Monday, 30 May 2011
Saturday, 9 April 2011
from hospital to home
Well, after the last blog I started to deteriorate.
On tuesday night I became quite seriously ill and reached mild delirium in the night. Early in the morning one of the girls in my room went to get reception to ask for advice. The receptionist came into see me and said straight away that I needed to go to hospital.
Luckily the girl in my room was really sweet and immediately said she'd come with me; which was great as I couldn't so much as walk unaided at this point. I got into a taxi (still pyjama clad-too ill to change or wash first) which took us to the Bangkok hospital. I stumbled towards the door and was immediately put in a wheel chair and taken to see a nurse. She took my temperature while my head lolled about and she said I was very hot and needed to see a doctor asap. The doctor thought from all the syptoms I head dengue fever and so I had a blood test-but that ruled it out. So he said it is probably a strain of flu that I am not used to. I then had an injection straight into a vein to bring my temperature down-after lying in bed for a while the injection kicked in and it soothed alot of the other symptoms. He also said I was very dehydrated and needed to take a couple of rehydration sachets. I was given several bags of medicine to cover all bases and told I could fly the next day but would need to be careful and probably shouldn't eat any aeroplane food.
The journey home was hell. I was all kinds of sick on the plane, and resorted to crying in front of everyone while the man next to me was very sweet and told me he flew home with malaria before and completely understood how bad I felt.
I walked out the other end, and just about managed to hobble outside where my whole family were waiting for me. Fell into their arms really relieved and was driven to home sweet home.
So that was all a bit rubbish.
Still pretty ill but being ill at home is fine; being ill alone in bangkok, and then on an air india flight; not so fine, I wouldn't recommend it.
So in slightly dramatic fashion, this particular trip is now over.
It's been amazing, I think I will write a couple of retrospective blogs about my time in Peru, Brasil, Argentina, South Africa, Austrailia, Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam and Laos in the next few weeks and then it's on to adjusting back to life in employment...because I am BROKE. And as Ludacris aptly explained in his duet with my all time favourite Fergie "If you aint got no money take your broke ass home". So much wisdom in those words!
On tuesday night I became quite seriously ill and reached mild delirium in the night. Early in the morning one of the girls in my room went to get reception to ask for advice. The receptionist came into see me and said straight away that I needed to go to hospital.
Luckily the girl in my room was really sweet and immediately said she'd come with me; which was great as I couldn't so much as walk unaided at this point. I got into a taxi (still pyjama clad-too ill to change or wash first) which took us to the Bangkok hospital. I stumbled towards the door and was immediately put in a wheel chair and taken to see a nurse. She took my temperature while my head lolled about and she said I was very hot and needed to see a doctor asap. The doctor thought from all the syptoms I head dengue fever and so I had a blood test-but that ruled it out. So he said it is probably a strain of flu that I am not used to. I then had an injection straight into a vein to bring my temperature down-after lying in bed for a while the injection kicked in and it soothed alot of the other symptoms. He also said I was very dehydrated and needed to take a couple of rehydration sachets. I was given several bags of medicine to cover all bases and told I could fly the next day but would need to be careful and probably shouldn't eat any aeroplane food.
The journey home was hell. I was all kinds of sick on the plane, and resorted to crying in front of everyone while the man next to me was very sweet and told me he flew home with malaria before and completely understood how bad I felt.
I walked out the other end, and just about managed to hobble outside where my whole family were waiting for me. Fell into their arms really relieved and was driven to home sweet home.
So that was all a bit rubbish.
Still pretty ill but being ill at home is fine; being ill alone in bangkok, and then on an air india flight; not so fine, I wouldn't recommend it.
So in slightly dramatic fashion, this particular trip is now over.
It's been amazing, I think I will write a couple of retrospective blogs about my time in Peru, Brasil, Argentina, South Africa, Austrailia, Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam and Laos in the next few weeks and then it's on to adjusting back to life in employment...because I am BROKE. And as Ludacris aptly explained in his duet with my all time favourite Fergie "If you aint got no money take your broke ass home". So much wisdom in those words!
Monday, 4 April 2011
the Washing Machine Fiasco
Had a bit of a grapple with one of Thailands finest top loaders yesterday...
It started off reasonably well; I poured the powder into the machine, then loaded my clothes, switched all the self explanatory knobs to the desired position. I then inserted my coins, and followed the machines final instruction to 'pull the knob' on the washer setting button, and despite the fact the machine clearly wasn't on, I decided that as the time had started to tick off on the credit box if I simply walked away, the machine would probably spring to life and wash my clothes.
When I came back 40 minuites later, and the machine was still sat dormant, and my clothes still unclean, I had to grab the receptionist to help. He decided it was necessary to open the lid and swirl his bare hands around in my dirty underwear first just to make sure it indeed hadn't worked-I'm glad because I was worried it wasn't embarassing enough yet. Then he turned the machine on, looked at me like I might be a real special, and asked if I had pulled the on knob thing. I insisted I had, to which he simply replied that the machine always comes on, and musn't have been put on properly. Oh well, no bother, machines on, off I trotted.
I came back later to find my machine turned at an angle, obviously someone was trying to check it was ok in the back. I wondered why-I opened the machine to find 3 coins inside; yep, hadn't emptyed my pockets; probably made a really good noise before potentially completely buggering their machine.
Before anyone saw it was me, again, that had done something silly I hastily rehoused my wet clothes into the dryer, and pulled the infamous 'start knob'. Trying to make sure I had it right I gave it a somewhat strudier yank this time, only to pull the whole button off! Oh dear god, I stuck it back on and luckily it stayed and the machine came on. I could of told reception this but opted for letting the next person who touches it take the flack because lets face it; my self esteem can only take so many of that mans stares.
When I got my clothes out the dryer it turned out I had also left a bunch of paper money in a skirt pocket- very fresh smelling paper money it is too now.
If you're wondering why I have the time to sit and write about washing machines it's because I am suuuuper ill and currently confined to bed right now; 123 awwwww.
It started off reasonably well; I poured the powder into the machine, then loaded my clothes, switched all the self explanatory knobs to the desired position. I then inserted my coins, and followed the machines final instruction to 'pull the knob' on the washer setting button, and despite the fact the machine clearly wasn't on, I decided that as the time had started to tick off on the credit box if I simply walked away, the machine would probably spring to life and wash my clothes.
When I came back 40 minuites later, and the machine was still sat dormant, and my clothes still unclean, I had to grab the receptionist to help. He decided it was necessary to open the lid and swirl his bare hands around in my dirty underwear first just to make sure it indeed hadn't worked-I'm glad because I was worried it wasn't embarassing enough yet. Then he turned the machine on, looked at me like I might be a real special, and asked if I had pulled the on knob thing. I insisted I had, to which he simply replied that the machine always comes on, and musn't have been put on properly. Oh well, no bother, machines on, off I trotted.
I came back later to find my machine turned at an angle, obviously someone was trying to check it was ok in the back. I wondered why-I opened the machine to find 3 coins inside; yep, hadn't emptyed my pockets; probably made a really good noise before potentially completely buggering their machine.
Before anyone saw it was me, again, that had done something silly I hastily rehoused my wet clothes into the dryer, and pulled the infamous 'start knob'. Trying to make sure I had it right I gave it a somewhat strudier yank this time, only to pull the whole button off! Oh dear god, I stuck it back on and luckily it stayed and the machine came on. I could of told reception this but opted for letting the next person who touches it take the flack because lets face it; my self esteem can only take so many of that mans stares.
When I got my clothes out the dryer it turned out I had also left a bunch of paper money in a skirt pocket- very fresh smelling paper money it is too now.
If you're wondering why I have the time to sit and write about washing machines it's because I am suuuuper ill and currently confined to bed right now; 123 awwwww.
Friday, 1 April 2011
Marooned
Sniffing at the crotch of a well worn pair of knickers I become aware of Claires vacantly interested stare in my direction.
"Checking they're clean Jen?" she asks.
"Checking they were clean was three weeks ago Claire, I'm down to checking they're 'clean enough' now", we both crack up laughing.
The pair of christmas themed knickers in my hands have passed a rigorous sniff test, so they are the chosen pair for today.
After bunging on a sellection of miss matched clothes hauled from the dwindling sellection of clean ones at the bottom of my rucksack, I use one wet wipe to clean my face, then use the same wipe to clean my armpits. I then apply a generous slathering of roll on deogerant, brush my teeth, finger my hair off my face and into a knotty arrangement on my head and decorate it with a hair scarf, and that's me done. Showers are off the cards here, because our shower is ice cold; not a problem in the usual Island climate; but alas as it is we are four days into a never ending storm and it seems we are never quite fully dry or fully warm, and the prospect of soaking ourselves in ice water, only to put on damp clothes and sit in the cold is far from appealing; so we favour increasingly hippyish hygiene.
The warm showers of koh Samui are but a lost dream now, as is the slightly overcast sun we recieved on the first day. The weather forecast is horrendous as far ahead as we can look. We made a plan to leave for Phuket where we would at least be able to sit out the storm with favourable facilities; such as hot water, but alas our boat got cancelled due to the storm; and remains cancelled for the foreseeable, so we are quite literally stuck on Koh Phangan in a storm that has turned the sky a permanent charcole colour and confined us to our dingy and flee infested room. Sometimes we don our ponchos and walk around to try to hang onto our rapidly decreasing sanity, but aside from that, this is all there is now.
There were rumours of sun in Bangkok, but we cannot leave now to get there, so hopes of spending our last few days in the sun are stealing away rapidly. As the last time I made any real use of the sun was in Cambodia nearly a month ago, I am as pale now as I would have been had I never have left the country; and my dreams of returning home with a 'healhy glow' are been poured and pounded one angry drop at a time onto the corregated iron roof we are sleeping under.
We hold a new reverence in our strange new existence for cards, books, solitaire and alcohol. Although when the bar ran out of magners cider a few days ago, I feared Claire might have a reached a serious brink; thank god the white wine saved her.
I was just reading through what I had written so far when Claire screamed 'it's coming through the door'. Sure enough despite being on a first floor, the wind is so agressive that sheets of water are being forced in under the gap in our front door; so we now have all of our posessions up on the beds with us, and about 5mm of water on the floor.
Oh dear, wish us luck....
-------------------------------
After typing this, the electricity cut taking the running water with it. At the same time taxis refused to even drive to our part of the Island due to the severity of the weather conditions, so for a further two days we waded around in darkness using candles and torches for light.
The following memories are definitive of this time...1)Walking into the dark supermarket and seeing almost every shelf bare, and buying 'rations' of whatever was left. 2)Standing in the pissing rain collecting rain water in a bucket in order to flush the toilet in our room and having a serious revelation about just how much water we do waste by flushing the toilet; if it's yellow let it mellow and all that jazz from now on for sure. 3)Going outside in my bikini with a bottle of conditioner (I ran out of shower gel about a month ago) and washing in the rain. 4) Wading through the bar after it flooded. 6) buying a bob marley head band and wearing it all night because 'in this time of rain it made me feel sunny'.
On our 6th day of being in the storm we managed to get a tuk tuk to the ferry port (and in that tuk tuk we managed to fit 6x people, 6x big backpacks, 6x hand luggage and 1x moped?!) and once at the port were told by the British embassy representative that a couple of army boats had been deployed to get us off the Island. In the end, the weather worsened and even the army couldn't get through, so we had to stay again. This time we had made a cosy 6-some having made more friends at same same (Vickty, Tom, Marcus and Lea) so at least we had a possy to bop with, and we found some bungalows to rent closer to the port so at least there was a change of scenery too.
The next day we went back to the port without really holding our breaths, but to our suprise they were running boats and busses through to Bangkok. We took a massive ferry to the mainland, and then a craaamped minibus with a craaazy driver to bangkok...17 and a half hours later we were there!!! They weren't lying about the flooding either, at points the roads we drove through better resembled shallow rivers, best described by one of the american guys on the bus with us; 'oh shit, we van rafting'.
Woke up to sun this morning, and oh I never thought I'd be so happy to get back to bangkok.
Fun time now! I hope...!
"Checking they're clean Jen?" she asks.
"Checking they were clean was three weeks ago Claire, I'm down to checking they're 'clean enough' now", we both crack up laughing.
The pair of christmas themed knickers in my hands have passed a rigorous sniff test, so they are the chosen pair for today.
After bunging on a sellection of miss matched clothes hauled from the dwindling sellection of clean ones at the bottom of my rucksack, I use one wet wipe to clean my face, then use the same wipe to clean my armpits. I then apply a generous slathering of roll on deogerant, brush my teeth, finger my hair off my face and into a knotty arrangement on my head and decorate it with a hair scarf, and that's me done. Showers are off the cards here, because our shower is ice cold; not a problem in the usual Island climate; but alas as it is we are four days into a never ending storm and it seems we are never quite fully dry or fully warm, and the prospect of soaking ourselves in ice water, only to put on damp clothes and sit in the cold is far from appealing; so we favour increasingly hippyish hygiene.
The warm showers of koh Samui are but a lost dream now, as is the slightly overcast sun we recieved on the first day. The weather forecast is horrendous as far ahead as we can look. We made a plan to leave for Phuket where we would at least be able to sit out the storm with favourable facilities; such as hot water, but alas our boat got cancelled due to the storm; and remains cancelled for the foreseeable, so we are quite literally stuck on Koh Phangan in a storm that has turned the sky a permanent charcole colour and confined us to our dingy and flee infested room. Sometimes we don our ponchos and walk around to try to hang onto our rapidly decreasing sanity, but aside from that, this is all there is now.
There were rumours of sun in Bangkok, but we cannot leave now to get there, so hopes of spending our last few days in the sun are stealing away rapidly. As the last time I made any real use of the sun was in Cambodia nearly a month ago, I am as pale now as I would have been had I never have left the country; and my dreams of returning home with a 'healhy glow' are been poured and pounded one angry drop at a time onto the corregated iron roof we are sleeping under.
We hold a new reverence in our strange new existence for cards, books, solitaire and alcohol. Although when the bar ran out of magners cider a few days ago, I feared Claire might have a reached a serious brink; thank god the white wine saved her.
I was just reading through what I had written so far when Claire screamed 'it's coming through the door'. Sure enough despite being on a first floor, the wind is so agressive that sheets of water are being forced in under the gap in our front door; so we now have all of our posessions up on the beds with us, and about 5mm of water on the floor.
Oh dear, wish us luck....
-------------------------------
After typing this, the electricity cut taking the running water with it. At the same time taxis refused to even drive to our part of the Island due to the severity of the weather conditions, so for a further two days we waded around in darkness using candles and torches for light.
The following memories are definitive of this time...1)Walking into the dark supermarket and seeing almost every shelf bare, and buying 'rations' of whatever was left. 2)Standing in the pissing rain collecting rain water in a bucket in order to flush the toilet in our room and having a serious revelation about just how much water we do waste by flushing the toilet; if it's yellow let it mellow and all that jazz from now on for sure. 3)Going outside in my bikini with a bottle of conditioner (I ran out of shower gel about a month ago) and washing in the rain. 4) Wading through the bar after it flooded. 6) buying a bob marley head band and wearing it all night because 'in this time of rain it made me feel sunny'.
On our 6th day of being in the storm we managed to get a tuk tuk to the ferry port (and in that tuk tuk we managed to fit 6x people, 6x big backpacks, 6x hand luggage and 1x moped?!) and once at the port were told by the British embassy representative that a couple of army boats had been deployed to get us off the Island. In the end, the weather worsened and even the army couldn't get through, so we had to stay again. This time we had made a cosy 6-some having made more friends at same same (Vickty, Tom, Marcus and Lea) so at least we had a possy to bop with, and we found some bungalows to rent closer to the port so at least there was a change of scenery too.
The next day we went back to the port without really holding our breaths, but to our suprise they were running boats and busses through to Bangkok. We took a massive ferry to the mainland, and then a craaamped minibus with a craaazy driver to bangkok...17 and a half hours later we were there!!! They weren't lying about the flooding either, at points the roads we drove through better resembled shallow rivers, best described by one of the american guys on the bus with us; 'oh shit, we van rafting'.
Woke up to sun this morning, and oh I never thought I'd be so happy to get back to bangkok.
Fun time now! I hope...!
Tuesday, 22 March 2011
Back, back to de islands
Flew to Koh Samui yesterday with Claire, and met up with the other Clair, Nicole, Rich and Katie in the evening for some carnage. Recall drinking lots (and lots) of buckets and cocktails in various bars, and smoking rather a lot of apple shisha on the beach. So nice to be reunited if only for one night!
Today nursed the hangover down on Lamai beach.
Unsure of our plans now, will probably just island hop for the next couple of weeks and enjoy the sun, sand and sea, so will probably go back to updating the blog in chunks rather than daily, unless something wonderful happens of course.
Today nursed the hangover down on Lamai beach.
Unsure of our plans now, will probably just island hop for the next couple of weeks and enjoy the sun, sand and sea, so will probably go back to updating the blog in chunks rather than daily, unless something wonderful happens of course.
Fly like supergirl!
In the morning we got up early and drove out into the jungle. After about an hour of driving up sheer mountains we reached our goal; the jungle flight centre; a place to complete a series of ziplines and abseil drops in the tree tops. So much fun!
I don't know if the above picture does justice to how high the final 'drop' was, but I screeeamed!
After the adrenaline filled morning, we went back and slept like babies for a couple of hours, and then went to spend the afternoon and evening at a cooking class, learning to cook a thai green curry, pad thai, tom yam soup, chicken and cashews and banana spring rolls. I'm just glad to still have my eyebrows....
After the adrenaline filled morning, we went back and slept like babies for a couple of hours, and then went to spend the afternoon and evening at a cooking class, learning to cook a thai green curry, pad thai, tom yam soup, chicken and cashews and banana spring rolls. I'm just glad to still have my eyebrows....
Nelly the elephant
Having adored the elephants first time round in Luang Prabang we decided to book ourselves onto a half day Mahut course, where you get to learn the commands and then ride you own elephant.
We spent some time feeding and bonding with the elephant, and then we had to climb on it using its bended leg as a stool up (very difficult!)
We then completed a short hike to a waterfall before ending the day by going back to see the elephants and playing with the most adorable 4 month old elephant for about half an hour.
When we got back to the hostel we were exhausted, and after booking more stuff for the next few days, and eating some more 10 baht street food, we collapsed into bed with another manic day on the cards in the morning.
We spent some time feeding and bonding with the elephant, and then we had to climb on it using its bended leg as a stool up (very difficult!)
After a short walk to get used to the commands we then rode it down to the river, jumped in with it and had a whale of a time brushing and playing with it in the water.
After spending the morning with our elephant, we then jumped on a bamboo raft and tried our hands at bamboo rafting...
We then completed a short hike to a waterfall before ending the day by going back to see the elephants and playing with the most adorable 4 month old elephant for about half an hour.
When we got back to the hostel we were exhausted, and after booking more stuff for the next few days, and eating some more 10 baht street food, we collapsed into bed with another manic day on the cards in the morning.
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