this morning, when one of the nurses came in to take a blood sample, i was watching this show about these parents raising sextuplets. it wasn't jon and kate plus 8. it was some other show literally called "raising sextuplets," which i thought was weird cuz hello, don't you remember jon and kate plus 8 and what a disaster that turned out to be?
anyway, so i'm watching this show and the kids are all 16 months old. cute babies transcend international differences, so the nurse immediately goes, "awww!" and sort of giggles.
"she had six babies at once," i explained, "like a dog." the nurse laughed and asked a bunch of medical things--how did she hold all of them in her belly, did she have a natural birth, blah blah. so we talked about them for a while and laughed a bunch about this couple who had six babies.
"where is she from?" nurse asked
"the usa."
then i tried to explain that the reason these people had six children at once was cuz of fertility drugs. she looked at me confused, so i tried explaining again but with different words. no luck.
"in cambodia, people only have two or three babies at a time, never six."
it's probably a safe bet to say fertility drugs have yet to reach developing countries.
5.5.10
4.5.10
how many times have you gone pee pee?
hospital, day three. well, sort of day three...i didn't check in until like 5 pm on sunday, so that doesn't really count as a full day...whatever.
i'm feeling really good right now, but i also took four pills to help my body about an hour and a half ago, so that might have something to do with it.
they took the iv out of me this morning cuz the doctor says i can eat and drink well enough on my own. actually, my ability to hydrate myself has proven a bit shocking to everyone here. my fever was pretty bad one day and the nurse was like "drink more water and your fever will go down." and i was like "MAN anything to get rid of this crap!"
brb, medicine time.
oooh, when they flush out the iv with saline its weird. i guess i still get some form of iv medicine cuz the nurse just hooked it up. this whole iv business is real bizarre and i dunno if i can ever eat at iv drip anymore.
anyway, so i've been drinking a lot of fluids, and the nurses keep asking how many bottles i've had. my favorite nurse, trey, asked me last night how many times i'd gone "pee pee." like a thousand, friend. my main activities right now are sleeping, drinking water/juice, peeing, and dreading the next time i have to eat. i have almost zero appetite usually, but i need sodium and everything in your body works better when you have food, so i have to force it down. but they bring me this gross looking food from the hotel and i can't stomach it. actually, the food's prob not so bad to a person without dengue fever, but i can't do strongly flavored food right now. bleh. i want american food.
the angle my wrist is at is bad for the iv, so i better go. more updates soon.
3.5.10
so i'm in the hospital
i have dysentery and dengue fever.
the dystentery's almost gone (so much easier to take care of nowadays than when i was back on the oregon trail) cuz i'm hooked up to an iv and on antibiotics for that.
dengue fever, however, has no cure but time. it made my sodium low and made me dehydrated, so i've also got myself plugged into this iv for those things. dengue just takes time--about a week--and i'm only on day for, so i'll prob be here a few more days.
"here," btw, is in the royal angkor international hospital in siem reap, cambodia.
"OH MYGOD, nicki, cambodia?! you must be getting hundreds more diseases just being there!"
false. this is one of the fanciest hospitals i've ever been in--impeccably clean, super sweet doctors and nurses, flat screen tv with a bunch of english channels...not a bad place to be.
so this illness is why i've been MIA from the blog for a few days. oops. now i'm feeling kind of sleepy so imma go watch some movie and take a rest and close my eyes.
the dystentery's almost gone (so much easier to take care of nowadays than when i was back on the oregon trail) cuz i'm hooked up to an iv and on antibiotics for that.
dengue fever, however, has no cure but time. it made my sodium low and made me dehydrated, so i've also got myself plugged into this iv for those things. dengue just takes time--about a week--and i'm only on day for, so i'll prob be here a few more days.
"here," btw, is in the royal angkor international hospital in siem reap, cambodia.
"OH MYGOD, nicki, cambodia?! you must be getting hundreds more diseases just being there!"
false. this is one of the fanciest hospitals i've ever been in--impeccably clean, super sweet doctors and nurses, flat screen tv with a bunch of english channels...not a bad place to be.
so this illness is why i've been MIA from the blog for a few days. oops. now i'm feeling kind of sleepy so imma go watch some movie and take a rest and close my eyes.
27.4.10
a songtau ride, a van ride, a car ride, a bus ride, and another van ride later...
AND WE'RE IN CAMBODIA, BABY!!!
sarah, maddy, and i got into trat yesterday in the late afternoon. we'd planned on staying in the sa hotel there, but the lost driver pulled over at pop's guesthouse to ask for directions. sunny, the owner at pop's, was of course like "ohhhh, why you go there? here, it's very nice! very quiet! let me show you! i give you a discount!" sunny ended up being a really sweet woman and she hooked it up with a bitchin room on the river, so we stayed there instead. she had these awesome toenails and we were like "wow, your toenails are really awesome" and she was like "oooh!! you can get them done too for only 100 baht!" so later she sent us over to her nail place and we got the MOST BEAUTIFULLY ASIAN PEDICURES EVER.
anyway, i bet you wish i'd get to the part about cambodia, huh? we told sunny we were on our way to sihanoukville and she said she could sell us tickets. we were wary. we've been told not to buy international package deals--who's to say that bus the thai woman promises is waiting at the cambodian border will be there? but sunny seemed like a trustworthy woman, and she said we could leave at 9 am, while lonely planet had us leaving at 6 am (and she told us even earlier, if we wanted to catch this specific bus at the border). so we decided to trust sunny and buy her ticket.
lo and behold, here we are now, sitting in sihanoukville, not paying one riel more for any travel. amazing.
we got in this van in trat and at first we thought it was just gonna be the three of us, which would have been awesome. but then these six thai/cambodian (?) guys got in and they were disgusting...hacking up spit the whole time, talking real loud, bringing on their gross dried fish food. ew. we finally ditched them and got to the border. we walked up to this booth on the thai side, where the woman checked out and stamped our passports. confused, i leaned in and asked where we go to now."
"walk down to cambodia,"she said, and pointed down the road. well, ok then, it's time to walk to cambodia.
so the three of us white girls walked 100 yards down the road and to the cambodian border crossing area, where we immediately became the spectacle of the hour. we gave a guy our passports and e-visas for cambodia, signed some stuff, got our heads zapped for our temperatures, and sat down for a while--joined by about six cambodian men just fascinated by our white skin. they were making fun of each other, joking about a fat one being pregnant and wanting to switch skin with us (a guy and i made a deal to cut off our arms and sew them to one another's bodies). sarah and i started crying from laughing. cambodia: instant thumbs up.
the cambodian guy who spke the best english escorted us into his camry then down to koh kong, where we were supposed to catch a bus with this magic ticket. he chatted with us about cambodia, flirted with a tollbooth girl, and spit some slang at us like i've never heard in asia. he dropped us at a bus and off he went, leaving us with these two guys who tried SO HARD to get sar and i to say some word like "giel" but with some insane accent thingy and you had to make your throat do something crazy...i dunno. when we went to the bathroom, three girls ran up to us to ask for money, then just sort of hung around, smiling and giggling.
we got on the bus and took off at noon for a crappy, real bumpy bus ride through gorgeous cambodian countryside. i'll have to show you pictures. we stopped at this random podunk market-ish place, where we switched to a van with the driver, the three of us, this one thai guy who would not stop talking to me despite us not speaking the same language, and a cute family of four with the most adorable children i've ever seen. the little boy and i started playing but then that talky guy just kept trying to talk to me. after FOREVER (slash maybe an hour) he finally got off.
around 4 pm, we hit sihanoukville. the driver tried to ask us for more money, but we just kind of said no and walked away awkwardly. we checked into our beachside bungalow at tranquility inn, and now i'm friggin starving cuz we haven't eaten real food in hours. dinnertime.
sarah, maddy, and i got into trat yesterday in the late afternoon. we'd planned on staying in the sa hotel there, but the lost driver pulled over at pop's guesthouse to ask for directions. sunny, the owner at pop's, was of course like "ohhhh, why you go there? here, it's very nice! very quiet! let me show you! i give you a discount!" sunny ended up being a really sweet woman and she hooked it up with a bitchin room on the river, so we stayed there instead. she had these awesome toenails and we were like "wow, your toenails are really awesome" and she was like "oooh!! you can get them done too for only 100 baht!" so later she sent us over to her nail place and we got the MOST BEAUTIFULLY ASIAN PEDICURES EVER.
anyway, i bet you wish i'd get to the part about cambodia, huh? we told sunny we were on our way to sihanoukville and she said she could sell us tickets. we were wary. we've been told not to buy international package deals--who's to say that bus the thai woman promises is waiting at the cambodian border will be there? but sunny seemed like a trustworthy woman, and she said we could leave at 9 am, while lonely planet had us leaving at 6 am (and she told us even earlier, if we wanted to catch this specific bus at the border). so we decided to trust sunny and buy her ticket.
lo and behold, here we are now, sitting in sihanoukville, not paying one riel more for any travel. amazing.
we got in this van in trat and at first we thought it was just gonna be the three of us, which would have been awesome. but then these six thai/cambodian (?) guys got in and they were disgusting...hacking up spit the whole time, talking real loud, bringing on their gross dried fish food. ew. we finally ditched them and got to the border. we walked up to this booth on the thai side, where the woman checked out and stamped our passports. confused, i leaned in and asked where we go to now."
"walk down to cambodia,"she said, and pointed down the road. well, ok then, it's time to walk to cambodia.
so the three of us white girls walked 100 yards down the road and to the cambodian border crossing area, where we immediately became the spectacle of the hour. we gave a guy our passports and e-visas for cambodia, signed some stuff, got our heads zapped for our temperatures, and sat down for a while--joined by about six cambodian men just fascinated by our white skin. they were making fun of each other, joking about a fat one being pregnant and wanting to switch skin with us (a guy and i made a deal to cut off our arms and sew them to one another's bodies). sarah and i started crying from laughing. cambodia: instant thumbs up.
the cambodian guy who spke the best english escorted us into his camry then down to koh kong, where we were supposed to catch a bus with this magic ticket. he chatted with us about cambodia, flirted with a tollbooth girl, and spit some slang at us like i've never heard in asia. he dropped us at a bus and off he went, leaving us with these two guys who tried SO HARD to get sar and i to say some word like "giel" but with some insane accent thingy and you had to make your throat do something crazy...i dunno. when we went to the bathroom, three girls ran up to us to ask for money, then just sort of hung around, smiling and giggling.
we got on the bus and took off at noon for a crappy, real bumpy bus ride through gorgeous cambodian countryside. i'll have to show you pictures. we stopped at this random podunk market-ish place, where we switched to a van with the driver, the three of us, this one thai guy who would not stop talking to me despite us not speaking the same language, and a cute family of four with the most adorable children i've ever seen. the little boy and i started playing but then that talky guy just kept trying to talk to me. after FOREVER (slash maybe an hour) he finally got off.
around 4 pm, we hit sihanoukville. the driver tried to ask us for more money, but we just kind of said no and walked away awkwardly. we checked into our beachside bungalow at tranquility inn, and now i'm friggin starving cuz we haven't eaten real food in hours. dinnertime.
25.4.10
trying to remember everything
i'm never gonna be able to do it. but i'll try writing some stuff down here in a feeble* attempt anyway.
koh chang is indeed as beautiful as everyone says. for months, people have been telling us about the spectaularness of koh chang. "you have to go to koh chang. it's amazing. you have to go."
and here we are and i'm telling you, nobody's been lying. it's a HUGE island (it takes probably at least 45 minutes to drive from one end to another) and the middle is this lush, jungly, mountainous national park, which tapers off to a gorgeous shore, lined with white sand, palm trees, and huge boulders. we hiked to a waterfall two days ago and even though it's dry season and "water trickle" is a more appropriate name, it was awesome. maddy and i jumped in to the first natural cold water we've seen in six months.
by the way, april 20th marked six months in thailand (!!!) which means i'm closer to coming home now that i was to leaving home. time continues to baffle me.
anyway, we started off in lonely beach, which lonely planet and travelfish (my travel bibles) said were "backpacker heaven." i expected tons of cheap bungalows, lots of places to eat, and more young travelers than i could count. instead, we found a handful of places to stay (cheap-ish), about three restaurants (one of which had TERRIBLE AWFUL service--they looked at us with disgust, like actually ordering food at your restaurant was a crime), and i think i counted all of 27 other people in the area. we stayed at nature resort for two nights, which was nice and cute but again, it was on this beach where there was nothing to do. not even a 7-11 or any place to get snacks/use an atm. backpacker heaven my butt...unless backpacker heaven means a couple bars that play really loud bob marley/dance beats all night. but if that's what backpacker heaven is, i don't think i'm a backpacker.
we moved up the west coast to white sand beach last night to one of the cutest places i've ever stayed in. it's this janky little bungalow-on-the-beach situation, all wooden and thatch, and some really nice people work here (customer service goes a long way...cough cough people on lonely beach cough). it's a second story place with steps that literally lead to the sand and a porch that overlooks the ocean. sarah, maddy, and i are sharing a double bed, but it's no big deal cuz we've got a/c (ahhhhh!!). we thought we had three nights here on white sand beach but when we looked at a calendar, we realized we only had two. then we all got really sad.
we've gotten a couple massages, done some awesome shopping, gone elephant trekking (where i got asked out by a thai elephant trainer), hiked a couple times (note: do not go to than mayom in the dry season. it is dry), had some of the most delicious shakes i've ever had in thailand, and spent a lot of quality times with our books. koh chang, you've been pretty damn good to us.
tomorrow we're leaving for trat, where we'll be for just a night before we skip off to the cambodian border and head down in to sihanoukville. after a few days there, we'll head into phnom penh. in an ironic twist, i actually feel safer traveling to phnom penh than i do to bangkok right now. thank goodness we won't be back in the bkk for at least three weeks.
for now, i'm gonna go catch up on some fbook and some ny times and some digg, cuz even though i'm on a phenomenal island, i still love my internet :-)
*this is a silly word.
koh chang is indeed as beautiful as everyone says. for months, people have been telling us about the spectaularness of koh chang. "you have to go to koh chang. it's amazing. you have to go."
and here we are and i'm telling you, nobody's been lying. it's a HUGE island (it takes probably at least 45 minutes to drive from one end to another) and the middle is this lush, jungly, mountainous national park, which tapers off to a gorgeous shore, lined with white sand, palm trees, and huge boulders. we hiked to a waterfall two days ago and even though it's dry season and "water trickle" is a more appropriate name, it was awesome. maddy and i jumped in to the first natural cold water we've seen in six months.
by the way, april 20th marked six months in thailand (!!!) which means i'm closer to coming home now that i was to leaving home. time continues to baffle me.
anyway, we started off in lonely beach, which lonely planet and travelfish (my travel bibles) said were "backpacker heaven." i expected tons of cheap bungalows, lots of places to eat, and more young travelers than i could count. instead, we found a handful of places to stay (cheap-ish), about three restaurants (one of which had TERRIBLE AWFUL service--they looked at us with disgust, like actually ordering food at your restaurant was a crime), and i think i counted all of 27 other people in the area. we stayed at nature resort for two nights, which was nice and cute but again, it was on this beach where there was nothing to do. not even a 7-11 or any place to get snacks/use an atm. backpacker heaven my butt...unless backpacker heaven means a couple bars that play really loud bob marley/dance beats all night. but if that's what backpacker heaven is, i don't think i'm a backpacker.
we moved up the west coast to white sand beach last night to one of the cutest places i've ever stayed in. it's this janky little bungalow-on-the-beach situation, all wooden and thatch, and some really nice people work here (customer service goes a long way...cough cough people on lonely beach cough). it's a second story place with steps that literally lead to the sand and a porch that overlooks the ocean. sarah, maddy, and i are sharing a double bed, but it's no big deal cuz we've got a/c (ahhhhh!!). we thought we had three nights here on white sand beach but when we looked at a calendar, we realized we only had two. then we all got really sad.
we've gotten a couple massages, done some awesome shopping, gone elephant trekking (where i got asked out by a thai elephant trainer), hiked a couple times (note: do not go to than mayom in the dry season. it is dry), had some of the most delicious shakes i've ever had in thailand, and spent a lot of quality times with our books. koh chang, you've been pretty damn good to us.
tomorrow we're leaving for trat, where we'll be for just a night before we skip off to the cambodian border and head down in to sihanoukville. after a few days there, we'll head into phnom penh. in an ironic twist, i actually feel safer traveling to phnom penh than i do to bangkok right now. thank goodness we won't be back in the bkk for at least three weeks.
for now, i'm gonna go catch up on some fbook and some ny times and some digg, cuz even though i'm on a phenomenal island, i still love my internet :-)
*this is a silly word.
22.4.10
sand in my toes
SARAH'S HEREEEEEEEEEE! it's awesome and simultaneously bizarre. here we are, hanging out in thailand, just like it's nbd. the first night she got here we went to the mall to get her a camera, then came back and watched tv. having people from home here has been great, not just cuz i get to show off thailand, but (more importantly and selfishly) i get a little taste of home that i've been craving so much.
we started in bangkok, but we were only there one night cuz of those damn protests. we hightailed out of there to koh samet, which is easily one of my favorite islands. tons of white sandy beach, warm water with just enough waves to give you that feeling of still being in the ocean when you're lying in bed at night, good food, fire dancers...*sigh*
also, it's HOT AS *$&% here. when all of the teachers/thai people i know were like, "get out of thailand in april," i was like "yeah, right, you guys. it's been pretty hot this whole time and i've been handling it. i bet it's not so bad." up in chiang mai, it wasn't bad at all--hell, i even got cold (granted, i was soaking wet, but still). now that we're down south, HOLY CRAP it's hot. we just spend the days sweating. sarah and i walked around victory monument in bangkok shopping with our backpacks on and just sweat on every vendor. in koh samet, every minute spent away from the beach breeze was a sweaty moment. this hot season in thailand is real serious, apparently.
we're in koh chang now until the 26th. five glorious nights on this huge island. tomorrow we're headed on a hike to a waterfall, and we've got plans to ride elephants. life's really hard.
we started in bangkok, but we were only there one night cuz of those damn protests. we hightailed out of there to koh samet, which is easily one of my favorite islands. tons of white sandy beach, warm water with just enough waves to give you that feeling of still being in the ocean when you're lying in bed at night, good food, fire dancers...*sigh*
also, it's HOT AS *$&% here. when all of the teachers/thai people i know were like, "get out of thailand in april," i was like "yeah, right, you guys. it's been pretty hot this whole time and i've been handling it. i bet it's not so bad." up in chiang mai, it wasn't bad at all--hell, i even got cold (granted, i was soaking wet, but still). now that we're down south, HOLY CRAP it's hot. we just spend the days sweating. sarah and i walked around victory monument in bangkok shopping with our backpacks on and just sweat on every vendor. in koh samet, every minute spent away from the beach breeze was a sweaty moment. this hot season in thailand is real serious, apparently.
we're in koh chang now until the 26th. five glorious nights on this huge island. tomorrow we're headed on a hike to a waterfall, and we've got plans to ride elephants. life's really hard.
18.4.10
i want chiang mai to be my home
i've been up here for about a week now. i love this city.
songkran was amazing and it's hard for me to put it into words, but i didn't take any pictures so i won't really have a way to remember except with my words so here i go, trying anyway.
songkran is the thai new year's multi-day celebration. they have a whole bunch of activities--the thais go to temple one morning, parades happen, praying to buddha happens, people make merit, etc. etc. but the main part--the super awesome part that makes songkran the best thai holiday yet--is the water fight. this is no child's play. everyone's equipped with intense water guns (mine was hooked up to a backpack filled with water so i was SUPER PREPARED) and buckets. from monday afternoon to thursday evening, any time i went outside, i got wet. people stood outside their guesthouses pointing hoses at passersby; kids stood near trashcans full of water and doused anyone who dared pass; white people everywhere carried loaded guns constantly aimed in front of them. all of this happens throughout every street of the city (chiang mai had the biggest celebration this year, and apparently it originated up north).
"but nicki, if you're in the street, where do you get the water?"
astute question, curious reader. there's a canal that runs around the "old city" part of chiang mai. it's filled with water, which is great, but it's also got some trash and mystery diseases and nasty unidentifiable stuff. at first i was real grossed out by it but then i learned to cope by keeping my mouth closed and just resigning myself to the fact that i was picking up gross germs. also, everyone else was doing it.
oh man, so we hung out on this main street pretty much all day. part of the street is blocked off, but on the part that's not, trucks drive down with a handful (slash maybe 20) people in the bed of the truck, along with a trash bucket full of water. any time these people passed us, we got drenched.
OH then there was this douchebag move people did where they bought ice and stuck it in said trash buckets of water so when they dumped water on our heads it was FREEZING COLD. for the first time ever in thailand i was cold outside. oh, btw, april's supposedly the hottest month of the year here (it's the last of the dry season), but honestly, it's been way hotter than this and i think thai people are lying to me about the weather.
anyway, i have so many little specific songkran stories (foam parties, dancing kids, masks, a guy on acid, doing the ymca but being the only people who knew the lyrics/dance), but i think they're the type that'll have to come out in conversation throughout the years.
now it's about 3 in the afternoon on my last day in chiang mai (sadface). i'm hopping on an overnight train to bangkok in a few hours and tomorrow i'm picking up sarah from the airport for our two weeks of beachy adventures. we're headed to koh samet, koh chang in thailand, then i'm making sarah do a crazy thing and come in to cambodia with us. it's gonna be beautiful and i can't wait to get into the country, but everything i've read says it's just tougher to travel there than in thailand. but by that point she'll have been in thailand for a week so i figure she'll be a regular.
btw, the protests in bangkok are still big and slightly dangerous, but in all honesty, us white folk are pretty safe. we're clearly not part of the political demonstrations and because of that, we're usually left out of the bad stuff. but even so, i'm keeping a close eye on everything and plan on avoiding the city center as much as possible tomorrow/the next day, and we'll get to koh samet asap. like we need an excuse to get to an island faster.
songkran was amazing and it's hard for me to put it into words, but i didn't take any pictures so i won't really have a way to remember except with my words so here i go, trying anyway.
songkran is the thai new year's multi-day celebration. they have a whole bunch of activities--the thais go to temple one morning, parades happen, praying to buddha happens, people make merit, etc. etc. but the main part--the super awesome part that makes songkran the best thai holiday yet--is the water fight. this is no child's play. everyone's equipped with intense water guns (mine was hooked up to a backpack filled with water so i was SUPER PREPARED) and buckets. from monday afternoon to thursday evening, any time i went outside, i got wet. people stood outside their guesthouses pointing hoses at passersby; kids stood near trashcans full of water and doused anyone who dared pass; white people everywhere carried loaded guns constantly aimed in front of them. all of this happens throughout every street of the city (chiang mai had the biggest celebration this year, and apparently it originated up north).
"but nicki, if you're in the street, where do you get the water?"
astute question, curious reader. there's a canal that runs around the "old city" part of chiang mai. it's filled with water, which is great, but it's also got some trash and mystery diseases and nasty unidentifiable stuff. at first i was real grossed out by it but then i learned to cope by keeping my mouth closed and just resigning myself to the fact that i was picking up gross germs. also, everyone else was doing it.
oh man, so we hung out on this main street pretty much all day. part of the street is blocked off, but on the part that's not, trucks drive down with a handful (slash maybe 20) people in the bed of the truck, along with a trash bucket full of water. any time these people passed us, we got drenched.
OH then there was this douchebag move people did where they bought ice and stuck it in said trash buckets of water so when they dumped water on our heads it was FREEZING COLD. for the first time ever in thailand i was cold outside. oh, btw, april's supposedly the hottest month of the year here (it's the last of the dry season), but honestly, it's been way hotter than this and i think thai people are lying to me about the weather.
anyway, i have so many little specific songkran stories (foam parties, dancing kids, masks, a guy on acid, doing the ymca but being the only people who knew the lyrics/dance), but i think they're the type that'll have to come out in conversation throughout the years.
now it's about 3 in the afternoon on my last day in chiang mai (sadface). i'm hopping on an overnight train to bangkok in a few hours and tomorrow i'm picking up sarah from the airport for our two weeks of beachy adventures. we're headed to koh samet, koh chang in thailand, then i'm making sarah do a crazy thing and come in to cambodia with us. it's gonna be beautiful and i can't wait to get into the country, but everything i've read says it's just tougher to travel there than in thailand. but by that point she'll have been in thailand for a week so i figure she'll be a regular.
btw, the protests in bangkok are still big and slightly dangerous, but in all honesty, us white folk are pretty safe. we're clearly not part of the political demonstrations and because of that, we're usually left out of the bad stuff. but even so, i'm keeping a close eye on everything and plan on avoiding the city center as much as possible tomorrow/the next day, and we'll get to koh samet asap. like we need an excuse to get to an island faster.
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