And spectacular it was......

Wednesday 13th August

....and spectacular it was. I met up with one of my guardians, Tukta who is the other if the two ladies who saved my life at the airport all those weeks ago. We had been promising each other pretty much since I got here, that we would go out to a Ska club and have a dance off. I met her along with a couple of her friends, who I am sad to say I have forgotten the names of now, at about 11pm down at Kao San, at the same club that Jeremy and I had been too three weeks previously – Brick Club. It was a Saturday night, and because of this, like most venues, you have to pay a nominal fee to get in - 150B (which of course comes with a free drink). Somehow it was possible to club in three tickets along with 400B for us to get a litre of Whisky, a bucket of ice and the mixers – I must remember that little manoeuvre for the future.... Anyway, the place was packed; I mean absolutely manic, same great atmosphere as before, but just no room to move. We based ourselves upstairs on the mezzanine, there was a live band playing, although I don’t even think I got to see them it was so full, I heard them, but just didn’t see them. We managed to find a space and used a chair as our drinks table thanks to some risqué architecture – I mean racking and stacking. The music was alright, not by any means classic Jamaican Ska, rocksteady or the like, but suitably That-style. It took me about until the bottom of the first drink to get my sway externalised, but once it happened it happened. Full dance action for a good couple of hours coupled with swigs of boozy mineral water and the harsh secret dance floor smoking of cigarettes which reminded me of smoking joints in a club back home because of its paralleled illegality, all added up to make me wish I had not worn a shirt, a jumper and a hat – but if you go Ska, you got to look Ska, and I knew the risks before I left the apartment!

It got to about 1:30am, and for some reason the alcohol had managed to hit me all at once like a wrecking ball would do a beach chalet! In short, I felt shit! I mean, I have been out drinking before; I have drunk a lot more before. In fact, I wasn’t even out drinking, I was out dancing. I don’t know whether it was because I was so hot, because I was dancing with so much enthusiasm (read that as – incredibly well), or if my body just saying “ENOUGH” after four nights out in a row, but I was more drunk than I have been in a long time, in fact, the most drunk I have been in Thailand. I have been sloppy drunk through sheer longevity of drinking, but not that type of drunk where you know you have to eat something pretty quickly just to absorb the liquid inside your stomach before you go into vomit mode. So, I had to go to get something to eat, something like bread (the irony of the statement ‘something like bread’ – is that in Thailand, that’s exactly what they do have, but it is never quite bread!), I made my excuses and made an exit for the 7/11 to go and eat a tuna toasty – toasty’s are all the rage in Thailand, it’s 7/11 culture gone crazy, but to be fair you should see some of the other things you can eat in there, to be fair the comfort of a toasty seems pretty safe compared to the freaky looking hotdogs and their family-kind – anyway, yeah my toasty, well it was nice, but it wasn’t really all that absorbent, I invested in some water at the same time and parked myself on the curb outside and chatted to some Thai lads who seemed to be pretty bemused at the sight of a white guy on Kao San in a shirt, a jumper, a hat and slacks. To be honest I was also becoming increasingly obliged to side with them due to the fact that I was only getting more drunk and I was only taking in water. I smoked with them, by the second cigarette, I realised that I really couldn’t finish it, in fact more than that, it was utterly repulsive, something was wrong! We said our goodbyes and I decided to go back to the club to repeat the goodbye process with Tukta and the rest of the entourage.

By the time I got into the taxi, my head was spinning, I just wanted to get home and pass out. I knew that I had been burning the candle a little, and that a good night sleep was exactly what I needed, and because it wasn’t too late i thought I would be all good to get up early in the morning and start to put my body clock back into sync with the real world.

The last thing about being drunk I remember was putting on some old Samuel Fuller film to go to sleep to, and it did the job – out like a light just as I had hoped and expected, mission accomplished, and without wanting to sound too crass, without a hint of bile being lost! However, at 5am I woke up to what I thought was a hangover, this wasn’t a hangover, let me tell you. I stood up and nearly died. Something was much more wrong than that! I couldn’t place it, and then I started coughing, and not being able to stop. This was a pretty bad sounding cough. I felt hot, to I turned on the air-con, fresh onto ice factor 20 Degrees C (I know that’s probably a hot day for you isn’t it....). I lay there in bed for a good three hours, tossing and turning feeling terrible. I drank two litres of water and had run out. I slept for perhaps an hour, waking myself up by coughing again, uncontrollable coughing! This time I had run out of water, but I could do nothing about it. I say nothing, the shop downstairs is 24hours, I could have gone and gotten water at any time, but I couldn’t I was too weak. I actually stayed there in my bed, unable to sleep, tortured by the need for water, hot and then cold and then hot again, aching and having my brain burnt through by the almost non-existent rays of sunlight which glimmered through my curtain for about five hours before I could get up to drink from the tap!

I think that it was at this point where I decided that this definitely was no hangover, and that I was most definitely sick! I threw myself into the shower for a good long time, it took a while but braving the cold water was a good thing. I just felt well, I don’t know how to describe it! After the shower I got dressed and actually felt a little better, surprisingly, I was also hungry – what happened to starve a fever, feed a cold concept? – I decided that I also needed a pillow and a duvet of some kind. I have been in Bangkok for 7 weeks, and besides my short time in a hotel, I have not had either a pillow or a duvet/blanket/sheet of any kind! This could not continue if I was going to be ill!

I went to the local shopping mall and took my computer to try and pass some time and gauge the full extent of my illness. I had some food which although satisfied my immediate hunger, didn’t really do much else. I used the internet for a while and spoke to my friend who runs a coffee shop here, I watched a little Olympics and kind of talked myself into the fact that I felt ok. I was hot, I had a cough, but I was okay, I didn’t really feel feverish anymore, I felt a little stiff, but I didn’t know if that was from the night’s sleep or what! After a couple of hours, I went over to Tesco Lotus, bought myself a pillow and a blanket (cheapest option – total price 240B/£4, yeah I am a stingy bastard when it comes to my own comfort), and then I headed back to the apartment – begrudgingly, it was almost like admitting defeat, I think it was more the fact that it was about 7pm and I knew that I was destined to spend at least the next 24 hours in bed! I decided that maybe something really spicy would help me to shake off some of the groggy flu feelings, so I ordered some Som Tom, and some Tom Yung Gung along with some steamed rice. I also invested in some hot tea and some fisherman’s friends (for desert of course), I tried to get comfortable and just lay down and watched films until I slept, which eventually, I did. The next day (Monday), I didn’t wake up until 5pm, I still couldn’t decide whether I was ill, or really ill. It was also at about that point where I noticed that I also had some sort of a rash on my neck – fuck, what is going on here! I’m falling apart! I slept a long time, so that’s usually a good thing; however I didn’t exactly have that recovery freshness..... Instead my right armpit hurt! It was too late for me to really do much, but there was no way I was just going to stay in my room all day. I got up and made the same short trip to the internet cafe, caught up on some emails, and drank a lot of hot tea and honey. I also decided that if I was no better by Tuesday, then I would admit defeat, put my tail between my legs and go to the hospital (in Thailand, you don’t really have a doctors surgery; it is just etiquette to go to the hospital). I used my time to do some research into which hospital would be the best one to go to in the case of that scenario and came to a conclusion. Then, after a few hours I begrudgingly went back to my apartment to get more bored and feel even more ill. To my relief, Es came over at about midnight after she finished work and before she started her other job. I hadn’t seen her in ages and because I have her phone, I had no way of contacting her! It was good to see her, if only for a couple of hours, I think that bit of human contact with someone I knew almost saved my life – in the sense of sanity
Tuesday came, late again, I didn’t sleep until late – even with a pillow and a blanket, my sleep was still erratic and I woke up with an aching body and a stiff neck again. There was no two ways about it, I was going to have to go to the Hospital, I just wasn’t getting any better. It took me about 5 minutes to get to Bambumgrad Hospital (ahh yeah what a name), massive international hospital with many different departments. I was ushered into the Emergency room. Nothing like you expect in England. It was empty (at 7pm), there was no smell of hospital (only money), I was filling out my registration and before I could finish there was a nurse and a doctor waiting to see me, I mean, they were ready before I was! They took my BMI, my blood-pressure and my temperature, then I went into a room for a consultation. I explained and described what was wrong, showed them the rash, they checked out my throat and my lymph glands and then we had a conversation about former Prime Minister Thaksin (who as you may know has done a runner away from Thailand because he is blatantly a money laundering guilty corrupt bastard who is going to Jail in Thailand), and then I was given a prescription to go to the Hospital Pharmacist with. I was in there 10 minutes maximum! I just hope the doctor wasn’t too hasty! I got a bill for 2640B/£40ish – a bit steep I know, but the service was speedy, and well the breakdown was 1000B for the doctors time, 140B Administration, and 1500B for my medicine. I have never in my life walked out of a hospital/pharmacy or the like with as many different drugs as I did yesterday. Seven different fucking packets of drugs! Three different antibiotics – one for my bronchitis, one for my swollen lymph glands and one for something else! Paracetamol (didn’t really need that did i!), cream for my rash – the rash is actually Eczema – I knew it looked familiar, but I have never had it before, and I was really surprised to have it, all I can think is that it must have been set on from the stress of being ill... I don’t know! Then I have some tablets to help my cough and tome other tablets to break down my Mucus. Unbelievable! I still can’t believe it. So now I have to put my body through some pretty tough drugs, for 5 or 6 days, until the various courses are finished, and then I can hopefully return to humanity.

Meanwhile, after I got in last night, I decided I needed a large meal before I could really consider putting all these drugs inside me at once! So I ate more Tom Yung Gung and tried to sleep in my room. This did NOT happen! I think that the amount of times I have slept beyond 4pm, and the little activity that I have been doing over the last couple of days has meant that my body clock is shattered. I lay in bed all night without being able to sleep, one good thing to come of it thought was that I watched Zeitgeist (2007) – a Documentary which I really think you should all take a look at if you haven’t already. I saw a bit of it a little while ago, after watching the film Network (1976) with the pure Dave Jones whilst we were working for peanuts. (I didn’t just mention the latter film for no reason, it is referenced or should i say phrased in the former for good purpose). I took an extra dose of everything at 5am and then started cleaning my apartment! I just about finished by about seven, and decided to take another shower and then come to the internet cafe and just write about my ordeal a little so that I could deal with it in a more cathartic way than lying in bed and going mildly insane again! So I plan just to stay up now until about 8 or 9pm and then get myself back to normal! These tablets are giving me strange internal cramps, but they are not so much painful as just weird! The good thing is that the body pain has gone, along with much of the temperature. The symptoms have eased, but I still feel groggy and mildly discombobulated. Now I just have to keep myself amused without smoking or drinking alcohol for another 5 days... to be honest, I think the smoking has to be seriously cut back in all eventuality it, along with the pollution has to be a partial cause of all this. I’m just really pissed off to be ill, happy I’m not lying up in a hospital bed, but for someone who doesn’t get ill very often, this is a real pisser, especially as soon as it has and is taking so many days off of me!