A Visit To The Hospital

Sunday 15 October

This morning we woke around 05.30 to a pretty pink sunrise as the train neared Bangkok. The flooding was still evident in the fields and many houses were still waterlogged in the outskirts of the city. We finally pulled into the station about 07.30 having crept along for the last few miles, about an hour later than scheduled. We had to say our first “Gooodbye” to one of the team, as Gustavo was staying at a different hotel for his last couple of days in Bangkok, before returning to Australia on Tuesday. The rest of us were quickly collected by two more tut-tuts and returned to the Royal Princess Hotel, passing weekend markets already crowded and doing great business – on a Sunday morning. We booked back in and reclaimed our luggage left in store here and had said more “Goodbyes” to those leaving the tour here, traveling on – mostly to Phuket - for a rest by the sea. When we booked our tour, we were only offered the tour as a whole from Bangkok to Singapore, which is apparently made up of three separate tours – Bangkok round trip (which we have just completed), Bangkok to Krabbi, and Krabbi to Singapore. Five of us are continuing on to the second part of the tour, and three other Australians are joining us tonight. At this stage, we are the only ones going as far as Singapore, but others may join us along the way.

Our first task was to sort the washing – uuggh it was beginning to smell rather awful – dank and soggy. We couldn’t find a “laundry” list in our room – only “dry cleaning” or “ironing only” – so we took our bags downstairs intent on finding a local Laundry. Pok had already informed the porter that some of us might require such a service and the porter directed us to a computer games shop down the street, which also took in laundry – it was about 09.00 on a Sunday morning by this time, and although several shops were shut, the computer games shop was open and ready for business! We negotiated to collect the washing by midday tomorrow (their first offer was 18.00 tomorrow), as we should be leaving Bangkok, on the train again, around late afternoon – we can only hope it is ready in time!

We returned to the hotel to find out about hospitals, as my toes were definitely causing some concern. Pok had come to the rescue again, leaving a map of how to reach the Mission Hospital – a private establishment, just ten minutes walk away from the hotel. The sun was really warm by this time, and we strolled up the already busy street and easily found the building, even if we did go in via the back entrance! A nurse rushed to help us and took us to register. Having completed the necessary forms, we were directed to the waiting area, which was full of Thai people, waiting to be seen – how long would we have to wait (thinking of our hospitals at home where you can wait anything up to six hours or more). In fact, we waited less than five minutes, when I was called in to see doctor – a middle aged Thai doctor, who was very caring and spoke impeccable English. He cut away the dressings and examined my toes. He thought the nails could be saved, as long I could drain the blisters under the nails, and keep them dressed and dry. He broke the blisters and prodded and poked with sterile swabs, before wrapping both toes in large white gauze bandages – if he had carried on I would have looked like “Michelin Man”! He prescribed me all the dressings and cleaning agents I would need as well as pain killers and anti infection tablets and provided a letter for the Insurance company, should we need it. The whole episode lasted less than three quarters of an hour (including waiting to pay and collect the drugs), and cost 1,200 bahts – about 17.50 GBP – very good value for private treatment and such speedy service.

We returned to the hotel, and feeling somewhat weary, made a cup of tea (I am still drinking the blackcurrant tea Jean donated to me before she left Koh Samui and really enjoying it) ate a bag of crisps, and settled down to watch a film with Helen Mirren and Robert Redford (don’t know what it was called, but was sufficiently entertaining for our weary minds). I spent the rest of the afternoon catching up on writing the blogs (I wasn’t able to connect to the blog site to publish, or get into any emails, so would have to try later in the evening) and watching another film – a Walt Disney one this time about a gorilla – the African jungle did not seem as dense as the jungle we had experienced! – but we knew the ending would be happy this time (the main man died at the end of the morning film). It was then time to change and go and meet our new tour guide and team members in the lobby bar.

There are just three new people joining this tour, plus Linda, Jill and Phil from the previous tour – so eight in total. Our new leader is called Nok (do all the tour leaders in Bangkok have these rhyming nicknames?) a Thai lady from this city, who was a little amazed as she described the coming tour and five of us (those on the previous tour) bombarded her with questions about the transport, the loos, and the activities we could expect. The three new people were a young couple from Melbourne, Tim and Simone, and a single, 28 year old guy, Warren (rooming with Phil) from Brisbane. These three are also going all the way to Singapore, and when Nok told us we would be traveling from Krabbi to Penang - a journey of about ten hours - on the local buses (with the local people hopping on and off along the way), I think we were all a bit dumbfounded – we had at least expected to ride in a private minibus. We also had a bit of a dispute about the amount of the tips for this tour – last time we had all contributed 300 bahts, which Nok said is standard for all trips (Pok had produced a set of accounts for our contributions earlier in the day, which Colin had had to sign), but this trip does not appear to have the same level of activities and we are carrying our own luggage for much of the time!!! So having a discussion later, we decided we would all put in 100 bahts to start with, and top it up as we go along. Although we are ‘tubing’ (I think this means going down the river in rubber tyres) and trekking (!!?!) again at the Surat Thani National Park – where we are staying for two nights, in individual lodges with promised European loos! - when we get to the hotel at Krabbi, all the activities are optional and at extra cost. But first we have yet another overnight train ride on a Thai train tomorrow night, leaving about 18.00 and getting to Surat Thani about 05.30 on Tuesday morning! – I did say I wanted to travel by train, but you can’t see a lot of the scenery at night.

When the meeting broke up, Colin and I went to Piccolo’s Restaurant attached to the hotel (there are four restaurants to choose from – the Princess Café where we ate the second night we stayed here before, the Piccolo, an Italian eaterie, a Chinese restaurant and a Japanese restaurant) where Colin could satisfy his pasta cravings. The food was very delicious – Colin had melon and parma ham to start, followed by angel hair pasta with clams and other seafood, while I had seafood salad to start, which included a couple of large scallops, two huge prawns, some sea bass, mussels and clams, followed by an Aussie sirloin steak, barbequed with peppercorn sauce – cooked very rare (and it was) with a small mound of mashed potato and rocket salad. A range of Italian breads and dips were provided free. All the dishes were appetizingly presented and very tasty. They were definitely different from the simple fare we had experienced over the past couple of days.

By the time we got back to the room, we were both feeling tired (the events of the past few days catching up with us), so didn’t attempt to post the blogs again – should have time tomorrow, before we leave the hotel around 16.00.