Out of Thailand, into Cambodia
Trip Start
Aug 12, 2006
1
3
12
Trip End
Ongoing
Siem Riep,
Cambodia
Monday, August 28, 2006
We ended up leaving our Thailand island paradise a few days early. Candy sliced open her ankle on some coral and needed some stitches, so being told she couldnt swim with the stitches, there seemed few reasons to hang out on the beach...
So we headed back to Bangkok where we spent the night in another noisy hellhole with a peephole in the wall (Bangkok seems to be full of them). THe next motning nice and early we jumped on the bus headed to Siem Riep in Cambodia. It started out air conditioned, driving on tarmac roads but as soon as we crossed the border we got crammed into a tiny mini bus for another 8 hours on the bumpiest road i think i have ever driven along...
Boy at temples
It was actually during that trip that I read in Lonely PLanet about stupid tourists ending up on what they called the 'scam bus'. Well that it seemed, was us...we were the stupid tourists on the scam bus. THe road we took was the long road, designed to get us there well after dark (having stopped a few times along the way at places where we were practically forced to eat and spend money). They wanted us there after dark so we wouldnt object when they took us to a guesthouse that had paid them commission and where we spent more than we had planned. but we just went with it, because who really cares at the end of the day...You can be pretty forgiving when the people scamming you for your money need it so much more than you...
THe next morning (today) we hired some bicycles and drove into the centre of town to visit the doctor. I have had pain in my insides for the past five days and Candy had been getting me absolutely paranoid that I may have apendicitis. So obligingly I went along and when our turn for the consultation came along the DR decided I needed an ultrasound. He couldnt see anything immediately wrong and Candy and I wanted to see if perhaps it was maybe just extreme consiptaion (sorry, but doesnt every travel story come back to poo eventually...). We wanted him to run the ultrasound doobie over my bowels to check all was A-OKay. So Candy says "ÿou check her bowels"and he says "what is bowel"and we both look at each other and i could tell we were both thinking, 'how do we explain this''...So she says ÿou know where ...poo...comes from"and he looks at us blankly and I say stupidly "shit"because it was the only other word i could think of at the time... and again, a blank stare.., So I say "ca ca"and then ask myself, where on earth i just got ça ca'from and still he says "no understand"
Floating village
. So before I know what shes doing, Candy squats above the floor (remembering we use squat toilets over here) and she is motioning this stream of something at the front and syaing "not this"but "this"and then actioning a stream of something coming out her backside... the doctor then grins widly and says Ähhh, you try to say stool"and with that he did the ultrasound (while Candy and I were trying hard not to laugh) and discovered that all is okay in the "stool organ" but that I have an infection in the intestine "lots of liquid and bubbles"apparently... So its antibiotics for me for a week... Tomorrow we are going to check out the infamous Angkor Wat temples. Everyone has probably heard of them and there must be a reason why they are so famous so im quite excited about it...
Then after about 5 days here we will head down to Phnom Penh to meet up with some Fred Hollows Staff down there and check out the area... More then!
Comments
'ULTRA-sound-Messages'
Oh the mishaps and misadventures. I recall being in a similar situation, trying to translate to a doctor in a Beijing hospital that I had a particular type of infection, and all that he and his staff could understand (kept repeating) was the word "ear", which was totally irrelevant to the situation [...not that expected the local Chinese to understand English, I am not that Anglo-centric]. When all communication procedures failed (including my drawings), I too had the ultra-sound. Positioned on top of a wooden chair, which was precariously held together by some aged sticky tape.
I left the hospital with a packet of black antibiotics and a sense of privilege as I had jumped the massive queue (well scrum) of people waiting at the gates and those lying on tables (or under them) in the corridors. Having said that I was not cured of the problem I was initially inflicted with and perhaps became more troubled for years to come by the ingredients of those mystery tablets.
Rather than taking four first-aid kits perhaps you two should have invested in a doctor to travel around with you, I am convinced they would come in handy many times along the journey.
Good health to you both!