When mossie-bites get infected..

  Bangkok, Thailand
Sunday, August 10, 2008

'It's always good to get yourself into a few situations.' - Dave Barwise

The night train to Bangkok was an absolute belter, an easy travelling highlight and one of the most comfortable twelve hours of transit we could have hoped for. Just like the longboat to Burma, travelling overnight in a bed has great merits, something I'd take any day over twelve hours of lifeless head-lolling on a bus, especially one that's destined to drain every bit of life out of you while carefully freezing up your extremities with its relentless air-conditioning (why do they do that?) - not to mention having to try and ignore the clock and brave those deeply unwanted toilet emergencies.

We were joined in Chumphon by two banter-heads from Dublin who just happened to be sharing our carriage. They were straight on the Changs and in full swing before their bags hit the floor - good lads, great banter, and so it was only natural that we continue the theme in Bangkok. The next night we met up for seconds.



Khao San Road. Backpacker central. Really don't know/can't see what all the fuss is about. You hear so much about these concentrated clusters of die-hard travel types that you come to expect some huge nucleus of premier activity, like it's some sacred pilgrimage or something. It's all balls. Khao San was no different to Patong or Petaling, just that it's in Bangkok. In fact you'd get more life taking a walk through Blackpool on a stag weekend than you would here. I didn't see so many backpackers as I did flashpackers and twatpackers, and of course those wonderfully decorative gap-years. And it wasn't chaos. I didn't get pestered or touted to shit and I thought the whole thing was quite.. how d'you say.. neutral. No real complaints here at all, don't get me wrong. Just no big drama. See it, sniff it, live it and move on. So so many get 'trapped' here, and it's that that astounds me.

Another highlight was playing table-tennis through the wee hours of the morning with a random Thai guy at the side of the road. The table consisted of nothing more than a hawker's food stall with two warped sheets of plywood thrown on top. The net? A piece of old two by two perched on a housebrick. Beautiful.

Then the tables turned. The infected mossie-bite I picked up in Pha Ngan decided it wasn't getting enough attention and suddenly gave birth to itself. Yesterday saw me with a leg that looked as if it had been shot: messy, bloody, ooooozing with puss and generally all over gooey. And the pain. Yep, the pain from an infected mossie bite hurts.



It was the look on the pharmacist's face though that accelerated the concern. After twenty minutes of listening to strict instructions I was back outside in the thick Bangkok heat lugging a bag of medical supplies back to the guesthouse for phase one of the infection recovery programme - namely 'get it cleaned up and dress the bloody thing you idiot'.

This involved everything from alcoholic swabs, antiseptic creams, temporary skin-graft kits, cotton wool balls, iodine, gauze, tapes and bandages to a bumper pack of penicillin and anti-inflammatory tablets that I'm sure will last me till Christmas. She was serious. But then so was the pain. And so was the shit bubbling out of it, AND the 1,235 baht I handed over for the privilege. All for one little bastard of a mosquito.

I don't know if you've ever tried to perform minor self-surgery on the outside of your ankle but it seems that there's one hand that just won't quite reach. Luckily for me I was in the position to call on the two spare hands of Doctor Bera, who leaped into action and doctored me up with impeccable precision.



So that's me for the next few days. Banged up in Bangkok. Looks like I'll have to do the things I wanted to do this time in Bangkok the next time I'm Bangkok.

Dave leaves tomorrow, back to the misery of predictable shitty English weather and a highly taxing clockwork life. Interesting to think though how randomly we met in Kuala Lumpur and how we've continued to share the road and all its rewards right up to this point. That's 81 continuous days with the guy. We've had all sorts of spontaneous random adventure, some momentous banter and a few scrapes and scratches thrown in to the mix for good measure.

Actually it's been a thorough hoot and it'll be sad to see the lad go. I've never met anyone with a head that looks so much like a cabbage. Nor have I met anyone who drinks so much and eats so little. I eat more in one day than he does in three, and he drinks more in two than I drink in a week. He's also the only person I've come across who travels with a one kilo box of baby wipes ('well you never know..') a big ball of string ('just in case..') and a full-size fully plumped cushion that was lovingly hand-made and gifted to him by his dear old mum. Yeah I'll miss the guy, especially the spontaneous Pilkington-esque conversations we have at random, like:

Dave: - 'Funny concept this fishing lark in Thailand innit?'
Woz: - 'What you on about?
Dave: - 'I mean.. it just seems weird like, watchin' a bloke standing with a rod and shit.'
Woz: - 'That's what fishing IS you tit.'
Dave: - 'Nah it's all bollocks. With all the fish they've got here all you need do is wade in the water with a big baseball bat..'



But all roads come to an end and this one, like the one's that have led up to it, has given way to a new one. The last few days have seen a couple of opportunities fly my way, and so after further thought and a bit of decisive action the new road presented itself as clear and as obvious as an infected mossie bite. This new one will be shared with Doctor Bera. Once the infection's cleared we'll be heading north-west to Kanchanaburi, before returning and taking the long haul north to start a new era of smiles. But more on all that later, the street hawker's just pulled up outside to set up her delightful som tam stall. You beauty..