That's Travel For You

The following is a post written by Becca, my beautiful and amazingly talented girlfriend, about some of her experiences in Thailand.

I unintentionally had the opportunity to see a fair amount of Thailand from the perspective of a hospital gurney. This all started in Kanchanaburi, about 3 hours north of Bangkok, where I confirmed my suspected inability to control any transportation involving a motor - I already had two car crashes under my belt before this incident.

Patrick and I had decided to kill a few birds with one motor scooter by renting one for the day (200 baht, about 8 USD), aiming to see Hellfire Pass, Erawan Falls, and Wat Bam Tham all before dusk. So, knowing me well enough, you can guess which of us insisted on driving the scooter first. As I had never driven one in my life, I cautiously set aside about 8 minutes of practice before hitting the busy main road.

Fate made her disagreement with our plans apparent once we hit the big intersection that would have begun our way toward Hellfire Pass. The scooter’s motor died once we came to a stop, so I subsequently freaked out, restarted it, accelerated too quickly, swivelled out of control, and fell and skidded along the concrete with Patrick quite close behind (literally- he was sitting on the same scooter). The scooter was luckily inches away from being run over by a bus and nothing broke but the mirrors and a fair amount of skin. That’s the main jist of what happened. But the real lessons came from the events that followed.
 As I paced back and forth, gauged the moveability of my left shoulder and picked some rocks out of my arm, Patrick broke a serious sweat as he ran to the convenience store across the street, bought some baby wipes for our wounds, and tried to communicate to the girl working there that we needed to get to a hospital. I remember the hawker standing near us, staring at me while I cried. There were no taxis allowed in Kanchanaburi so we didn’t have that option. The girl eventually understood our situation and ended up calling us an ambulance. In fact, this was the first time I had ever been in one.
 Kanchanaburi Memorial Hospital was the first of four hospitals that I visited. On the day of the accident and two more after, Patrick and I took turns standing next to each others’ gernies and holding each others’ hands during re-dressings. He also held my arms and legs while I squirmed and cussed at everything in the room. By the last day in Kanchanaburi, I almost didn’t go back- who wants to go through all that time and effort just to inflict pain on yourself? I was getting particularly fed up with not being able to bathe on my own. But I was pacified by a certain nurse who reminded me so much of my Popo that I wanted to cry. And Patrick was strong enough to keep both of us going.
 We were instructed to have our wounds professionally re-dressed every day until they were healed enough to stop- whenever that supposedly would be. Patrick was on his way back to the States a couple days later anyway. As my itinerary involved a bit more gypsy-like drifting, these instructions required me to find a new hospital at every stop I made for the next, well, while.

My second hospital was in a little town called Phitsanulok (2 visits total). Here I had a really hard time finding just one person who spoke more English than “thank you.” I eventually happed upon Ball, a 30-year-old guy who coincidentally had a job stationed in the US and was home on vacation for that week- SERIOUS LUCK. He accompanied me by bicycle to a military hospital close-by and helped me with interactions. This facility had the most genuinely kind and caring staff, from my experience. One nurse, who told me I had a pretty face, needed to dig some little stones out of my leg. So a kind EMT presented me with the option of, “pain, or infection?” Huh. Hard choice. This was also my first time going through it without Patrick. The loneliness felt like my physical and emotional bandages were being ripped off at the same time.
 The next hospital was in Sukhothai. I had decided to explore Sukhothai Historical Park by bicycle before heading there, so by the time I arrived my bandages were all falling off and I was on the verge of heat stroke. I ended up on a gurney in the emergency room, across from a man whose toe was being sewn back on, and alternating between naps and observation of a man in critical condition just outside my cubicle. Doctors and nurses were buzzing around, trying to keep this man’s heart beating for about an hour before someone came in and said, “Sorry, just one minute. He is not okay.” Um, yes, I could wait an extra minute. Eventually a doctor came in to help me and I had two questions- “Is he contagious?” and “Will he be okay?” The doctor’s answers were, “No” and “Yes, motorbike accident.” Well, I could definitely have had it worse.

Lampang had my last hospital. The little Popo that lived at my guesthouse helped me find it. She was a mysterious woman, always popping up behind me right when I could use a little help. I spent a fair portion of the night wandering the streets to find this facility, but eventually it revealed itself. The receptionist seriously reminded me of my cousin Joshua and one of the nurses seemed not to know what she was doing. I think that was the moment I decided I could save a little cash and re-dress myself from then on. Here, I was introduced to silver cream, which is apparently God’s gift to all things that need sanitizing.

Once I got to Chiang Mai, part of my nightly routine was ripping bandages off and contorting myself so I could rip tape with my teeth and use it to slap on my gauze pads. Needless to say, I felt like a bonafide bad ass. I was saving a whole $5 on average in hospital visits per day! Compared to Patrick’s quote of about $250 in the States, I had nothing to complain about. But that isn’t the point.
 What is the moral of the story? I couldn’t really pinpoint one. But if I were to search for a metaphor, it would involve scars, healing, growth, work and perspective. That’s travel for you.