the same way about it.
other than that we had dinner, and met a UK couple who had come to thailand for their daughter's destination wedding on ko phiphi island at railay beach. apparently they had 28 people fly in for the wedding, where they performed a traditional thai ceremony on the beach where were two flower covered arches and a walkway that was covered with orchids. the couple were spending their honeymoon rockclimbing the various cliffs of the thai southern islands...and with my jaw dropped to the floor all i could think was 'whattabunchaluckyasses! that is the way to do it! not only have a dream wedding and vacation in one, but give your loved ones that too!' and, so the parents figured, well since we're here, lets take an extra week and have our own vacation! they were on their way to the north to go trekking and visit elephants. soooooo smart.

now for another stinky night train... ;)