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Thailand/Narathiwat Round the world trip 2007
8/20
The floating market has long ago become a tourist attraction, shedding its traditional flavor of selling necessities to the Thai’s and today selling souvenirs to the hordes of tourists being pled, paddled and motored along the few working canals lined with sellers and food vendors.
After our1 ½ hour tour, we mounted Bici and began our 100+km ride to Kachananburi, the town near the Bridge over the River Kwai. We stopped for a bit at a wood carving center and also took photographs at a voting place as the country was voting on a new referendum for the new government since the coup took place last year. The road signs were all in Thai on the small back roads awe attempted to ride, so of course, we go lost and wove our way through gorgeous agricultural areas, almost devoid of trash and lightly populated. This is probably the prettiest cycling we have encountered in Thailand. Despite the beauty, it was still a very hard bicycling day with high temps and us sweating buckets, suffering sore bottoms, feet and hands.
Two hours in the ER. Judee’s left eye is filling with blood, slowly turning red and today she started feeling pressure. Uh Oh! We better get this looked at. So off to the local hospital 5km from our guest house. We park Bici at the entrance to the open air ER entrance and enter the crowded waiting area and wander up to the guard. He takes us to a nurse who walks us straight into the ER treatment area; takes J’s info. The place is quiet, a couple of nurses and lots of empty treatment areas. The nurse looks at J’s eye and walks off, very little English is understood here or spoken. As we wait, gurneys and emergencies start to roll in: trauma victims with head wounds, drunks; old man intubated to assist breathing; a mother carrying a new born crying; doctors and assistants quickly appear; we are feeling very out of place. The nurse returns as takes J out of the ER and around the corner to an out-patient office, a large examation room with three other patients waiting to see the doctor who’s discussing another patients issue in front of the other patients. Privacy: none. J, to her surprise, is seen before the locals who have been waiting. I was asked to wait in the large public area. J was finished in less than 15 minutes, declared the eye was Not Dangerous, prescribed eye drops and asked to come back in three days to be seen by the eye doctor. We were escorted to a window, issued a hospital card and sent to another window for the prescription and a patch. All took only a few minutes and cost less that $3US. Then back to ER, now in full swing and full view where life and death take place gurney next to gurney. The baby leaves in his mothers arms, the sheet is pulled up over the old man and the wounded drunk can barely sit up and feels no pain. The nurse administers J’s drops and patches her eye. We say our thank you’s and leave. How different this is from the medical care we are use to in the States. We were well treated and treated first, to our chagrin.
August 29 Thailand/Kanchanaburi Weltreise 2007 >
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August 18 Thailand/Dam Neon Suduak Weltreise 2007
The floating market has long ago become a tourist attraction, shedding its traditional flavor of selling necessities to the Thai’s and today selling souvenirs to the hordes of tourists being pled, paddled and motored along the few working canals lined with sellers and food vendors.
After our1 ½ hour tour, we mounted Bici and began our 100+km ride to Kachananburi, the town near the Bridge over the River Kwai. We stopped for a bit at a wood carving center and also took photographs at a voting place as the country was voting on a new referendum for the new government since the coup took place last year. The road signs were all in Thai on the small back roads awe attempted to ride, so of course, we go lost and wove our way through gorgeous agricultural areas, almost devoid of trash and lightly populated. This is probably the prettiest cycling we have encountered in Thailand. Despite the beauty, it was still a very hard bicycling day with high temps and us sweating buckets, suffering sore bottoms, feet and hands.
Two hours in the ER. Judee’s left eye is filling with blood, slowly turning red and today she started feeling pressure. Uh Oh! We better get this looked at. So off to the local hospital 5km from our guest house. We park Bici at the entrance to the open air ER entrance and enter the crowded waiting area and wander up to the guard. He takes us to a nurse who walks us straight into the ER treatment area; takes J’s info. The place is quiet, a couple of nurses and lots of empty treatment areas. The nurse looks at J’s eye and walks off, very little English is understood here or spoken. As we wait, gurneys and emergencies start to roll in: trauma victims with head wounds, drunks; old man intubated to assist breathing; a mother carrying a new born crying; doctors and assistants quickly appear; we are feeling very out of place. The nurse returns as takes J out of the ER and around the corner to an out-patient office, a large examation room with three other patients waiting to see the doctor who’s discussing another patients issue in front of the other patients. Privacy: none. J, to her surprise, is seen before the locals who have been waiting. I was asked to wait in the large public area. J was finished in less than 15 minutes, declared the eye was Not Dangerous, prescribed eye drops and asked to come back in three days to be seen by the eye doctor. We were escorted to a window, issued a hospital card and sent to another window for the prescription and a patch. All took only a few minutes and cost less that $3US. Then back to ER, now in full swing and full view where life and death take place gurney next to gurney. The baby leaves in his mothers arms, the sheet is pulled up over the old man and the wounded drunk can barely sit up and feels no pain. The nurse administers J’s drops and patches her eye. We say our thank you’s and leave. How different this is from the medical care we are use to in the States. We were well treated and treated first, to our chagrin.
