Day 9 - July 5

It took some time before I fell asleep and later I woke up in the middle of the night feeling pretty bad. Apparently I was having fever because I was either sweating under the blanket or I was freezing.

The fever was gone in the morning, but instead I was feeling a bit sick. This couldn't have happened at a more inconvenient time, now that we were about to leave for three days of jungle trekking. On the other hand, I didn't really feel bad enough to cancel the tour, which I was expecting to be one of the highlights of the holiday. I didn't want to worry May Tina either, so I said nothing to her about my condition and hoped it would improve by itself.

I hardly managed to eat any breakfast at all, and in addition it was raining heavily outside, so the start of our trek was less than perfect. At 0800 Boon and Keng picked us up and drove us to their headquarters, where we put all our baggage, except the things we were taking with us. Soon we were on our way, and after picking up Steve and Phil, we drove out of Chiang Mai. Everybody sat in the (open) back of the truck except Keng and another guy from the touring company.

On the outskirts of Chiang Mai we stopped at a market to buy some final supplies. We bought a flashlight and some raincoats, which all would eventually come in very handy.

After coming out of Chiang Mai the road kept going upwards and upwards. We were now entering the Doi Ithanon National Park which had Thailand's highest mountain. At the summit we had lunch and looked around at two temples that were situated right at the top. If it hadn't been for the clouds hanging below us, the view would probably have been very spectacular from here.

The drop in temperature was very noticable and it was barely advisable to walk around in shorts. However, I was feeling slightly better now after lots of fresh (but slightly cold!) air during the drive. Boon had brought some hot noodles for lunch, of which I was able to eat the majority. Things were looking up and I was again looking forward to the trekking.

I was expecting us to walk into the jungle from here, but instead we got into the car and drove downwards for a long time. This made us a little bit concerned, as we feared having to walk all the way up again :-) In the end we turned off the tarred road and drove into the jungle on a mud road. On the drive we passed several hilltribe villages, and in one of them a guy jumped into the back of our vehicle and sat down. I thought that we were just giving him a lift, but it turned out that he would later help carry our stuff.

Eventually the jungle road came to and end and we had to proceed on foot. Unfortunately, the start of the walking looked very tough as the road went steeply upwards. It turned out that not only did it look tough, it was in fact very tough! It took us about 45 minutes of walking upwards until Boon relieved us by saying that we were now on the highest point and the rest of the walk would be downhill. By then I was completely exhausted, which I suppose had something to do with me being sick. Although, the road was tough to walk, I am in reasonably good physical condition, so I should have been able to handle it better. May Tina did not seem to be equally tired.

From the top it was a two hour walk until we reached the Karen Hilltribe village where we would spend the night. Since the road went mostly downhill, we had some more time to enjoy the scenery. It was a real jungle, very lush and green. There did not seem to be much wildlife around, but we saw several ant colonies crossing the road at regular intervals. At one point, Boon disappeared, only to re-emerge later with a bunch of mushrooms that were to be used for dinner later.

Hilltribe trekking is a big industry in Chiang Mai, and it goes without saying that all these treks are going to interfere with the daily life of the village. Fortunately, this was not the case with "our" village. According to Boon, nobody except groups from Pooh Eco-adventures came here, and that only happened once or twice a week.

None of the villagers seemed to pay much attention to our arrival. I immediately lay down on the floor in the hut we would be staying in. The floor was made of bamboo poles and was not very comfortable, but I didn't care as long as I was able to get some rest. Apart from our hut, we also had our own toilet room, although standard was not very high! Fortunately, they had water bottles for sale in the village, enabling us to get something to drink.

After having regained some strength, May Tina and I took a walk around the village. I don't think there were more than 10-15 houses so this didn't take very long. All houses were built on poles and seemed to have at least one pig tied underneath. Peace and tranquility seemed to be prominent in the village, which made for a nice change from the big Thai cities. None of the villagers seemed particularly interested in us, and nobody approached us to sell souvenirs.

The village was surrounded by jungle on all sides, except for a rice field nearby. Apparently the people in this village were Buddhist, while in a nearby village they believed in the "spirit of the jungle". The Thai government is apparently trying to integrate the Hilltribes in Thai society.

Soon it became dark and it was time for dinner. Boon and a woman from the village had been busy cooking for a while and the result looked very nice. I was feeling a lot better after having gotten some rest, and although my appetite was not back to normal, I managed to eat a reasonable portion. Then we sat outside our hut and talked for a while. Steve and Phil were spending one year travelling around the world, and it was interesting to hear about their experiences so far.

Not having slept properly last night, I soon became tired and went to bed early. I lay down on a thin mat on the bamboo floor after we had erected the mosquito nets. It was not particularly comfortable on the hard floor, but I was still hoping to fall asleep immediately. Unfortunately, the opposite happened -- I was completely awake and completely unable to fall asleep. This was really annoying! I'm sure if I had needed to stay awake, I would have fallen asleep at once :-)

Another problem was that the fever appeared to be returning. Lying inside the sleeping bag was much too hot, but if I put some part of the leg outside, I immediately started shivering from cold! Eventually I got up to get a Paracetamol, and discovered I was feeling sick again. I quickly walked out to our toilet, but unfortunately I was unable to throw up and eventually returned to our hut.

Day 10 - July 6

At least I was getting some rest lying down, but it was a terribly boring night. Early in the morning I seemed to be having problems with diarrhoea as well, but fortunately this only lasted for a short while.

I didn't have any appetite for breakfast, but eventually I was starting to feel slightly better and was confident of being able to handle the walking today. I didn't have much choice anyway, since walking back where we came from was probably just as far :-)

Around 1030 we started walking and it wasn't long before we passed another village and a school. Then we left the small road and continued on some sort of jungle path. Now we were really in the jungle! In some places the path was so overgrown that Boon had to use his machete to make way. The jungle was quite humid, but due to the high altitude the temperature was quite pleasant. The weather was quite okay, except for some bursts of rain now and then.

The scenery was at times really spectacular when we could see the forest covered hillsides. It was a shame that I was not well enough to really enjoy it, as I had to concentrate on my walking. The biggest problem was that the ground was very slippery so you had to be alert all the time to avoid slipping and falling. Although Boon cut some walking sticks for us, I think everybody slipped in the mud one or more times. This was especially a problem when walking downhill, which happened about 50% of the time. The rest of the time we were walking uphill!

As yesterday, there was no wildlife to be seen except for insects and other "small creatures". However, once we heard a gunshot nearby, without knowing who were shooting at what. After about two hours of walking we stopped near a rice field to have lunch. Boon had brought some hot noodles with chicken for everybody. The others apparently really enjoyed it, but just smelling the food made me sick, so I abstained from eating any of it. However, for dessert we had fresh pineapple, and I compensated by eating a lot of this. I was still hungry, but at least there was a lot of fluid in the pineapples, which I guess must have been good for me!

After lunch, we continued walking for another two hours. Again it was really hard walk (for me at least), as we seemed to be either going straight uphill or straight downhill. Eventually we came to some new rice fields, at which point it started raining heavily. In fact, this was probably the heaviest rain we had ever seen in our lives. In less than a minuted we were all soaked. This, in itself, wasn't really a problem, but was actually quite nice since we were sweating a lot after all the walking.

A more serious problem was the small stream which we were supposed to cross. In a few minutes it had turned into a river, making it impossible to cross where Boon had intended. Instead we walked back along the riverside looking for a better place to cross, eventually finding a log that was placed as a "bridge" across the river. We thought Boon was crazy when he said we had to cross here. It was raining enormously at the time and the log looked very slippery.

I wasn't afraid of drowning or anything serious, but I was worried that our video camera or camera could be damaged if one of us fell into the water. However, there was no other option available, so we just had to take our chances. In the end, it was much easier than expected because the log turned out to be less slippery than it first looked. Besides, Boon was so nice that he carried our backpacks across first, so we didn't have to worry about them.

Now it was just a 20 minutes walk to our campsite. This was, however, the most scary part of our walk so far. Most of the time we walked in the steep hillside along the river, where one wrong step could have sent one of us plunging down into the water.

The camp was a little more primitive than the village last night. Again we were sleeping in huts made of bamboo poles. We were all absolutely soaked from the horrendous rain, which were now fortunately starting to subside. Luckily, the clothes in our backpack were still reasonably dry. Now we really could see what a great idea it had been to put all our things inside a large plastic bag.

Everybody being completely exhausted, we just changed our clothes and lay down inside to relax. I was still feeling some nausea, but not too bad. A worse problem was that I felt extremely hungry, but did not have any appetite for Asian food. Actually, what I really wanted at that moment was pizza! May Tina and I decided to celebrate by eating at Pizza Hut as soon as we got back into Chiang Mai :-)

There was not much to do in the camp, but this didn't bother me as I didn't feel like doing anything else than relaxing. The camp had two buildings, one in which we were sleeping and one in which Boon, Keng and a woman from a nearby hilltribe village were preparing dinner for us. There was also a squat toilet about fifty meters away from the buildings.

Eventually dinner was ready and looked really nice. Unfortunately, my appetite was still missing, but I decided to try to eat anyway. I hadn't been eating much in the last few days despite lots of physical activity and little sleep, so I thought I probably needed a little bit of nutrition. This decision would turn out to be a really bad one.

Although I didn't eat very much, it took only fifteen minutes before I could feel diarrhoea coming and had to hurry to the toilet. This repeated itself fifteen minutes later, which meant another toilet visit. It was at this point I discovered that my diarrhoea was not the usual thing, because the "stuff" coming out was completely covered in blood! I thought it looked completely disgusting, but the mosquitoes and various other insects seemed to be of a different opinion as they had gathered on my "shit" in large numbers!

I told May Tina about my new problem and she seemed quite worried. Blood in the diarrhoea is a sign of dysentery, which should be treated at a hospital. We therefore decided to end the trip and get to a doctor as soon as possible. Boon said they could arrange transport to hospital tomorrow morning, but we would have to stay in the camp tonight. It was a two hour walk out of the jungle and this would be difficult to undertake in complete darkness. So then I just had to survive until tomorrow and everything should be fine :-)

The night will not be remembered as a pleasant experience. I kept having to go to the toilet repeatedly, about every 15-20 minutes and lots of blood kept coming out, not looking good at all. We had brought some "Imodium" tablets, which are supposed to stop diarrhoea without really curing the problem. These tablets are, however, not supposed to be taken when there are complications like dysentery. However, I figured that it just couldn't go on like this, as I was spending so much time in the toilet that I was considering just sitting there permanently. Besides, unless my condition improved, it would be very difficult for me to walk out of the jungle tomorrow. I eventually took two tablets, at first apparently to no effect.

Day 11 - July 7

Eventually we all went to bed, but naturally I found it impossible to fall asleep. May Tina was too worried to fall asleep either, so we just lay there talking quietly amongst ourselves. To keep my mind of the diarrhoea, we tried to talk about things not having to do with the holiday. It seemed to work because later in the night, the toilet visits became less frequent (down to maybe once an hour), which might also have been due to the Imodium pills finally kicking in. Early in the morning I actually fell asleep for maybe an hour.

The diarrhoea didn't appear as frequent now, but the blood was still there. I couldn't eat anything for breakfast, but I drank lots of tea. I don't really like tea, but I discovered that if you pour large amounts of sugar into it, then it's not so bad. I hoped the fluid and the sugar would give me some desperately needed energy. I was feeling quite apathic and was just concentrating on the walk ahead of me. May Tina had to do all the packing, as only the thought of packing made me sick. Fortunately, Boon volunteered to carry my backpack today, which made things a lot easier for me.

The walk was much easier today than the two previous days. We stopped to rest at another hilltribe village after about an hour, and the last hour was just walking downhill on a dirt road. Finally, when we reached the main road, the guy who was going to pick us up, had not yet arrived, giving us some time to relax and take a group photo.

We said goodbye to Steve, Phil and Boon who were now going bamboo rafting and elephant riding. Keng and a driver came with us to a hospital. We drove for about an hour back to Chiang Mai and finally stopped outside the Chiang Mai Ram Hospital.

I was not sure what to expect from a Thai hospital, but my slight skepticism was quickly put to shame as the hotel was hypermodern. On our arrival at the entrance, a guy came out with a wheelchair which he wanted me to sit in. I felt this was quite unnecessary since, after all, I had been walking for several hours through the jungle today! However, the guy insisted, so I eventually sat down.

I had to fill out a form with my name etc, and I showed them my insurance card which proved that I was insured in Gjensidige Forsikring. Then a nurse made a preliminary health check by measuring my blood pressure etc, before I was taken into a doctor's office.

I told him about my problem and then I had to lay down on a bench and let him use his fingers to put pressure on my stomach. He spoke very good English, and the slight communication problems were actually down to me who was not very familiar with English medical terms. Fortunately, May Tina was very good at this and could translate words like "nausea", "abdominal", "stool" etc. for me.

After the examination I was expecting to be given some pills and told to take things easy for a couple of days, but instead the doctor looked at me and said: "You look so sick. You must stay here tonight." Hmmm, did I really look that bad!? I hadn't looked myself in a mirror for several days, and didn't feel so bad at that time, but May Tina confirmed that I didn't look too healthy...

I was now given a choice between various types of rooms. The most expensive was a one-person luxury room at 900 Bath, while the cheapest was a four-person room at 200 Bath a night. With such low prices I naturally opted for the most expensive room!

My room really was very large and nice. It had a balcony, TV, bathroom, minibar, and all that one could ever desire in a hospital. The doctor had ordered me to receive nutrition intravenously, so I was immediately connected to such a "machine". It was great to just lay down in bed, knowing that they would take care of me at the hospital. May Tina went with the others to retrieve our bags and put them in our hotel.

The machine was a little bit annoying because I had to drag it along every time I went to the bathroom, which was quite often (thanks to the machine!), even though I wasn't drinking anything. During the day several nurses came inside at regular intervals giving me various pills. I was never informed what kind of pills they were, but apparently it was some kind of antibiotics. The doctor also came by once, poked my stomach with his fingers, mumbled something about "some gas inside", and left without really saying anything about my diagnosis.

For dinner I was given a menu to choose from, just like in a restaurant. The prices were added to my hospital bill and were about the same as in any Thai restaurant. I managed to eat some egg salad, and later in the evening I fell asleep and slept quite well during the night.

Day 12 - July 8

When I woke up, I was feeling quite alright. I was even able to eat a large American breakfast, which was my first meal of some size in a while. When the doctor came by to see me, he said I could leave the hospital later today. He didn't say anything about what had been wrong with me in the first place, though.

May Tina arrived quite early at the hospital and together we sat in my room waiting for the nurses to discharge me. Early in the morning, there had nurses coming and going all the time, but then we were left completely alone for a long period. After a while I was getting tired of waiting and used the intercom system to inform the nurses that I wanted to leave. "Wait for insurance" was the reply.

What was going on? Had Gjensidige managed to mess things up again? It appeared they had, and after talking with two nurses the scenario became clear to us. The hospital had apparently sent a fax to Gjensidige's emergency number, asking them to confirm that they would cover my hospital bill. However, they had not received a reply yet, so the nurses told us to keep waiting. I was not allowed to leave my room as they were afraid that I would run away without paying!

We waited, waited and waited, but there were no news from Gjensidige. They seemed to have either ignored or completely forgotten about me! Not wanting to waste the whole day, around 1600 I eventually suggested to the nurses that I pay the bill myself. This was no problem at all, especially since the bill was only 6152 Bath, most of which was due to the antibiotics I had received. On leaving the hospital I was given some more antibiotics and told to take them several times a day as long as supply lasted.

We had not been very impressed with Gjensidige from previous experiences, but this was really the final straw! It was fortunate that I was hospitalized in a low-cost country as Thailand and not in a high-cost country like the US. One wonders what the consequences might then have been! We knew Gjensidige were not perfect, but that their insurance was equal to "no insurance" was a surprise!

Before leaving the hospital I asked to have a copy of the fax the hospital had sent to Gjensidige. Amongst other things, it contained the following sentence underlined: "The hospital must receive a written guarantee from you covering the cost of hospitalization". I was determined to demand an explanation from Gjensidige once I got home. (See the Epilogue for their reaction.)

Anyway, it was great to finally leave the hospital! Our first action was to take a tuk-tuk to ....Pizza Hut! Just as we had promised each other back in the jungle, which now seemed like such a long time ago. We shared a regular pizza, which turned out to be quite small, but this was OK since I wasn't able to eat much. For several weeks I would continue eating less than normal.

Since I was feeling quite good, we walked around in Chiang Mai for a while. Having missed the elephant riding and bamboo rafting from the Hilltribe trek, we wanted to take a one-day tour which included these activities. There were lots of companies arranging such tours, so we went around to check out some prices. In the first office we visited, there was just one guy who was busy chatting on the Internet. When we arrived, he went away and came back with another guy who didn't even speak English! I wonder if this company ever sells any tours!

After relaxing at the hotel for a while, we went up to the night market and looked around. Eventually went into an Internet cafe where I spent one and a half hour writing a detailed e-mail to all my friends about the recent jungle experience. Unfortunately, when I pushed the "send" button I got a "Javascript error" of some kind, and the whole e-mail was lost! This was definitely not my lucky day! However, May Tina had been sitting on the computer next to me and had written about the same thing, so eventually I pasted her story into my e-mail and added a few extra lines.

We went back to the night market, and as an evening meal I had a small cheeseburger at Burger King. At the time I didn't feel like eating Thai food. In fact, the smell of certain spices and the thought of noodles made me sick. Six months later, this feeling has still not completely vanished. It's a shame because it meant us eating Western food for the rest of our stay in Thailand, and consequently missing out on parts of the "Thai experience". And I'm not even sure if Thai food really was at all to blame for my problems! In fact, I suspect it might have been due to the meal at Chester's Grill the day before the Hilltribe trek. However, there's no use arguing rationally with your stomach, it just doesn't work :-)