Oct 31 2009
Surviving Sickness Abroad -or- Bangkok Blues
Lonely Planet Healthy Travel Asia & India
“Mai pen drai. Mai pen drai,” the nurses kept saying gently to me, smiling, as I lay on my back in a hospital bed. They were trying to reassure me: no big deal, don’t you worry. “Pen drai…pen drai…” I weakly whimpered back, knowing very well that this was not a legitimate phrase for “all this puke is too a problem!” The nurses ignored the pleas of the foolish farang (foreigner). They gave me an “anti-womitting” pill that I quickly purged myself of and then tried to insert an IV into my shaky arm.
One hour previously I had announced to a vanful of fellow students (heading home from Bangkok) that I wasn’t feeling well and then promptly yarfed into a tiny plastic bag. The driver quickly detoured the van of disgusted, irritated students to the nearest hospital. After the IV was in me, they wheeled me into a large room full of beds with other people, all in apparent agony, where I surveyed the surroundings in dismay.
Read more: Bangkok, Sickness, Thailand, Travel
