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Published: June 20th 2008
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Since my last entry its been a rather interesting time, and this is kind of the reason why its taken me so long to write. Unfortunately I had some health troubles in Vientiane and some scrapes I got on my arm (from falling off a motorbike in Vang Vieng) got badly infected. Im not sure how this happened, could have been the river water, my low immune system from hitting the booze so hard in Vang Vieng or the basic fact that Im a stinky traveller who leaves days between washing ;-) Regardless, it really hurt and it scared the beejeezus out of me when my mozzie bites got infected and a couple of impressive boils popped up on my face!! Of course I will spare you any photographic evidence of this for my sake and yours...
So we spent around 5/6 days in Vientiane and for most of it I moaned and cried and generally became the biggest annoyance the world has ever seen...well at least for the people I was travelling with. Paul kindly bandged me up so I felt like it was at least protected, however, when I took the bandage of two days later it was
She made me do it!!!
This wee place was cool (but expensive!) and we spent a lot of time talking to Joy - he tried to teach us Laos as best he could, bless. seriously worse, the infection had spread and sheer mountains of puss were squirting from my arm and running all over the place. Suffice to say I wasnt taking this too well. Agnes had gone off to spend a day with a monk at budda park (how cool!) so I hot footed it to the international clinic to get me some treatment.....oh dear I really didnt expect what was going to happen next. The doctor took one look at me and said that it was pretty serious and I needed very strong anti-biotics. He then proceeded to tell me it would be in the form of an IV injection, at which point I alerted him to the fact that Im terrified of needles.
He didnt really care of course so then I had to go to three different places to pay and get the medication for my injection. After I had returned and handed it to the nurse she proceeded to fill up the biggest needle I have ever seen in my life and I quietly died inside. As soon as the tourniquet was on me the tears came. Im such a jessy. So much of a jessy in fact
that the tears pretty much lasted the rest of the day, I guess I was feeling super down about my condition and it was very much the first time I had felt like coming home. I had made such a scene also that the doctor had to change my subsequent prescription as he wanted me to come back for more of the same injections over three consecutive days. Instead, he prescibed me some anti-biotics in pill form. Thankfully Im on the mend and my arm looks a helluva lot better. Its so easy to get wounds infected here cause everywhere is so humid, and it takes such a long time for them to heal. So anyway, moan over.
Other exciting events in Vientiane were few and far between over the 5/6 days but we had some good times. On the 'hospital day', Agnes and I were walking beside the fountain and the familiar faces of two such 'Danny and Rachels' were bobbing in our direction. It was sooooooooooooo good to see them and it instantly gave me a lift! They had been up through Cambodia and Vietnam and ended up in Laos at the same time. I knew there
was a chance we could meet but not as easily as this! So we ate cake, drank coffee and caught up. That night we met up and ended up at a French hip hop gig at the circus. It was one of the best nights we've had, and so surreal. Good music and lots of dancing, I thought Agnes was about to launch herself onto some distant planet with the excitment she was clearly exuding and the moves she was pullin'. All in all things started to get much better.
We had met some cool Lao guys who worked in a little (very quiet) Jazz bar and had built up some more Laos phrases to showcase as we moved around. If you know a few more phrases than please, hello and thank you in Laos it is such an advantage, the locals instantly warm to you and strike up a conversation. This became something that Agnes and I did everywhere and it has been one element that has made my time in Laos so special. Laos people are so warm, humble and calm. Three things which we should strive to be in our busy western lives I reckon, but
with the lovely Danny & Rach
Danny's expression makes me wee who am I to preach. Unfotunately it seemed to be a bad time of year for meditation - unless you wanted a 10 day retreat where you just dont speak...I thought this could be a bit too intense for me so we just decided to visit our monk on our last day. Agnes and I got bikes and cycled around asking people and monks where this temple was. Turns out it was a wee bit further out of town near the airpoirt at this lovely chilled out temple. The welcoming scene was odd. An old monk in a wheelchair smoking and rambling, behind him a monkey jumping about a cage and playing with one of the monk's orange robe. Agnes and I were so excited we had found Monk Siphone...he was sleeping in his wee hut when we arrived so it took him a while to adjust, and I guess also to recognise us. He was pretty chuffed though and gave us a book about buddhism. He then showed us around and we chatted buddhism a while. At the end of June Siphone will no longer be a monk after 12 years! He said we should come back to Vientiane
in July and drink beer with him :-) we laughed.
And then we got back just in time to get our tuk-tuk to the bus station. Not many travellers do the local bus route and it shows at the bus station. Agnes and I tried to get food at both restaurants that were there and they had no English menus and basically just said no! But then Agnes worked her charm and got us both 'essentially' a bowl of rice with a few slim pickins on top. I guess this would have to do us for the 10 hour journey to Savvannakhet.
Ok, second entry will come real soon - its been a while!
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Dad
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Now will you be told - Be Careful!
Hi there sepsis - hope the arm is much better now and I'm so sorry they attacked you with a horse injection. You seem to be battling on tho, cocktail in hand. Intrigued as to why the Monk had a monkey and for that matter why monkeys are called monkeys - does it have anything to do with Monks? I shall investigate. Got to go now - off to old hospital with some infected Bouganvillea scratches - yeah and I'm telling you to be careful! Love you. X