Hello all! I am alive and well. I know I haven’t posted in a while. I’ve been in Nepal for the past 2 weeks. I was there for the earthquake. Luckily, it wasn’t bad where I was- but still not comforting feeling the earth shaking below you!
I spent 10 days trekking in the Himalaya Mountains to the base camp of Annapurna. So beautiful! Even during monsoon season…
After 24 hours of traveling I arrived safely in Ubud on the island of Bali in Indonesia. First mission: nap.
Here’s a view from my balcony. I think I’ll l.o.v.e. it here!
Ashleigh left me to go back home for her new job in DC on Thursday. Since then my days have been filled with weird sleeping patterns, excessive massages ($4 for an hour- how can I say no?), lots of lounging, catching up with friends and family, I even started updating the ‘ole resume, and planning my next adventures! Oh yes, did I mention that I now have to eat all my romantic beach side dinners solo? Phu Quoc isn’t exactly geared for the solo traveler, couples paradise.
My usual dinner set up. Can I count my Nook as a romantic dinner date?
My theme of healthcare around the world is still going strong. Last week when I arrived on the island of Phu Quoc off the southern coast of Vietnam I went to check out their hospital . Thankfully, this visit was under better circumstances than in the past.
When I was sick in Hanoi Dr. Brian basically came to the conclusion that my doctor back in New York is an idiot. One of his first questions once he heard my symptoms was if I had been vaccinated for Japanese Encephalitis. I had even brought up the vaccination to my doctor who assured me it was so rare and completely unnecessary to get vaccinated for it. Dr. Brain thought otherwise and I’m inclined to trust him since he’s been working in the trenches of Southeast Asia for the past 6 years and not sitting in an office in Lower Manhattan.
So I was instructed to get the vaccination as soon as I was healthy again since I”m headed to Nepal in September. The vaccination is four parts. Two within the 2 weeks then the other two over a year away.
Since I was going to be on Phu Quoc island for almost 2 weeks I decided to get my first set of vaccinations there.
After trying to call the hospital several times with no luck (the people at our hotel looked at me weird for trying to call the hospital and just said the only way to contact them is by going??) Ashleigh and I set off for the hospital with a handy piece of paper that said “Vaccination Department: Japanese Encephalitis” in Vietnamese. Little did we know what awaited us.
And here she is, the shady beauty that is the hopsital of Phu Quoc, Vietnam:
I was honestly a little scared and shocked upon first entering this hospital. It was open air, like the one in Laos, with people running around everywhere. It seemed like mass chaos. We showed our little piece of paper to the woman the front desk who showed us to the vaccination department.
The man working in the vaccination department didn’t speak a word of English. I handed him the paper, he nodded and proceeded to get a small vile of liquid out of his trusty refrigerator (at this point I was just relieved they had one). And then, he handed it to me.
Ashleigh and I exchanged nervous glances. Was he expecting me to self administer??? There seemed to be no move on his part to indicate otherwise.
I really didn’t want to self administer. And even if he was going to give me the shot, I really wanted to talk to an English speaking doctor before. So then started the process of me trying to communicate my desires to him. Eventually he got out his cell phone and began making calls. Finally he got someone on the phone and just handed it to me.
Assuming he was calling a doctor was a very incorrect assumption. Apparently he was just calling his friends who spoke English. So I began a very confusing conversation with his friend (probably a motorbike driver who knows nothing about medicine). His friend said something that made me question whether this was a medicine to treat Japanese Encephalitis or a preventative vaccination, making me all the more weary to have anything injected in my body without speaking to a doctor. So then I just explained that all I wanted was to talk to an English speaking doctor.
Enter adorable, basic English speaking, pediatrician there to save the day:
She confirmed that it was the preventative vaccination and reviewed the possible side effect (please note that I’m nervously picking my fingernails).
Then I watched the nurse like a hawk as she removed the needle and syringe from the protective casing. Ashleigh still thinks I should be tested for everything under the sun when I get home.
I will say that the one positive to my doctor being wrong about giving me this vaccination is that it costed me a whopping $3.50 in Vietnam compared to over $200 at home. Yay!
Oh, and did I mention the man we saw smoking inside the hospital. Hmm…makes you wonder….
Looking forward to going back in in a few days for round two!
It recently came to my attention that I forgot to share one of the most epic stories of my trip thus far. Back on July 3rd, my sisters and I were trying to get from Siem Reap, Cambodia to Si Phan Don, Laos (more commonly known as 4,000 islands). 4,000 islands is a group of you guessed it, thousands of islands located in the Mekong River along the border of Cambodia and Laos.
A mini-bus picked us up at our hotel at 5am that morning for our 12 hour journey to Laos. That mini-bus then took us to another big bus after picking up other travelers along the way. The big bus was 1/2 empty and due to our rather early start I passed out immediately.
1.5 hours into our journey from Siem Reap I was awoken by a crashing thud and really loud noise. I woke up to see our bus pushing a smaller work truck along. The bus driver continued driving at his normal speed for what seemed like eternity. It was almost like he wasn’t even phased by the fact that he was literally pushing another vehicle. Eventually the truck flipped and was pushed off to the side of the road by our big, mean bus driver.
About 300 meters after this happened the bus driver finally put his foot on the brakes for the first time since impact. He stopped the bus, got his belongings and ran into the jungle. That’s right. He just ran. And left all his precious cargo in the middle of no where.
Our slightly beat up bus, barely bothered by the flipping of a poor little truck.
The village people came out for the excitement.
Even the police (who didn’t look or seem like a police officer) came out.
Eventually the company sent out a minibus to continue the journey, but since we were an hour and a half outside of town we had to wait for quite some time. Some random woman and child from the village hopped into the minibus for the ride? So weird. I still don’t understand how the whole system operates.
So we continued on. Then we got a flat tire. This was beginning to get humorous. The flat tire thing was worked out fairly quickly and we were on our way again. Then we ended up in the town where we were supposed to transfer buses, a mere 3 or so hours late.
The people at the bus station reassured us that there would be another bus coming soon and encouraged us to take a seat and wait patiently. This bus station was tiny and crowded with homeless people walking (or dragging themselves along the floor if they couldn’t want) around begging for money. Not really a fun place to have to wait with all of your earthly possessions for hours.
After maybe an hour of waiting we were informed the bus had already come for the day (total change of story from earlier) and we would have to stay the night there and take the bus to Laos the next morning.
Luckily, through all this process we had made friends with two Slovenian guys on the journey with us. We all headed off to find a hotel for the night. We settled in at probably the most disgusting place I’ve ever stayed (well, there was the free hotel at the Golden Temple in Amritsar, India…that was pretty bad…). I guess we should have expected that for $5 a night for all three of us.
The beds were hard as rocks with plastic sheets that stuck to our bodies. With no air conditioning and just a tiny fan it made for a pretty rough night. And the bathroom, oh the bathroom, don’t even get me started. I warned Lauren and Paige to try to not breathe in there for fear of the mold or what have you attacking our lungs.
After 20 hours in this pretty dull town we were back on the road and made it fine to 4,000 islands. We stayed on Don Det and had a really chill, relaxing 4 days there. It was probably one of the more laid back places I’ve ever been and we really embraced the life style.
We went tubing in the gross, brown Mekong River. Apparently it’s a gorgeous turquoise color when it’s not the rainy season.
The sunsets there were amazing.
We rented bikes one day to ride to another island to see the waterfalls. The waterfalls were cool, but I loved riding through the country side with all the rice farmers. We had a few friendly run ins with the water buffalo.
Ah, a little piece of heaven on here on Phu Quoc island in Vietnam.
I just realized when writing in my travel journal tonight that I’ve officially been gone for 4 months today! I think that deserves an extra post with a picture from the pool at Red Bridge Cooking School where Ashleigh and I took a Vietnamese cooking class at yesterday. Time is flying by!
I finally started feeling better and we were able to leave Hanoi on Saturday after 10 days there. We headed south to Hoi An on an overnight train and spent the past 5 days loving life in a more low key, slow paced town.
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This past Sunday Ashleigh and I went to this church in Hanoi. It’s really famous and the outside is always swarming with tourists. The inside is only open for mass. We could never find a consistent listing for mass times online so we ended up showing up around 10 since everywhere we looked at a time listed at either 10, 10:30 or 11.
When we arrived, the church sign said there was mass at 9 and 11. There was no one around. It sure was dead for having just had mass at 9am. All the doors were locked up. Then it started pouring. A little man came at unlocked the church for the small crowd of tourists that had gathered. Most people were under the impression that there was an English mass at 10:30. Great.
10:30 rolled around. Church still empty. No priest anywhere.
10:45 came. Small Vietnamese man who originally let us into the church came running through the church screaming in Vietnamese and shooing everyone out. Apparently there was no service?
We all left, totally bewildered as the gates of the church yard were being locked behind us.
Ashleigh and I wandered down the street a bit to a convent we had seen earlier. We were greeted by the two tiniest, oldest Vietnamese women. They sat us down in a nice meeting room, brought us water and abandoned us there. We waited patiently. We weren’t sure if we were supposed to be waiting or what we were supposed to be waiting on. But we waited.
Finally what must have been their mother superior entered to greet her guests. She spoke a bit of English so we were able to find out that the church has few masses during the vacation time so we’d have to wait to go that night at 6pm.
So we returned that night. Really interesting service. It was PACKED. The women sit on the right and the men on the left. NO MIXING. AT ALL.
They literally run, rat race style, to get communion. And forget about anyone kindly letting you get in the line. You better wait or force yourself in. Same thing happened when it was time to leave. I guess in church or not, the people of Hanoi still act the same.
For those of you wanting to go to mass at St. Joseph’s in Hanoi the mass schedule they have posted on the church (although from my experiences doesn’t really mean anything) is:
Weekdays 8:30am and 6:15pm
Saturday 5:30am and 6:00pm
Sunday 5:00, 7:00, 9:00 and 11:00am and 4:00 and 6:00pm
Before I left on my trip a few people told me that a theme for my trip would appear while I was traveling. Maybe it would be something like scuba diving or trekking or German men. Who knows? It could have been anything.
Now, almost 4 months in, my theme has been revealed. And it’s possibily the worst of all themes. Are you ready for this? Drum roll please…
Healthcare Around the World.
Yay! What a joyous theme is has been. I’ve now been to doctors/hospitals in 5 different countries. I’ve been to a doctor in every country I’ve been to in Asia over the past 2+ months.
As a lot of you might know by now, I’ve been very ill for the past week.
It started last Monday as lower back and neck pain (I thought caused by carrying around a heavy purse one day in Bangkok) and a headache (caused by the hectic stress of my sisters’ last day with me) and extreme exhaustion. My sisters left on a flight at 2am that next morning so I took them to the airport late night night. We sadly sobbed through our goodbyes, which didn’t make me feel any better.
My friend, Ashleigh, was flying into Bangkok 6 hours after Lauren and Paige left so I had decided just to sleep at the airport for convenience. It was probably one of the most awful nights. I now know that it’s because I was really sick with a fever and chills (I thought the AirCon at the airport was just out of control). I slept on a metal bench for small increments of time with my hoodie tied as far around my face as it could go. I also randomly had a skirt in my bag that I tied around my feet to keep me warm. It was the first time I’ve been cold in Southeast Asia. And it was not fun. I eventually moved down to the floor and slept under a bench as the floor seemed warmer.
Ashleigh finally arrived around 9:30 that morning and we headed to our hotel. I was feeling pretty awful and she wasn’t in much better shape after a 30 hour flight. We took a nap immediately then woke up to eat some and walk around Bangkok a bit. I just had no energy and still blamed it on my awful night of sleep at the airport. We went to bed at 7 that evening.
On Wednesday we woke up at 4am for our early flight to Hanoi, Vietnam. I slept the whole flight. Then once we found a hotel in Hanoi I slept for 7 hours in the day, woke up to force myself to eat bread and off-brand Nutella, then slept for another 8 hours.
Symptoms:
By Thursday it was evident that I was not just sleep deprived from one bad night in the airport. I began the mad chase to try to find a Western trained doctor. My insurance company took over 8 hours to get back to me with a recommendation so I ended up calling the good ‘ole US embassy. Turns out they actually have a doctor on staff, but he was out of town. So they made an appointment for me with someone else they recommend.
That day was not fun since Ashleigh and I spent the time I was actually awake Googling my symptoms. Some pretty scary stuff out there you can catch in Asia (everywhere, really, but particularly scary stuff here).
That afternoon I had an appointment with Dr. Brian, my favorite person in Vietnam. He’s from the UK and well, we’ve just spent so much time with him over the last week. He was insanely honest and his options for possible things I had made me feel worse than my scary Google search. He narrowed it down to the following and in this order:
Apparently they don’t have the same patient protection laws in Vietnam? And my name sure stuck out.
Sticking the evil thing up my nose.
One of the 4 days of blood work.
Dr. Brian 
I wanted to hug him, but I got the feeling he wouldn’t like that.
