Sawasdee Crap

This morning, I woke up in pain. I had managed to sleep in a strange position, and my back was sore as a result. Luckily, Patong has pharmacies every other storefront, so finding one that was open early was not a problem. I took a ten minute walk to the nearest open pharmacy, bought some ibuprofen and acetaminophen (300 baht total), and walked back to the hotel. On the way back, I saw parents dropping their kids off for school. It was pretty much like any school drop-off you've ever seen, except everyone was on motor scooters instead of in minivans and SUVs.

Even at this early hour of the morning (8 AM or so), there were tons of motor scooters in every direction on Patong's streets. There is no escaping them. Some folks were driving their scooters the wrong way on the street. Some others were driving on the sidewalk. Being a pedestrian in this town is a harrowing experience no matter which way you slice it.

On the way back to the hotel, I found a street vendor selling the smelliest fruit known to mankind: durians! The odor from these things is so strong that many hotels have banned the fruit from their premises.

I got back to the hotel to discover that Jenny, who had failed to drink enough water the past few days, was doubled over in pain from constipation. We found a clinic in Phuket Town that would perform a colonic irrigation in an effort to lubricate everything down there, made an appointment, and got into a car to head to the clinic.

Upon arrival, we were a bit shocked that there was no paperwork to fill out. Jenny just walked into the exam room and the irrigation commenced. Within minutes, the colonic blockage was cleared and Jenny felt a trillion times better. She did report feeling a little awkward given that there were tubes poked up her rear end and mirrors positioned so that she could see the whole procedure.

As we got back to the hotel, it started drizzling a tiny bit. The moment we stepped through the front door, the heavens opened up and the drizzle became a torrential downpour. Fifteen minutes later, the rain stopped just as suddenly as it began. I'm glad that my camera didn't get wet.

One of the weird things about Thailand is that, while all the muzak in every store is American and British pop songs, it's rare to hear the original recordings. Every song is a similar-sounding cover. A very good cover, but a cover nonetheless. Surely you'd think that it would be easy to find the original in the age of streaming.

Tomorrow we fly to Bangkok to spend a couple of nights. I am very excited at the prospect of getting to see Thailand's biggest city.