Travelling with sick.

Hey guys…I’m listening to Thrice again. Seriously, so much. But I ran out of batteries for my discman, so I haven’t listened to music in a while. And then right now when I was given an opportunity to write a blog post, I had the urge to listen to Thrice again, and so here it is.
We got on the bus in Sriracha, and took a trip to Bangkok. I got a nosebleed. Serious. A nose bleed. I was eating an orange, and it just started bleeding... my nose, not the orange, unless you consider orange juice the blood of an orange, since it was bleeding when I bit into it. Uhm... So, I had to deal with that bloody nose while trying to eat orange on bumpy road with few kleenex's on a bus with no bathroom. Fun. After like 20 minutes, it stopped. That was good, cause it was right when we got to the bus station. We got off, walked a block or two to the Sky train station, bought a day pass, and got on. Yeah Bangkok has a skytrain, and yeah, it's way nicer than Vancouver's, no lie. OK, like man, I was hungry so we stopped at Emporium, this monster huge rich people fancy-pants Bangkok mall that has a western food court. Still western food cause I was still feeling uber-sick. Not down with sketchy food when I feel like I wanna toss it. So I ate a big fat burger at Burger King. Yup, nothing like corporate fat to calm a sore gut. I guess it’s a question of which hurts worse at the time, your gut or your conscious. Sorry Dan, my gut won on account of a flagrant disregard for my well-being.
So yeah, oddly enough, I felt much better after eating that, so it was off to try and accomplish our goal. Find a hotel to stay at close to the airport. We got off the sky train at its northernliestest stop, the one called Mo Chit, and got into a taxi with hopes of finding a certain hotel that I had seen that morning on the internet. Our taxi driver was hilarious, seriously. Didn’t speak much English, but that made it all the more fun. I kinda got him pointed in the right direction, since I had only a vague idea of where it was. Eventually the taxi driver pulled over to a police officer and asked him where it was, and after making some joke about being arrested, he accepted the cop’s directions and we found it. So close. Like, almost right around the corner. HA!!! Porice Goor!! Yelled the asian cabby with a cheer and a laugh from us. Amazing. So yeah, we got out, walked up the monster huge rich people fancy-pants hotel entrance on polished marble floors, past a crystal clear swimming pool, with a bell-boy escorting us and carrying our bags up to the reception desk. It was there that we quickly found out that they had just booked the last room, and we carried our own bags down some back hall to the parking lot. We asked the guys there where we could stay, and they mentioned a place with the word Palace in its name. I asked if it was expensive, but they said no. We got in a new taxi, and told him where we wanted to go. He told us that maybe he had a better idea. Now I had heard that taxi drivers in BKK like to take customers on crazy rides to weird places and make them buy things from their friends in the meanwhile, only to drop them off miles from their longed-for destination. I was a bit nervous that this guy was of this nature, especially cause he was less fun than our last cabby. But I decided to go check it out, and as it turns out it was exactly what we were looking for, and even closer to the airport than I had expected. So close, that the next morning we walked there. What a great driver!!! Spoke some English too, so that was a bonus.
The place was nice, and relatively cheap, and like I said, right beside the airport. I went for a walk that evening, while Andrea just stayed there and ordered food to the room. I went to four 7-11’s within 3 blocks, and watched a muay-thai match on TV with some motosai drivers near a market. Then walking back to the hotel I heard a sound from amidst the crowds of people. Instantly an image of a big tree with a flag on the top came into my mind, and a bunch of Thai guys in white stood there looking at it. The sound from the opening scene of Ong Bak. I don’t know what the name of the instrument is, but it’s like a giant pan flute or something that this old man was holding between his hands playing a beautiful traditional Thai song that seemed to float around and hide between people passing and dance with the sound of cars and motorcycles racing by. I found him squatting in an old lot beside the sidewalk, his wife beside him holding a cup. I stopped and listened for a few before throwing a 10 baht coin into the cup and saying God Bless in my best and most respectful Thai. I went back to the hotel and ate, then slept.
The next morning I woke up feeling a bit more rested than the last few sick-days I had had, but still a bit nauseas and woozy. Walked to the airport and boarded a plane after a fast-food airport breakfast and a farewell to Andrea who would later that day board a train to Buriram. I felt still a bit gross, but mostly better, and so with a positive demeanour I drank like 4 cups of coffee on the one hour plane ride to Phuket. (remember though, plane cups are tiny!!!) Flying over Phuket was amazing. The Andaman shore of Thailand was a straight long strip of white sand and palm trees, calling out for me to come down and play. And eventually the plane bent its path to my will and that of the beach. We headed for the beach. No lie. The plane headed right for the beach. We first flew out over the water, and then turned towards shore, where there waited a landing strip with its close end not more than 40 meters past the edge of the beach. So we flew in probably nomore than 20 meters above the beach and onto the landing strip past brightly coloured flower bushes. Phuket airport is one of the most beautifully situated airports I have ever been to in my life. Amazing. Then I remembered that the south is like that. Beautiful. Southern Thailand is gorgeous. Gaan, a worker with YWAM and my friend Jessica were there to pick me up, and on the way to Khao Lak we stopped for food. Then Khao Lak.
Beautiful, and new!! Because of the Tsunami most of the buildings in the area are new, or actually most of them are still being built. But it is very much alive. The people are making the most of their situation, and I enter the scene with memorials being built or designed and hotels in various stages, from planned to finished, like the amazing one I am staying at in a small village just outside Khao Lak proper, called Bang Niang. The place is beautiful, and cheap!!! There’s still not many tourists about, so places are pretty cheap. Jess and I have rented a motosai to get around, so we whip about from here to there, scooting around. By the time we got in yesterday it was already too late to get in on the work, which was fine with me, being sick, and really tired too, so we went to the beach, the next best thing to work. OK, seriously, I’ve never been to a beach that nice… wait, I’ll just stop there. I’m on a missions trip after all, hahaha… AAAAAAAAHAHAHAH!!!!!!!
OK, so later that night I woke up at like 3:00am and threw up like I never have before. Amazing, I got soooooo sick. It sucked, but at the same time, I think (hope) that whatever was in my stomach making me sick is gone now, so I should be better. We’ll see how tonight is. I woke up this morning almost excited to go to work, but still a little wary about my gut, so I stayed back from the group, and walked around and checked out this little village. Fun. Took some pics, and yes, went swimming in the water named ANDAMAN!!!!!! It’s a sea you know…
Amazing.
So yeah, I am looking forward to working tomorrow, since I’ve been feeling good all day mostly. It’ll be nice to get down to it though. So yeah, uhm, I must be getting tired cause I seem to be running out of things to say. See you later?
Later.