MORE ON BANGKOK

So Stacey, Chef and I have no problem finding China Town once the nice lady helps. We rise to street level from the subway and try and get our bearings. We decide on a direction and begin walking that way.
The first thing you notice about Bangkok is the traffic. It is all backwards from the U.S. You drive on the other side of the street from the other side of the car. I think I could handle the other side of the car part, but not the backwards traffic lanes part.
We walk for a while and come across a very old man selling fruit. Chef grabs a couple pieces of something and tries to ask the old man how much. They are not able to communicate. A younger man walks up to help and he tells Chef the man wants to sell him the whole box. Chef didn’t want the whole box and somehow they settle on a price. Everything is very, very cheap for US in Bangkok. For all we could tell the two pieces of fruit cost a nickle and Chef might have paid a dollar, we didn’t care, happy to give a little extra to someone who clearly lives on some much less then us.

We walk a little further and this is the first photo opp.

Then we look in another direction and see this.

We find this is the norm in Bangkok, the contrast of new and old. Bangkok is a city of contrast. You would think it is dangerous, it’s not. You would think the locals would have no time to help you find your way, wrong. You would think they would try to over charge the tourist, not. You would think when a local stops you just to chat that they want something more, they don’t.

Anyway we work our way into China Town and don’t realize til later that we are way to early. It is 8 a.m. and hardly anyone is on the streets yet. So we wander. We walk through side streets where car and scooter parts are stacked high. We walk past street vendor restaurants where the owner and family are sleeping on the tables. There are a fair amount of dogs wandering around, they pay us no attention. We have no idea where we are and love it. I bet we walk through private yards and don’t even know it. We are blown away by the scenery, Chef and Stacey are clicking photo almost nonstop.
Lost in China Town, Bangkok. What a way to start a day!

I interupt this blog

to share with you some events of returning home.

I had started getting a sore throat our last days in Bangkok. By the time we started our 24 plus hour trip home it really hurt. I nursed it with hot tea and aspirin. We get home Thursday about 4 in the afternoon and go to bed. I’m up a 3 a.m. not able to sleep, I guess I was on Bangkok time. Stacey sleeps through the night and is able to go to work on Friday. Shes feeling good, even gets her hair cut after work, looking more beautiful the usual if you can believe that. Again Friday night can’t sleep so well. Up at 3 a.m. again. So I decide I will load my truck and go do the Saturday morning market. I get through that and head home. We eat a little food and go to bed about 2 or 3 in the afternoon. When I wake a few hours later my throat really hurts and I tell Stacey I need to find a Doc in the box. We drive up the street to where one is located only to find it’s closed. We go home get on the computer and find nothing is open after 5 p.m. which it is. So the next morning we are at the “minute clinic” at the CVS 15 minutes before they open. Good thing cause 5 people show up just after us. By this time Stacey’s throat is hurting also. So we see the Doc together and she swabs out throats. Poor Stacey, she test positive for Strep, but I don’t. Go figure. We are both given scripts for Amoxicillin. I take one on the way home and 20 minutes later we are home and I am having an allergic reaction. Boom like a bomb. I am hot and itchy. My eyes hurt. Then I feel my face starting to swell and I know this is serious. I tell Stacey we need to go to the emergency room, fast. It’s not far from the house, but by the time we get there my lips and tongue are so swollen I can’t talk or swallow. My chest is hurting and we are both really scared. We go to the desk and I think I’m dying. I really think I am dying. Stacey is very scared and is actually jumping up and down pleading for help. Well of course the nurse is very calm, this doesn’t help Stacey a bit. She wants action. I sitting there drooling like a rabid dog, not able to talk. I’m really scared. I have had cancer and have been through a bone marrow transplant. It was a two year ordeal and not once did I think I might die. Sitting there yesterday in the emergency room I thought I was dying. Poor Stacey is even more upset and the nurse is still clam as a cucumber. I wish she would have thought to tell Stacey “we see this all the time, we can handle it”. Finally they start giving me drugs to counter the reaction. I am turned over to another nurse, I tell him I feel like I dying. He said I’m not and it will get worse before it gets better so hang on. Well I can live with that, knowing what to expect helps. And that’s just what happens. It hurts more for a few minutes and then starts to subside. Soon the swelling starts to go away and I can speak again.We were there 2 hours, they gave me a few scripts, one a shot to give myself in case of and emergency.

I didn’t die.