Feeling Crabby

Tuesday 23rd February 2010, 9.45pm, B&B Guest House - Krabi

The magic of Bamboo Island came and left us all too quickly. With Bad Patrick departed for Jakarta and our bank balances buckling under the strain of our Phi Phi extravagance, Daniel and I departed our holiday island yesterday afternoon and arrived here in Krabi. With it's cheap, basic accommodation, immigration office, and easy transport links to the rest of Thailand as well as Malaysia, Krabi is your classic one night stop-off town. You wouldn't stay here any longer, once administration and planning issues have been sorted you would quickly depart from it's characterless streets for somewhere with better views or actual things to do. That is, of course, unless you have food poisoning.

So it turns out that the barbecue we scoffed on the beach on Sunday night may not have been as wholesome and hearty as it tasted. I'm in agony, real writhing, thrashing on the bed, grit your teeth kind of pain. I have new sympathy for anyone who has previously had food poisoning, because I really didn't know it could be so bad. Unable to move myself any greater distance than between bathroom and bed, travel onwards is out of the question. I have no choice but to do the unthinkable and become probably the first traveller in the history of backpacking to stay in mundane, ugly old Krabi for 3 nights. Daniel will be the second traveller to ever do this, a true friend and loyal ally of mine now, he refuses to leave me whilst I am so ill, and so we shall both depart from this godawful town on Thursday morning - him back to the Thai islands with his extended Visa, and myself, on to Malaysia.

I was being stubbornly brave about it all until earlier this evening. Skeptical of Thai medicine, unwilling to pay a Doctor to tell me things I already know and resolutely convinced that with rest and recuperation illness always cures itself in 48 hours, I, much to Daniel's aggravation, point blank refused to seek medical help. That was until the pain became so intense and crippling earlier on that I felt like something inside me might be dieing. I honestly can't believe that labour pains would be worse than this. I flailed about in the sheets yelling at Daniel that 'it feels like I'm having contractions' and 'wouldn't that be a fine way to ruin February', and 'don't tell me I'm overreacting, you don't have a womb, you know nothing' and 'what if it's my Appendix? If it explodes I'll die and you'll have to ring my parents.' I eventually had to quit being a stubborn old mule, for the sake of Daniel's tolerance levels and ear drums, as well as out of fear for my own mystery ailment, I relinquished to the necessary, 'Excuse me Daniel, I give in, I'm sorry. Can you carry me to the Doctor now please?'.

The Doctor was very reassuring and diagnosed me, as already revealed, with a bad case of food poisoning. He also laughed heartily along with Daniel when I voiced my very serious concern that I thought something might be eating my ovaries. Humph, what do they know, these men with their easy lives and their ridiculous organs on the outside of their bodies. Anyway, I have 5 different kinds of nameless, label-free pills to take 3 times a day, but I'm placing my skepticism about Thai medicine aside for now. The way I'm feeling, I'll give anything a shot. If he'd told me I needed to eat a cockroach to feel better I probably would have just asked whether I should wash it first?

That's me until Thursday morning then (by which point I've categorically decided Not To Be Ill Anymore), curled up in bed, watching made-for-TV movies, having my Swedish nurse wait on me, and full of so many pills that if you picked me up and shook me I'd rattle. Can't be helped, only endured, this too shall pass...