Laughter and Disease

Thais, especially the women, of whom at least 70% are fit, tend to laugh in all sorts of unlikely situations. Sometimes I can just walk into a shop to be greeted by fits of giggles, though that may be the clown's wig and floppy red shoes I've taken to wearing of late. The laughter is in no way intended to be rude, and can actually make you feel at ease, though it clashes sometimes with my uptight Western sensibilities.

For example the nurse who took my temperature at the hospital burst out laughing when she told me I had a fever. Imagine if I'd had a terminal disease - she'd have been rolling on the floor in hysterics.

McCormick Hospital is Christian although 90% of Thais are Buddhist. I didn't notice this until I looked on the back of the sachets containing my drugs:

'We prescribe medicine, but Jesus Christ is the healer.'

Guess I'm fucked then.

Thai hospitals have a reputation for overprescribing. Four types they gave me: cough syrup, kick arse paracetemol, runny nose pills (hardly seems worth it) and ...fanfare... ANTIBIOTICS! - which let's face it is the only shit that matters.

For the last two days everything I've eaten has come rushing through me at 100 mph bringing with it 40% of my body's water. After throwing up on the floor of my guesthouse restaurant last night I went back to the hospital and proudly received another set of pills to add to my collection. If I were in prison I'd be a rich man. Add to this optional valium, pepto bismol, rehydration sachets and various Chinese concotions from the angels at my guesthouse and I'm getting dangerously close to Paula Yates territory.

However I still feel like a sack of mouldy potatoes with bowel problems. I have a golf ball protrusion on my neck and I look 40 years old. I move in slow motion as if wading through fudge and have only just been able to have a intelligible conversation with some Australians. Although that might have nothing to do with the illness.

Libra guesthouse are angels - checking on me, mixing me up pungent Chinese herbal remedies, giving me umbrellas when I go out, in case it rains, giving me plain rice soup. In fact it was the plain rice soup which made a quick getaway onto their floor. When I was grovelling in shame to the girl who laid down paper on it, she just laughed - which made me feel much better.