Hat Yai

We arrived in Hat Yai with P. A, Wongchan's student, just before dinner time. Bas and her husband took us from the bus station to their house, which was the nicest house we have seen in Thailand. Once we dropped off our luggage, we went to dinner with the two of them and Bas' father at a Chinese restaurant. The food was definitely not like Chinese food at home. Everything was served on a revolving table so that everyone shared each dish until we were all stuffed! They took us for a short tour through Hat Yai's hospital after. Bas is an OB-GYN, her husband is a neurologist and her father is a surgeon and the hospital director, so it was easy for us to walk right in. We saw the outside of the NICU, and went into the cardiovascular surgery recovery area. 

After a good night's rest, we left early in the morning with Wongchan and her husband for breakfast. We went to another Chinese restaurant and had dim sum. Then we went on a road trip with Wongchan and P. A to a resort about four hours away, near Khanom. The resort was eco-friendly with a jungle theme and we stayed in individual huts (with real beds, running water and electricity). We ate a "light" lunch, which made us all feel like we might explode, then went exploring. There was a creek running through the area with the same fish in it that nibble at your feet, so we got another pedicure. These fish were a little more painful than the others but we survived. Over the creek was a ropes course that we played around on for a while before going to the sheep farm. The resort had about 20 sheep that you could pet and pay to feed.

The man working at the sheep farm recommened a beach to us, so we got in the car and went to find it. After just a couple wrong turns, we arrived at a little bay with small restaurants and shops. We got in the water to find out that it was surprisingly warm and the bottom was all clay that we sunk in to our knees. We entertained ourselves for a while with some coconuts we found, took some pictures, then headed out for dinner. The restaurant was on the same beach, and we were seated on the sand and got to watch the sunset while we ate. It was gorgeous!  Dinner consisted of lots and lots of seafood, so we were once again very full. Back at the resort, we all felt in desperate need of a workout so Colleen conducted a water aerobics class in the pool. Now we are all in excellent shape, of course.

Today we woke up early again to grab breakfast and headed back to the beach. We waded out through the clay to a longtail boat, which picked us up for some sightseeing. Apparently the area is known for a rare breed of pink dolphins, but we weren't really expecting to see them. Once the boat was free from the clay, we left the bay, turned the corner and immediately saw three or four pink dolphins! They swam pretty close to our boat, so we threw fish out to feed them. When they were full, we left for a small island of rocks where a famous Thai singer uses the rocks as her stage for some songs. We climbed around, then headed to another small island where we actually ran into the singer! At the top of this island was a small temple with a Buddha at the top that we stopped at before turning around. Just before we arrived back at the beach we spotted some more dolphins, but they weren't pink this time. 

We got back in the car and drove to Wongchan's friend's restaurant in the city. She made us tons of delicious food, then we changed into suitable temple clothes. Wongchan and P. A took us to a pretty famous temple in the city, where we walked around and went to a small museum. It seems like each time we go to a new temple we learn a little bit more about Buddhism and its symbolism. Wongchan's brother works nearby as a photographer, so we stopped at his studio to say goodbye before splitting up. P. A and Wongchan are en route to Trang for a conference and we took a minibus back to the house in Hat Yai.

Phuket

Our arrival in the Phuket airport was a strange shock to us in comparison to Surin. Instead of being greeted by smiles, we were shuffled around for a bit by people in search of a taxi. After finally finding a shuttle to our hotel, it ended up stopping at a random travel agency to try to get us to buy tourist packages. By the time we got to the hotel, we were all a bit crabby. At least we were pleasantly surprised by our big rooms with A/C and hot showers!

On Saturday, we woke up and wanted to get to the beach as quickly as possible. It turned out to only be about a 10 minute walk from our hotel, so we camped out there for a few hours to swim and lay out. We found a nice restaurant to eat lunch at, and had to adjust a little bit to the price difference from Surin. We had been really spoiled with the prices there because Surin is such a rural community without much tourism. It rained for a little bit so we just stayed in the restaurant until it stopped, letting us walk around and explore all of the shopping areas near the beach. We decided to walk back toward our hotel and stop somewhere along the way for dinner, and ended up finding some decently priced Thai food. We all added our usual amount of chili powder, only to find out that it was much spicier than anything we had in Surin. By the end of the meal we were holding ice cubes on our lips and tongues.

After a short nap, we got ready to see what Patong's night life was like. There is a strip of bars and clubs on Bangla Road, so we bar hopped for a few hours. We decided that in choosing a place on this street, you can either drink at a decent price or dance...not both. All of the bars have bells at them, and if anyone pays 1000 Baht (about $32) to ring one, everyone at that bar gets a free shot. Unfortunately we did not get to experience this, but we liked the idea!

Since we were out so late, we slept in pretty late on Sunday. Once we had breakfast and were ready to go back to the beach, it started raining again so we postponed a little longer. By the time we got there it was mid-afternoon, so we stayed until evening. We had looked online for Mexican food (which we are definitely craving at this point), and walked in search of a restaurant with dollar tacos to no avail. Instead, we stopped at another small restaurant with Thai food before heading to the night market. There they had many vendors with street food and typical touristy stands for shopping. We decided to experience the fish "pedicure" that seems to be very popular here. We sat with our feet in the tank for 15 minutes trying very hard not to move, while hundreds of fish nibbled on and tickled us.

Monday was an early morning for us because we booked a day trip to see the Phi Phi islands! We drove to a pier where they put about 30 people on a speedboat to take us island hopping. The water was very rough and we were sitting on the front, so the boat rides were quite an adventure. Our first stop was in Pileh Bay, where we got to jump in and swim around for a bit. We went past Viking Cave, which is illegal to enter without a permit because there are tons of birds that nest there and apparently bird nest soup is a delicacy worth a lot of money here. The next stop was Monkey Bay, where the monkeys swim and run around in the trees hoping for food from all of the boats. Then we headed to Phi Phi Don, where we snorkeled in the bay. We weren't expecting to see much, but tons of colorful fish came right up to us! When we swam away from the crowd, they even kept trying to nibble on us. After we gave them a snack, we stopped for a buffet lunch and walked around on the island before heading back.

On the way back to Phuket island, we made one last stop at another island to lay out, swim, and have snacks/drinks. We splurged a little on fun drinks served in pineapples and tried snorkeling some more. By the time we got back on the boat to head in, we had had our fair share of sun for the day. 

After our ride back to Patong, we were absolutely starving. For dinner, we went back to the hot chili powder place and this time we were more sparse with the seasoning. Kelsey and Colleen walked down to the beach in hopes of seeing the sunset, but the haze over the water was too thick to see much.

This morning, we woke up early again to get to the bus to take us to Hat Yai to stay with Garrett's family friend, Wongchan. After an 8 hour bus ride, we made it and found Wongchan's daughter Bas and her husband!

Last Days in Surin

Our last days in the clinic really flew by, so we had to take advantage of all of our favorite things in Surin as quickly as possible!

Tuesday night we went back to the daily market, mostly for the delicious waffles. A new volunteer moved into the house with us this week, so we showed him around too.

Wednesday was another early day for a hypertension clinic. We split up into the usual groups: check-in/vitals, glucose testing, and hematocrit/wound healing. There were storms in the morning so we were a little slower than usual. After lunch we went to three different villages to do home visits for newborns and their mothers. It was very eye-opening to see the conditions that different patients live in. The first woman lived in a nice home with her extended family and had concerns about breastfeeding. The second lived in a smaller home with more exposure to the outdoors, as chickens and cats seemed to run through their living room area. Our last stop involved wading through big mud puddles to get to the home, and we only saw one bedroom full of clothing and a bed. The women all seemed to be very grateful that we were able to be there and the babies were adorable, as expected!

Nicky invited us to Muay Thai (Thai boxing) Wednesday night, so we of course jumped at the opportunity along with most of the other volunteers. We were very shocked when we first walked in and saw boys who didn't look any older than 8 punching and kicking each other with adults yelling and gambling on them. Our moods lifted after the first two matches, as the boxers looked a little older. Nicky told us a little about the sport and we learned that the opponents are more respectful to each other than they may seem at first. The goal is to gain points, not to knock out the other person. Once we became more accustomed to what we were looking at, the night became much more enjoyable. Cyle and Garrett even got to go into the ring to present two of the boxers with flower necklaces for good luck before their match.

Yesterday was another half day for us, and we got to visit the community hospital! It is a smaller hospital that is used as a step up from the clinic we had been in but not quite as equipped as the city hospital. we stayed in the ER for a couple of hours and saw three patients: a man with leukemia who was receiving erythropoietin injections, a young guy with a migraine and a man who had been injured working in the fields. His case was the longest, as we undressed the wound and saw that most of the tissue had been removed. He had waited too long to go to the hospital, and the wound had become badly infected. After cleaning it, the nurses told us to cut out certain sections (which we presumed to be areas with gangrene). Even though he was obviously in a ton of pain, the man was very appreciative and never complained. After he was ready to go, we went back to the clinic for a short ceremony where the director spoke with us and gave us each a certificate. It was so nice to know that the clinic staff enjoyed having us and even welcomed us to come back in the future!

After a delicious lunch at our favorite fried rice place, we stopped at the local school to pick up other volunteers and got to sing a phonics song with the kids! The rest of our day was spent packing before going out to dinner (well two dinners-the chicken rice place right in front of our house and a new place recommended by Nicky with fresh tilapia) and the local bar to say goodbye to everyone. It was a great time, but it still hasn't sunk in that we won't be going back to see them again. Tuktuks came to pick us up (since we brought all of our belongings to the bar with us) and took us to the bus station for our overnight bus to Bangkok. It was a surprisingly comfortable ride, and we made it to the city and found the cooking school we had made reservations at!

Chef Non took us through a local market and explained how to choose the ingredients that we wanted. He then spent about three hours helping us to make five Thai dishes: tom yum soup, Pad Thai, chicken salad, green curry and mango sticky rice. We left with very full bellies and a cookbook that we are looking forward to using at home!

We are now sitting in the airport waiting for our quick flight to our next stop: Patong Beach in Phuket!

Cyle's Birthday

We made it through the night without any more spider sightings! Our train ride back to Surin was early on Sunday morning, so we were back in time for lunch. Cyle went to get his birthday massage, which was half off, and we decided to be productive and go to the laundromat. (By laundromat, we mean eight washers that are randomly placed on the sidewalk.)

(Here's the spider from the last post...nobody wanted to get close enough to use their hand for a size comparison.)

For dinner, we met up with the new child care volunteers and met the one new medical volunteer who is with us this week. Cyle was surprised when a cake was brought out to him for dessert. Garrett and Nicky had gone to a famous bakery in Surin, and after eating we realized why it was so famous. The rest of the night consisted of playing cards before bed, as this is turning into a nightly ritual.

Yesterday the clinic was pretty slow, and we did most of the work on ourselves. Garrett needed his foot cleaned and re-bandaged, Kelsey was beginning to have a sore throat so we diagnosed her with a common cold/allergies, and we think Patrick has traveler's diarrhea from something he ate on his weekend trip. We are all being even more careful to wash our hands now because he seems very sick. Before the day was over we did see a few more patients for wound care and diagnosis. 

After clinic, our leader Wi joined us all at the exercise park, and a few of us rented bikes for 20 baht for an hour! We got our workouts done just in time before a pretty strong downpour started, then met Wi again at a nearby restaurant for dinner. We had been to this restaurant before, but it was much better this time with Wi's help ordering our food and with the owner there to cook. After another satisfying meal, we returned to the house to play cards with two of the new child care volunteers.

Today has been another relatively slow day in the clinic, but we have seen some interesting cases. There were a couple of mystery bug bites/cases of edema, an eye condition that we had never heard of, an ear problem, an allergy to a popular Thai fruit, and a woman who had her staples from a C-section removed. We also finally took the time to explore the temple across the street, and Wi explained some small Buddhist symbols to us!

Khao Yai

Immediately after getting off the train and back into the warm air, a Thai woman asked us which hotel we were going to and instructed us to wait. We really had no idea what was going on, but after a few minutes a pickup truck arrived for us and drove us to the Green Leaf. We had expectations of a cheap hotel, but it is more of a cottage rental with pretty gardens and a restaurant (which has the option to substitute tofu for most menu items, to Colleen's pleasant surprise).

We had a couple hours to spare before the beginning of our first tour, so we went to a coffee shop down the street for energy and wifi. We then hopped back into the bed of the pickup truck with a French family to start the tour.

The first place we went was a natural spring, so we spent some time swimming in the cool and very clear water with other tourists and some locals. 

After air drying the best we could in another truck ride, we stopped at what looked like a large temple. We walked around a corner and there was a cave entrance that we were instructed to go into. Apparently the monks frequently medidate in the darkness and quiet of this cave, alongside tarantulas, bats, centipedes and other creepy crawlies. Our tour guide found a tarantula right away for us to look at before it scurried back into its hole. He then picked up some type of arachnoid that is commonly described by its looks as a "scorpion spider." We didn't realize how interactive this tour was until he put the creature on Cyle's neck and let it crawl around on his face and head. After more of us got a chance to hold it, we ventured on to see all of the bats sleeping on the ceilings and flying around each other. Our guide then found a blueish, massive centipede which he put on Colleen's arm to explore. We kept walking through for a while and saw different Buddha's and places for the monks to meditate before leaving.

The next stop was what our guide referred to as the real bat cave. We couldn't go in, because apparently there used to be a problem with visitors stealing the bat poop and selling it or making explosives from it. So we watched at the bottom of the mountain as the sun was going down to see about two million bats leave their cave in search of food. While they began to fly out, we also got to eat some more Thai fruit: mangosteen and rambutan. Our guide then handed us weird pea pod-looking things and told us to put them under our tongues. Everyone yelped when we discovered that they explode like pop rocks when they get wet. (Except Kelsey, who tried to be sneaky and waited until everyone else tried them first.)

Our last stop before going back for the night was at the spring again to see a huge millipede. We got to hold it and let it crawl around on us. They are really strong!

The next morning, we drove into the actual grounds of Khao Yai National Park. A few minutes into the drive, the truck stopped and our tour guide hurried us off to let us look for the gibbons swinging on branches in the distance. He also picked up a scorpion from somewhere near the road and placed it on some of us. After a few minutes of this, we drove a little farther to another spot where gibbons and macaques were swinging and eating in plain view. 

We then went for a three hour hike through the jungle. Although we didn't come across any elephants, tigers or monkeys, we did see some pretty trees and streams, as well as get some exercise in. By the time we made it to lunch, we were exhausted. We went for one last photo opp to a waterfall before the long drive back.

After satisfying our stomachs with another delicious dinner (Kelsey and Colleen actually had two dinners) and using the wifi at a nearby cafe, we decided to head back to play cards and call it a night. When Fiona walked into the girls' room, she realized they had a visitor. She screamed and pointed at the intruder tarantula on the wall. Even though we have been holding various creatures a lot lately, we didn't feel safe grabbing it, so we called one of the staff workers in to help us. He laughed and said that these spiders aren't even dangerous and that it wasn't that big. Regardless, we were all happy to see our friend let back into the wild. We then decided to play cards and drink some beer in order to help us sleep in our possibly spider-infested rooms.