From Thailand to home

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Hey All,

Well, in fact, we are now back in Vancouver sleeping in our lovely bed with clean, soft sheets. But, we must tell you about the last few days of the Southeast Asia journey. To sum it up, they were a mix of heaven and hell.

We decided to take the overnight train from Chiang Mai to Bangkok and we both were looking forward to the train ride. All was going well. The train was comfy and not crowded. About 2 hours into the ride, the train suddenly stopped. We thought it just had to wait for another train to pass or something, but after about an hour we realized that something was going on. We didn’t get any info until a kid in a youth group told us “the wild water of the woods was covering the tracks.” It seems there was some sort of flood and the tracks were damaged, so we had to go back to Chiang Mai. Needless to say, it was total chaos at the train station when we got back as hundreds of people from several trains now had to get to Bangkok another way. The train company had arranged buses to take us to Bangkok. We had taken the train to avoid the long bus ride, but now we had no choice. We went over to wait for space on a bus with a few others. There were not enough seats left on the remaining bus for all of us and we thought they would get another bus for us, but no! Finally, they found a bus that could accommodate all of us, but us remainders (8 of us) had to sit in the ‘dungeon’. Basically, we were sitting in the baggage hold, which was like a crawl space with sofa-like seats where, normally, the spare driver rests. It was sort of humourous and at least the others we were stuck with were good peeps. So we tried to get some sleep in our mangled, uncomfortable positions, however, at about 4 a.m. the bus suddenly stopped. Everyone piled out of the bus and saw that one of the tires studs had sheared off and the tire was leaning at a precarious angle. The driver said another bus was coming at 6 a.m, so we all tried to get more sleep. Instead of another bus coming, they had sent a guy in a pick-up with some tools. We were then told that the bus wouldn’t be fixed for another 6 hours! To add to all of this, David was starting to feel really crappy (nausea, fever, aching…). Anyway, we didn’t want to wait for the crappy bus so some of us flagged down a passing local bus and they took us to the bus station in the closest town. We finally made it into the craziness of Bangkok about 24 hours after our trip had begun!
To make us feel a bit human again, we splurged and stayed at a fancy hotel close to a hospital so we could find out what was wrong with David. As it turns out, it was not malaria, or Dengue Fever (which the doctor thought it might be), but was just some nasty viral infection. The Bumrungrund Hospital is a very efficient, well-run place, should you ever need to visit a hospital in Bangkok. It’s sort of like a medical hotel in a way.
We had to hang around the chaos that is Bangkok for 3 days until the doctor could rule out Dengue Fever. So, when David was feeling better we booted out of town for a few days of beach time on Koh Samet before we had to fly home. The island had lovely sandy beaches and water in the Gulf of Thailand was the perfect temperature to cool off in.
After three days it was back to the big city for last minute attempts at shopping and one more sleep before catching the long place rides home. After the craziness of the terrible journey from Chiang Mai to Bangkok, the 15 hours in plane rides home was almost comfortable.
Really, we enjoyed Cambodia and Laos immensely and saw amazing things and met great people. We also were amazed by the resiliency of the Cambodian people after living through the horrors of the Khmer Rouge. Thailand was definitely beautiful and Thai people were friendly, but also definitely more westernized and consumer driven than the other two places. The ever present scenes of the Thai sex trade were also not pleasant. So, if you want beaches and cheap knock-off Lacoste shirts, go to Thailand and if you want to see amazing cultural sites, eat yummy food (that you haven’t tried before) and generally, get the more honest feel of a country, go to Cambodia and Laos (before Starbucks & McDees invades them too).

See y’all soon, once we get over the jet lag!!!!!!

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