At sometime the ether wears off. In my case it was about 2 am. People around me asking this, that and the other (a phrase my grandfather used). You can imagine what they were. One was whether or not I wanted to urinate, which I did. It was very painful and bloody. but after the second round, somewhat successful, a young (maybe 19) nurse’s assistant determined I needed a catheter. Not knowing when a catheter is necessary I was just the stupid recipient.
Well, it was one of the most painful experiences of my life. As I tried to muffle the screams she kept the progress up as blood kept bloodying (not that much). A more senior (30 or so) nurse came in and assisted. Again, torture and foreboding! Would this just be a small sample of the painful immediate future? They finally gave up and pulled out the catheter. Thirty minutes later the doctor came in and asked them why they were using a catheter when fluids were coming out. Well, my Thai isn’t good enough to understand the medical conversation so I just egged on the doctor, hoping he would nix the inquisition and punishment. He explained the catheter was not necessary and let me go on living. Later on the explanation was some prostate issue. To make a long story not as long, the urologist was consulted and medications were put in my daily diet. That took care of everything.
Inserting the CATHETER
My friend Bob, who, with Chris, forced me to wear just a bottle of Johnny Walker Red on the way back from the Cornell Dorm showers on my birthday (18th) while lining up girls to view the live exhibit walking back to his room (me). Oops, no main verb there. Ok, well, anyway, Bob asked I explain what food was provided. Actually I was originally given the pale face food, tasty scrambled eggs, potatoes and something. Since my mother cured me from eating greasy eggs I just ate the potatoes. It was ok, I was not really hungry, getting used to my restricted intake in my diet routine. I requested the Thai meal after which was a variety of stuff with a bowl of rice, very filling and a little too much for me but much more palatable than eggs. The food was not bad. But then I was not being regular (all you old fogies will know what I mean) and was having some slight pains so the doctor recommended the fruit and salad courses. That was ok except the salad was served with a “dressing” with the English and Thai label “EGG”. I dipped my spoon in expecting the usual way too sweet dressing and, as expected, it tasted like half sugar and half other stuff. Since it would have made me feel unwell I just ate the vegetables without any dressing, healthy and OK but not particularly tasty but that didn’t really bother me since I am used to eating most anything.
THAI SALAD DRESSING
The doctor came in later and asked me about the new diet, along with other more pressing questions, and I explained fruit alone would be nice and that is what came for the next meal.
Ok, now I get to coffee but I will let that wait for Part 3.
As the world turns and we all are stuck in unexpected situations and environments a few of us have had to use hospital facilities, myself included.
While in Khanom, southern Thailand, my 64 year old hernia surgery broke open. It was not that the lower abdomen bulge was too worry-some at first but digestive problems and pains forced me to seek medical attention in Bangkok. Fortunately I have a good friend from Norway who founded our Bubbles Dive Training Center with me in the early 90’s living in Bangkok in a very large “spread” complete with big yard, swimming pool, large house, maid, gardener and cook and free dogs, one a Pincer and the other a Jack Russel Terrier (the one who attacks my face with her tongue several times a day). The living situation could have turned out worse.
As soon as I could I made an appointment to get the hernia checked out and a week later I met with the surgeon and decided to go ahead with the repair that evening. There were several reasons for the rush. Digestive issues accompanied increasing pains, laparoscopic surgery could again be banned if Covid in Thailand took a bad turn (gas coming from the process, entering a Covid positive patient and then being let out in the operating room could infect operating room personnel). Also, there was no reason to wait. I guess I could have checked out more hospitals and surgeons but waiting might make the physical problems worse and I very much believe in luck. No matter how much care you take on an issue things could turn out very different from the plan.
The surgeon was to do the operation at 9 pm so at 5 pm, after consultation, I changed into hospital garb, lay down on the slab and prepared to just let whatever———- happen, totally out of my control anyway.
THE SLAB!
The young (20 or so) assistant stuck a needle between my finger tendons (the preferred spot) for the semi-permanent tube for medications, etc. It was very painful and she never found the vein. An older nurse came by and showed her the alternate spot, just behind the thumb knuckle. That vein was good. I didn’t sign up for torture but soon found that was not the only torture I was to endure. My painful winces didn’t stop the young attendant from casing more pain with that damn needle. Don’t people know that needles hurt?!
THE NEEDLES! OUCH!
As I was wheeled around the facilities on the slab I had this strange feeling of helplessness and fate. It was a little embarrassing laying down while being wheeled around when I could have made it on my own two feet. But hospitals have their procedures so it was up to me to just shut up and chill out!
After a few hours sleeping in my private room they came to put me back on the slab for transport to the operating room. Once there people went in and out, fixing a tube of electrolytes to the semi-permanent hole in my thumb. After about 20 minutes the anesthetist stood behind me and with no explanation put a mask on my face and said “oxygen”. Tasted fresh! After 20 seconds the taste changed to a slightly dirtier, rougher flavor. That taste increased and in 3 seconds I saw one trillion pin holes in the ceiling. LIGHTS OUT!
While there are so many kinds of food in Thailand some stand out as almost stereotypical. In foreign countries many people know these foods. These are extremely popular in the Northeast part of the country, IISAN. Along with Horse Piss Eggs you get these pictured here. Lab is minced meat, often pork and sometimes chicken, cooked with peppers, lime juice, fish sauces and some coriander. It is semi spicy which means it is suited for westerners who can tolerate what they consider VERY spicy food.
SOMTAM, LAAB, grilled chicken and wine
The second one is Somtam also lovingly called “papaya Pok Pok”. Slices of green papaya are mixed with smashed (the sound is “pok pok”) pepper, lime juice, garlic and some fish sauce and a few other things. In the end the papaya is also pok poked with the smashed ingredients. Some will add shrimp meat or whole tiny river crabs, shell and all. The level of spiciness of Somtam can often be considered a serious stomach burner even for Thai feasters. Try the Thai original only if you are prepared for stomach issues.
The 3rd one is grilled chicken but this time it was done in an air fryer. And of course a tasty white wine like a Gewurztraminer adds to the tastes.
Of course rice is always beside the rest of the food and dogs waiting for scraps might linger nearby. Enjoy typical thai food.
Oh, just after i finished proofing this post my Yam Plamuk (spicy squid salad) arrived. Here it is with my bottle of Singha Beer.
While there are so many kinds of food in Thailand some stand out as almost stereotypical. In foreign countries many people know these foods. These are extremely popular in the Northeast part of the country, IISAN. Along with Horse Piss Eggs you get these pictured here. Lab is minced meat, often pork and sometimes chicken, cooked with peppers, lime juice, fish sauces and some coriander. It is semi spicy which means it is suited for westerners who can tolerate what they consider VERY spicy food.
The second one is Somtam also lovingly called “papaya Pok Pok”. Slices of green papaya are mixed with smashed (the sound is “pok pok”) pepper, lime juice, garlic and some fish sauce and a few other things. In the end the papaya is also pok poked with the smashed ingredients. Some will add shrimp meat or whole tiny river crabs, shell and all. The level of spiciness of Somtam can often be considered a serious stomach burner even for Thai feasters. Try the Thai original only if you are prepared for stomach issues.
The 3rd one is grilled chicken but this time it was done in an air fryer. And of course a tasty white wine like a Gewurztraminer adds to the tastes.
Of course rice is always beside the rest of the food and dogs waiting for scraps might linger nearby. Enjoy typical thai food.
Oh, just after i finished proofing this post my Yam Plamuk (spicy squid salad) arrived. Here it is with my bottle of Singha Beer.
Yesterday was my first weekday in Bangkok staying with my old buddy, fellow Bubbles, Bjørn. Below is a photo of his backyard. There were several reasons to move up to Bangkok. Some countries signaled their interest to get tourists back so might let me enter. Thailand, so far, has only given us tourists amnesty through July and Japan still won’t let me return.
Bjørn’s backyard in Bangkok
The other important reason for leaving beautiful Khanom for the big crowded city was to get the possible hernia checked. So yesterday i went to Mission Hospital, established by the Adventists, a very reputable hospital. After a train and taxi ride i arrived for temperature check at the entrance. Almost no one was inside. Most people are still probably wary of visiting hospitals. After registering i waited 10 minutes for the blood pressure, weight and height measurements and then waited 5 minutes to see the general practitioner.
He said it was best to talk to the specialist so the nurse directed me to another chair outside another room. 5 minutes later the specialist was ready to check me out. Yes, it turned out to be a “recurrent hernia” right where i had the original hernia operation when i was 2. Ok, so the verdict is, make a Sunday appointment with the surgeon to see what next steps might be.
Then direction to another chair and 2 minutes. The assistant, dressed as a nurse, explained today there was no charge. What? I brought all this US$150 equivalent in Baht to pay for the diagnosis. Ok. Well, zero is better than the alternative. Good thing i am not in the US. I would be out a few hundred dollars just to say “Hello” to a doctor.
On the way out, by the entrance, a few tables were set up with a few girls (younger than 30 so i say, “girls”) selling some confection along with rice crackers which “didn’t have much sugar” for 100 Baht (32 Baht=US$1). This would make a nice snack to take back to my friends. They are a very nice snack, and, “not much sugar”. So i was saved what would have been a bank busting hospital bill in the US by a few rice crackers. Oh, when i paid the girls directed me to put the 100 Baht note in the hospital contribution box. I suspect they were made as a charity project to provide funds for some hospital project to keep others healthy.
I am not going to make a definitive comment on this article beyond what i know. The only coconut monkeys i have seen are in tourist shows. The showman sends the monkey up the tree. The monkey twists the ripe coconut until it falls and goes to the next ripe coconut to repeat the process. In Khanom, the south of Thailand, there are coconut trees in almost everyone’s yard. Haven’t seen one monkey. With the short trees some people use a long pole with a knife on the end to cut the coconut tether so the coconut falls to the ground. Coconuts have a very hard shell so there is no chance of them cracking open when they fall. But with the taller trees people just wait for the coconuts to fall. Again, never drive under or spend time under a coconut tree. Coconuts are heavy. If one falls on your head there is a very good chance you will be killed. Many times i have come upon coconuts lying in the middle of a road having fallen from a tree.
Trucks drive around every so often and have people put their coconuts aboard for shipment to market. Not sure when and how people get paid for loading their coconuts on the truck. They probably get paid cash right on the spot.
Large coconut groves might use monkeys to harvest the crop but, again, all i have seen are the tourist tricks.
This is about remoras and it is about a conundrum, but it’s not about remoras having a conundrum and it’s also not about flying spaghetti monster‘s.
I have a conundrum but I want to talk about the remoras first. Just five days ago, most of the way through my morning swim on the beach, I felt something like a jellyfish bumping up against me but sticking longer than jellyfish do and no sting. Then I felt a little ticklish where they were. I looked down and saw what looked like a foot-long remora which tends to stick around whale sharks, sharks and other large fish to clean off the algae and bacteria on the skin or scales. Immediately I was reminded of the fish in the waterfall area last month, the ones cleaning your feet. These remoras, if that’s really what they were, I haven’t looked them up yet, just seemed to find different places on my body they needed to clean. This was before I took a shower so who knows what they found for breakfast. I never had this experience in many thousands of hours in the ocean. It was kind of fun and refreshing. Several days later they were around me again and have been there almost every day since. I also noticed there were fewer beach fishing nets strung out and so maybe these were the tiny fish these fishermen were trying to capture for some food reasons. I can’t imagine them being much except bones.
Remora on a shark
Now for the conundrum. Have you ever been in a situation where you were in a place for a long period of time and it started to grow on you so you felt like it was not a place you were going to leave? I’m not asking if it was a feeling of want or need. It’s the kind of feeling where you just don’t expect to be going anywhere because you feel as though you are one with the surroundings and the furniture, if there is furniture (not in the case of outdoorsers of course). Enjoy my new vocabulary.
What started the whole chain of events was what I think is a hernia and I hope it’s nothing worse. I don’t think going to a local country hospital is the right thing to do. So the best thing to do is to go to Bangkok and try one of the well-known hospitals up there to get checked out. Because I haven’t been back to Japan to do some bureaucratic stuff my health insurance will expire the end of July. And there’s a good chance I won’t be able to get back before the end of July so it just seems best to get things checked out now.
But I have been stuck in Paradise due to the COVID-19 crisis, never really expecting to be here more than a month but it’s been more than two months now. By saying that I’m not suggesting I feel it’s time to go because I feel like part of the furniture. I feel like part of the beach, part of the ocean and pretty settled. I don’t feel a real need to leave except I do feel it may be growing on me too much and I do have visa restrictions so it’s about time to skedaddle.
My old friend whom I started Bubbles with (my scuba diving training business in Phuket Thailand) lives in Bangkok in a large house with a pool. He works for the UN and so has a very stable work and living situation which keeps him there for a long period of time. So I will go up and stay with him and get a few health things checked out at some good hospitals while doing my best to avoid any viruses.
So the remoras I explained and the conundrum is solved, I just bought a flight ticket for Friday from Surat Thani to Bangkok. So life goes on, travels continue and new things Lie ahead.
Last week I thought I had a major accomplishment. On the route to the beach and the route to shopping there were no more dogs chasing the motorcycle. The ones chasing the motorcycle either became friends when I stopped to talk with them and pet them or they shied away.
Over the many times passing chasing dogs I found the owners either abusing them or teasing them by chasing them on the motorcycle. I’m not a dog psychologist but I suspect this contributed greatly to their motorcycle chasing habit. Those dogs no longer chase my motorcycle since they know I will stop and try to be friends. They cower and slowly slink away. But today the three dogs at the property next to this resort started chasing the motorcycle again. But they are a very special group. They are in mortal conflict with the dogs at this resort property and that’s another reason to chase me. But I stopped and two of the three came to smell the other dogs’ scents on the motorcycle and my hands and then shy away. The third one is still too uncertain to approach me. Individually none of them will chase me any more as they used to. It’s only when two or three are together they form a very bold pack.
Finally became a friend
So today I was going to write of a major accomplishment last week, no more motorcycle chasers. And then today the pack of three decided they would see if they could scare me off.
I’m not a dog psychologist so I don’t know why dogs chase cars and motorcycles but it really is a better idea for owners to teach them not to do that. After all, if you have kids don’t you teach them not to chase cars and motorcycles?
This morning the owner of the resort recommended I go to the Sunday morning market to see what they have. So I got on my motorcycle and went to see what was available. When I got there the place was flooded with people. Parking a car would’ve meant walking a little distance to the market since there were so many people there but having a motorcycle makes it much easier to find a tiny place to park.
Breakfast, fruit, veggies and pickles.
As you can see in the photo I wound up buying bananas, a couple cucumbers, couple limes, some mustard leaf pickles and one of my favorites, grilled pork on a stick with sticky rice and very spicy sauce. All of this was 100 Baht (32 Baht=US$1).
Yesterday I posted comments about my finances now in Thailand during the COVID-19 crisis. After I posted I gave it some thought and decided it would be helpful to compare current crisis\low season prices to high season prices. So here they are.
Below is the Calc sheet I did for my current expenses. You can probably tell I did not include Laundry. The owner of this resort is doing laundry for me at no charge and that’s why there is no line item.
Total Monthly
THB 31,440
Transportation
THB 140
Hotel
THB 16,800
Food
THB 7,500
Massage
THB 4,000
Incidentals
THB 3,000
$US MONTHLY
$983
Crisis/Low Season Expenses, my current expenses.
Below you will notice the difference in current prices and high season prices. Laundry and motorcycle chargers are added in. If you want a general idea what it would cost to have a second large meal during the day probably at a restaurant then a good idea would be to add about 200 baht per day extra.
Total Monthly
THB 49,640
Transportation
THB 6,140
Hotel
THB 27,000
Food
THB 7,500
Massage
THB 4,000
Incidentals
THB 3,000
Laundry
THB 2,000
$US MONTHLY
$1,551
High Season Expenses. Notice the increase is about 50%.
I’ve been procrastinating on this topic mostly since there’s so much potential detail and so little space on the Internet to explain everything. But I’ll do the best I can and getting to the crux of the matter. (As a treat there is a monthly budget at the end. Gotta learn inserting Numbers data with WordPress.)
In terms of per day expenses The really big ones with traveling tend to be in getting there and back. Most of us know during the COVID-19 crisis traveling expenses to and from places can be horrendously expensive and I won’t go into those. But domestic travel is definitely a very important part of getting from one area to another especially if you don’t wanna spend too much time in one place. In Thailand the domestic flights are not really overpriced and are becoming much more frequent as is less expensive bus travel and other local forms of transportation as the country continues to “open up“. Air travel is really not too expensive in Thailand, bus travel is extremely reasonable but that depends upon the type of bus you travel in. You can get anything from the luxury bus or what they call the VIP bus for long-distance trips which make stops when necessary for food and rest, to what I call the chicken buses. Those buses are mostly for domestic local travelers who need to put their chicken cages on top of the bus. The cages of course don’t carry their children, they carry chickens. Maybe the chickens are going to market, maybe they’re going as a gift to someone else but you can be 100% assured chickens carried on buses in Thailand are not comfort pets (those things Americans take on planes with them because they’re afraid of people or some other issue). You can see from my comments I think these emotionally retained pets on planes are really bad idea.
It used to be possible to get private cars which would load up with as many people as they could accommodate uncomfortably that would take you from city to city in 1 to 3 hour trips. I don’t know if those are still available and after a few experiences I’m not really interested. They tend to put three people in the back of a very small car. And it wasn’t seemingly forbidden for the driver to drink while driving.
Taxis are much more expensive but you can get cheaper prices if you negotiate and can take them on one hour trips if you find it financially the way to go. I had to do that when escaping from Sratthani when they closed all the hotels. It cost me about 2,000 baht to get where I needed to go in a one and a half hour ride. (32 Baht=US$1). BUS and motorcycles are the best way to get around town if the destinations are too far to walk. If you’re taking a motorcycle it’s best to see the drivers have a jacket with a number on it indicating they are an approved public transport motorcycle driver.
Local taxi (DUK DUK)
As for my transportation around Khanom the explanation fits in the general expense discussion. I’m using a small 100 cc motorcycle provided by the hotel owner without charge since I was the only customer. they wanted to make sure I was happy so I would stay a long time, which i’m doing currently, more than two months now. I think it’s interesting here to note the typical motorcycle in Thailand Has a 100 cc engine which is good enough to go pretty much anywhere you want. It is basically what they sell in the US and Japan as a 50 cc motorcycle. They put a larger engine in those frames in Thailand because they tend to be the family car. Families Put up to 6 members on the small frame depending upon the size of the kids. Very often you see a two-year-old kid in a position that looks like they are the driver. While the motorcycle is free and normal charge per day for rent would be about 150 to 200 baht. I pay for gasoline of course which is about 35 baht per week and that will take me about 80 km (multiply by 0.6 to get the equivalence in miles). So I get about 115 miles per gallon.
100 cc engine on a 50 cc motorcycle. The “family car”.
The hotel room itself is normally about 900 baht per day but since I was the only customer in a smaller room and I needed more space the owner agreed to let me use the large suite room with a private patio for 600 baht per day. Again, divide by 32 to get the US dollar equivalent. It’s about US$18 per day.
My suite room.
Bathroom
My private patio.
As for food, I spend an average of about 250 baht per day but that might partly be because I am on a fairly strict diet of one meal per day. That’s just over 8 US dollars per day. I buy food from the local food carts and sometimes from restaurants. I bring the food back here an hour or two before I eat and then heat up in the microwave just before eating. My daily consumption is coffee in the morning with some yogurt or fresh fruit and then a fairly significant dinner in the evening with snacks afterwards and maybe an alcoholic drink, one glass a day. But when I say a significant dinner I really mean something in a medium-size bowl whether it’s mostly liquid or not. So probably a couple scoops of rice (ice cream scoops) and a little bit of meat and vegetables in small quantities. If you go to my Photos page you can see some of the meals I’ve had here. What I eat is more than sufficient for my energy usage and age. As for going out to eat in a restaurant, which is still a little bit of a problem here due to the COVID-19 crisis, you might expect paying a little bit more. If you want to eat extravagant food, maybe some German or Italian food which is fairly prevalent in many parts of Thailand, expect to pay much more. As for myself, if I want German food I go to Germany if I want Italian food I go to Italy or to my Sicilian friends’ restaurant in Gila Bend Arizona. You’ll see a link to the restaurant in my “recommended“ page on this website. It’s under the “about“ main menu item. If you visit, ask for Nino or Antonella and tell them “Bill from Japan“ sent you. But if I said something rude to them the day before they might kick you out. Joking aside, it is really excellent Italian food. And their fresh bread and gourmet pizza are about the best you could find even in Italy. That speaking from one months traveling experience in Italy.
Typical dinner
Breakfast – Dragonfruit
Thai rum – my favorite
Fruit seller.
OK, back to finances. Necessities. You don’t really need that much. Make sure you have some suntan lotion, some after sun skin aloe gel and whatever else you think you need.
If you want to get a cell phone Sim card or data sim they are very inexpensive, anywhere between 60 and 600 baht per month. That all depends upon the plan you decide to purchase. You can reload them online or download an app to do that. You can also go into one of the very many mobile phone shops and let them manage it for you. You can set up those domestic phone numbers to call internationally as well but I have never done that. I use the data part to use one of the telecommunication apps on my iPhone or iPad. You can get Internet to landline or mobile phone plans on applications like Skype for about three dollars per month, an unlimited plan.
You don’t need much in the way of clothes in this warm climate so if you don’t bring very much don’t worry, go out and buy what you need, clothes here are not very expensive.
If you need any medical treatment it’s not expensive here so I wouldn’t worry too much about it. There are pharmacies everywhere with inexpensive medications of all kinds, also not expensive.
Before I conclude this I want to add …. my website is for retirees and budget travelers. If you want more luxurious accommodations or travel you can spend as much money as you want to spend. I will say I live in very good comfort, Wi-Fi and everything else I need every day.
Oh, I forgot one thing. I didn’t mention massage. There’s a blog post on massage so you might want to go look at that if you’re interested. Expect to spend about 150 to 400 baht per hour depending upon the type of massage, relax massage or medical massage.
Most tourists are going to go to tourist sites and some of them will charge something to get in. I don’t go to tourist sites anymore since I’ve seen most of Thailand having spent a month driving around the whole place and visiting what I hadn’t seen before so I’m not really into the traveling tourist things. Also, I lived here for seven years and I find the most interesting part of Thailand is being able to go to the beach every day, good Thai food and relaxation; and of course work on this website.
Oh, I should probably also mention getting money. You can use credit cards here and many larger companies don’t charge the 3% credit card fee anymore but some might. The ATM machines have a 220 baht ATM fee and I think I want to have a separate blog about that issue as well as something about credit cards. MasterCard and Visa and a few others are accepted pretty much everywhere. You can also take cash advances from your credit card in the ATM machines. ATM machines are literally everywhere. Not in the ocean of course. And they don’t yet put them on the tops of coconut trees. But besides those two places you can find them wherever you need them.
