Tuesday, July 22: Woke up early today, about 7:00. I do Internet for about 2 hours be-fore Fon gets up. We have very little food at home, so Fon goes to the small shop down the soi and gets many vegetables and some squid. She makes the best squid fried rice that I’ve ever had!

We laze about for a bit. I ask Fon to check on AC. She goes and asks- they still have not called. Dipsheets- why do all requests have to be made multiple times before anybody takes action? Of course, Fon again doesn’t ask when she will call! It’s just not the Thai way to try to pin anybody down on definitive answers. We find the spring for the kickstand and I hang it on the bike. Fon does the laundry, comes in and naps on the couch.

Since the AC is still not working in the living room, I decide to nap in the bedroom. I wake up about 30 minutes later and my stomach feels like ****. I use the toilet and have diarrhea. I feel warm, so I take my temperature: 100.1 degrees I return to the bedroom and then go right back to the toilet, where I now have diarrhea and vomiting. I grow very weak and my whole body aches. Temp now 101.6 degrees. Damn. Feels like last year’s onset of Dengue fe-ver! This continues for about two hours. Fon gives me some pills, but I have no idea what they are. She then goes to the little shop (the source of the octopus) and buys some anti-diarrheals. During this time, of course, 4 guys arrive to work on the downstairs AC, but they have to shut off power. Now, I am alternating between freezing and boiling, vomiting and diarrhea, with workmen traipsing about and my money, cameras and computer left out, with me too weak too really move. The AC guys finish and leave.

I really feel bad now and Fon asks if I want to go to the hospital. I decline for about one hour, then I take my temperature again: 102.2 degrees. I tell her OK, let’s go. She walks the 10 minutes to Central Road, where she gets a taxi (baht bus) to come to the house. She asks if I want to go to Pattaya Memorial Hospital or Luangbhon Memorial Hospital. I tell her to take me to the better one. I make it out to the bus and we get to the hospital about 5 min-utes later (B100, the thieves!), where I am taken to the emergency room. I am checked in (passport) and asked to fill in some paperwork. They take my temp: now only 37.5 degrees, pulse and blood pressure (150/90, usually about 120/90). A doctor interviews me, checks my liver, tells me that it’s probably just gastro-enteritis and asks if I want to stay or go home. I tell him that I’ll go home. He says it might last 2-3 days. I get wheeled out, where I pay, and then pickup 4 prescriptions in their pharmacy.

Fon gets another baht bus and we go home (B80). Total cost: B919, only about $22.00 USD. The doctor’s fee was B500, the nursing/midwifery fee was B20 and the prescriptions (10 tabs each Plasil, 10mg and hyoscine-N-butylbromide, 10mg; 20 tabs Paracetamol, 500mg; 12 tabs Cipro, 250mg, 6 tabs orange electrolyte replacement), were only B212! The hospital reminded me in many ways very much of a US hospital- ABOUT 40 YEARS AGO! There was a strong bleach/disinfectant smell in the ER. The most retro thing was the nurses- all in white nurse’s uniforms, complete with little white nurse’s caps. All in all, well worth the price of admission.

At home, Fon puts me to bed and gives me some medications. I nap again for about an hour, wake up and feel fine. Bizarre. Just 3 hours ago, I could hardly move. We go downstairs and I try to use the ‘net. Damn. Our phone service has been shutoff!. We’ll pay the bill tomor-row. Fon makes some soup for me, after which I sleep for the rest of the night.

Wednesday, July 23: I wake up at 8:00 and feel great. I continue to take medicine. Fon gets up about 10:00. There is some on and off rain, very light and infrequent. We go out to the phone company and pay our bill. The basic monthly charge is B107, and we pay an addi-tional B366 for the individual calls. In addition, they make us pay for August, B107. They also tell us that service will be reconnected around 4:00. We then go to Soi Brai-sa-nee to ask about job papers- they tell Fon that they cannot do it. We then go to Foodland, where we spend B866 for groceries. At home, we have some chicken-rice soup. I examine the phone bill. It turns out that the landlady gave us the May bill to pay, also. Flicker- we didn’t even move in until June! Fon, incensed, immediately leaves to find out why. She returns and tells me: the maid for Nii will give the bill back to Nii, explains that Nii works too much and forgets. Apparently, Nii also forgot that we had already paid the cable bill and tried to ex-tract an additional B350 from us. BTW, she still owes me B10 for the water bill!

I read in the BKK Post that Typhoon Koni is sweeping across Vietnam, Lao, Kampuchea and Northern Thailand and that it will probably cause all of Thailand to have rain for the next 3-4 days.