"It's an Earache, Nothing but an Earache..."

" A fun gal, with a fungal infection

Tried all kinds of things for its ejection

She poured into her ear

Whiskey cider and beer

Until it's eventual defection!"

 

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Okay, so I've tried the surgical spirit, cider vinegar and hot onion juice home ear remedies that were worth a go, seeing as I couldn't find a medical practice within coo-ee with a GP who was remotely available at short notice today. I've probably had as much Panadol as one person can handle for the pain. My neighbour swears by golden seal, but couldn't find her supply, and I don't have any. The thing that's worked well before for 'swimmer's ear', to which my narrow ear canals are highly susceptible, and tropical ear which I got once in Queensland, is prescription antibiotic/antifungal drops, which are unfortunately not available over the counter

I managed to get through yesterday's teaching after a catch up nap, then got Bug-a-Lugs fed and to bed last night and tonight, after much re-adjustment boundary-pushing and stalling (although he finally got the message not to touch, yell into or accidentally bump my left ear). I have been patiently awaiting a call from the home visit locum service (4 hr wait so far) and wondering if I'll last the distance.

All caused by a little greebly of some sort that's gotten into my ear while in Thailand (despite my best efforts not to immerse my head in swimming spots) and possibly been activated by all the ear business of flying in pressurized planes. The excruciating pain is already making me forget how wonderful and relaxing a holiday it was- blah!

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A six hour wait for a sixty second consult. Well maybe one hundred and twenty seconds. But at least I don't have to leave home. Doctor Two Minute Noodle, the fast food blur of a home visitation GP, is clearly pressed for time, with a queue of home visit patients still to attend to. Unlike my previous locum visit,  he leaves me nothing but the hastily-scribbled prescription. With a sleeping boy whom I cannot leave alone, and it being after 11pm, too late to call anyone, I will have to leave it until morning and grin and bear my way through the pain.

At around 1am, driven by desperation, I mount a search for some remnant eardrops, anything to ease my discomfort. I find some plain wrap Ibuprofen in the kitchen cupboard, after first tackling and jarring a fat redback spider who has been  guarding the seldom-used first aid kit! This helps me sleep until morning, when a small chap bounces into my bed interrogating me about TV and computer game possibilities for the day. I warn him that any whining, nagging or pestering will be met with the penalty of no screen time at all!

I drag the protesting, still pyjama-clad wee  lad to the local pharmacy with me. It turns out the doctor has prescribed only analgesic eardrops and oral antibiotics. This concerns me a little. It's happened once before that a jolly and friendly, but very old fashioned and slightly arrogant elderly GP, who I saw because my usual doc at the same practice was away, swore such things are always bacterial and never fungal, only to be proven wrong by a younger female doc who had evidently swatted up on the latest evidence. So what if it is fungal? There are definitely drops on the market that cover both bases, and the last two doctors I've seen about my 'swimmer's ear' were very cautious  about prescribing oral antibiotics unnecessarily. You'd think my opening line "I've just returned from Thailand and I think I have tropical ear" would be the give away. But I guess he didn't really listen, in his haste to be in and out of the door in record time. And of course it means I'll have to up the probiotics too. Hmmmm.

This is the thing about engaging with the medical model at all. Apart from it being a far-from-holistic system under enormous pressure, it is still run by a 'doctor knows best, patient knows nothing' belief system, fails to take into account the agency and historical evidence of the ailing person, dismisses any self-knowledge we may have, and is subject to the human foibles and hit-and-miss diagnoses of individual medicos who often don't know how to take care of themselves. In short, doctors are not Gods. But in my desperation to make the pain go away, the unavailability of much choice during the sickness silly season, and the difficulty of driving or being driven anywhere (I feel really crappy), and to get the a signature from the only job description authorized to say yay or nay to something as simple as eardrops, I am likely to just suck it up this time, hope for some window of relief, swallow the little white pills and see what happens. Please let it be bacterial after all.

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Three hours on and there is not much relief from the eardrops, although the internal fizzing and popping has died down to a mild racket. I manage to stagger upright (I can lie on my side okay, but feel vertiginous and sick when standing) and phone Mama Mishka, at whose house Sonny Lad has ended up, after a community busy bee whose industrious people hum I could only listen to (just) from my bed. She assures me that all the boys are fine for now, and I update her on my ailment.

I suck on a mandarin for some sustenance, although any kind of jaw action hurts like crazy. I then decide to brave the shower while up, slightly paranoid about getting water in my ears. I've tried a shower cap shower, but I really need  to wash my hair and remove the sick sweat slick of the last 36 hours. It feels so good. The dreadlocks are combed away and my skin wakes up a little.

Next thing I know, three scrumdelumptious small boys are calling up to me in the bathroom. I peer modestly around the shower curtain and see that they have picked (perhaps with some suggestion from Mama Mishka) some purple and white tinged daisies from the garden, which my son artfully trims, arranges and floats in water, in the Balinese mosaic bowl by the hand basin, having seen me do this before. How touching! I feel renewed and cheered.

The flowers remind me that, despite Thor's stubborn stranglehold all this week (and by all accounts for the entire time I was away in Thailand), this crazy imported pain will pass with time and TLC, and the workings of Spring are at hand. I'm hopeful that this illness episode will fade into a mere blip, and my fond memories of southern Thailand  and its islands, with the help of this blog and all the photos, will be restored.



“So Long, and Thanks for all the Shrimp”...

I feel my holiday drawing to a close. Almost time to say farewell to these sea-hugging, coconut-fringed islands, the fishing boat capital of the world, and its people. I am sated, a little browner and a little calmer. Apart from getting my hair cut, I have done everything I set out to do and, especially after yesterday’s adventures on the high seas,  am thrilled to be spending my last day-and-a- half restfully at my  lovely, tranquil hotel with its lush garden of delight right on the seashore.

I enjoy a slow penultimate breakfast, then meander through the garden to the spa to book a pampering package, having discovered that my particular online hotel booking entitles me to 30% off food and spa. Technically, this ends up being only 13%, because they add a Vat and 7% service charge to every purchase in the first place. But still, it means if I do the combo package it’s not bad- too expensive to do every day, but a means to have one  last pamper and a good night’s sleep before flying home around midnight tomorrow, without having to venture into Patong (for which you have to factor in the return taxi fare each time).

So, later this afternoon, I will wonder over and enjoy a body scrub and a mixed oil and traditional Thai massage in the spa building spitting distance from my room. Then tomorrow, before jetting home, I will indulge in a private spa/sauna session, followed by a deluxe facial. Deeply, deeply grateful and ready to kiss my darling little boy, after nearly two unprecedented weeks apart.

I am taking Pixie Munchkins to Singapore soon (cheap Tiger Airways tickets) so the adventure will continue with my little energy ball alongside me this time, and a (hopefully for his sake) restored and happy Mummy!




I

The Man With The Sodden Gun (or: “007 Gets a Little Krabi, on a Speedboat, in The Rain”)

So I do the islands tour, based on the weather forecast and my inner barometer for Monday. But it rains - lot -  anyway, probably the worst downpour since I’ve been here.

In the ancient hotel-to-pier transfer bus with the fawn vinyl seats, the young groover of a driver has a CD with the English-language songs of Adele (rolling in the Deep); Gotye (Somebody that I used to know) plus a few other recognizable recent chart-busters (Tonight, we are young; Moves lIke Jagger; (All the other kids with the) Pumped up Kicks;  it Ain’t about the Money; Today I don’t feel like doing anything” etc. The ‘trophy love’ songs of youth.

The driver’s mobile rings, while I am alone in the bus and he is over by the lobby of the next hotel en route. I manage to open the monstrosity of a sliding door and perform the international charade for ‘telephone’, my pinky and thumb at my ear. He comes pelting over and offers me achewy lolly by way of a thank you.

Soon we are joined by a chatty Muslim couple originally from L.A. but now living in a new set of initials- J.B, or Johor Baharu. She is wearing the full burka, but removes the mouth piece for hubby and me. Spotting my diary and pen in hand, she admires my journaling dedication and I tell her I am writing a humorous blog to share with friends back home. When some foreign men board the bus further down the line, she deftly renders her mouth, nose and chin invisible again. It turns out he will be in Perth next week, on business. He plies me for tourist tips and I strongly recommend that, if his work is in the industrial wastelands of Kewdale inland, he would do well to make a point of heading for the more beautiful coast (Fremantle and Cottesloe) and perhaps take a ferry cruise up our lovely Swan River, or over to Rottnest. He is grateful for the insider information. 

The first boat breaks down, so we return to the pier, making us an hour or so behind schedule.  But that rather alarmingly Gilligan-esque start turns out to be a blessing in disguise: the replacement craft is more spacious, faster, and has better overhead protection, so the rest of the tour is more comfy and the weather improves somewhat. The boat is skippered by a Thai man whose his seven year old son is on board with us: his Mini Me, pirate- bandana-wearing co-pilot. This of course causes me to smile and triggers a wave of longing to hug my precious boy.

At last we are off, and head to national Park-gazetted spot in  Krabi (Thanbok Khoranee) for a swim, Hong Island for a look around, Panyee Island for lunch in the ‘floating’ restaurant, touristy ‘James Bond Island’ for the fun of it and the photo poses. Mine was a straightforward one on the beach, but there were numerous svelte and tanned Russian wannabe starlet girls draping themselves semi-pornographically across rocks, with the famous Hollywood icon in the background. Finally, some canoeing among the mangroves, in the limestone sea caves of Phang Nga (my favourite part).

 

It is a long day though, and I sink into my bed and look forward to two quiet days going nowhere but inward and doing nothing much, before flying home.

 

Me and James Bond

 

Yaya our tour guide

 

Hong Island, Krabi

 

Panyee Island floating restaurants and market

 

Sea Kayaking through limestone caves

 

Islands everywhere we looked

The most touching part of the Hong Island Phang Nga visit- the tsunami memorial. 13 tourists and 2 local fishermen perished there, and fishing boats (pictured) were swept right into the jungle.

“All We Need is a Great Big Melting Pot”

(I thought about giving all my blog posts song titles, but then got a bit slackaroony about it).

I love the big multi-ethnic gene pool I find myself in at this hotel. In particular, I love seeing people in all shapes size and colours pass by- the giant Germans and  Eastern Europeans, the tiny Asians. The children who are interesting mix of happy, inter-continental unions, half-Thai toddlers carried lovingly in their French, or Australian, or German  father's arms; Russian women from Tartastan and beyond,  who look more Asian than European. Thai tourists formt he north taking a break down south. And all the well and fashionably-dressed Singaporeans and Malaysians.

 Lisa the Malaysian is a blowsy, curvy girl with Betty Boop eyes and a healthy appetite for breakfast . Her hair, like mine, goes to frizzy ringlets in the humidity. Her husband is a good-looking chap of few words and short, chunky nugget stature. He appears to understand everything I say, but is more tentative with his spoken English, so she is the more likely to respond.

Then there is the sweet Thai breakfast waiter, who has the narrowest hips I’ve ever seen on an adult male. I suspect the smart uniform accentuates this, elongating his body and making his legs look short, but he is of a type seen everywhere- gentle, unpretentious, slim Thai men who nod in graceful sawat dee.

This morning as I head poolside after breakfast, I watch a young Muslim couple, perhaps honeymooning newly weds, in  one of the downstairs ‘pool access’ villas across from mine. He is already in the pool, skylarking and singing silly songs in Urdu, which makes her laugh from her balcony sun lounger. She is wearing a bikini on her curvy, full-breasted body, over which she had thrown a filmy, deep blue modesty dress. He is tall and beefy, clean-shaven, so apparently not orthodox, though somewhat hirsute of chest. He keeps trying to coax her into the water, but she is clearly unsure. I pass him doing my ‘morning constitutional laps’ (the pool  is easily big enough), his arms flailing in an exhibitionist show of unskilled freestyle bravado.

 I’m reminded of my times in Paris, where I saw many Muslim women in full burka, out with hubby buying risqué lacy things in the lingerie shops I visited to find my own larger cup lace bras. There is such a disparity between the private and public worlds of married Muslim women. If I were a Muslim woman travelling in a Buddhist country, with such a tactile, laisser faire husband, I reckon I’d abandon the burka in favour of a bikini, and pretend for a while.

I wonder what they make of this free-spirited Aussie woman whose breastroke and  ‘crawl’ are quite expert? I have taken to feeling self-consciously busty in my 1950s-look bathing suit, so I’m instead wearing a gym top and a sheer skirt over knickers, a more minimizing two piece arrangement, in the pool which at any rate dries more quickly.

One of the funniest scenes I’ve witnessed since being here is that of a Russian man approaching seven foot, being swept along the road by a crowd of Japanese women, like Gulliver being carried aloft by the Lilliputians. Perhaps it is sea-faring travel that inspired the Gulliver story- maybe Viking Norsemen or Slavic explorers, who found themselves on island full of comparatively diminutive natives?

On the island tour, the Australo-New Zealand fifty-something  couple who become my travelling companions for the duration, agree with me that the Russians are the rudest. I try to refrain from cultural stereotyping ,  but I’m quite shocked at the antics of the Russians I’ve crossed paths with, such as  the family who sits opposite us on the ferry. The Father is okay, but the mother, teen daughter and twelve year old son repeatedly push roughly past me, and queue jump in order to be first to everything. They cling tenaciously to ‘their’ seats that ensure they will stay dry, are the ones who demand the best life jackets, eat the most pineapple slices, and knock back the most bottles of coca cola, provided along with water as complimentary on-board snacks. I swear my son will never get away with such disrespect. I surmise that perhaps it’s a recent memory of fighting over the last potato that causes this behaviour among well-dressed, middle class Soviets who are now free to sail the seven seas? My equally aghast companions nod in pensive agreement .  

We have all found that certain Asian people, too, for instance Chinese mainlanders and those from Hong Kong, tend to be friendly and conversationally polite, ever willing to take  a photo…yet seem oblivious to queues and ‘first in first served’ etiquette. I suspect that being acclimatized to population density (Hong Kong is the most densely populated place in the world) anaesthetizes people to things like personal body space and evokes a kind of survival of the fittest response. In my case, it is sometimes a group-against-one thing: they seem to consider that, as I am but one woman travelling alone, my rights to the table or bench or chair are forfeit to their mob rights. There is no point working myself into a lather by or arguing the toss, so I usually end up relinquishing.

I guess when you have thousands and thousands of foreigners passing through your place of employment, you earn the right to sterotype. As in Bali, The Thais, including the friendly bubbly ‘modern girl’ tour boat tour guide Yaya, once they feel safe to drop their guard a little, confide that they like Australians and Kiwis. We are apparently perceived  as easy-going, open and friendly, unlike Russian and French people, who are aloof, disrespectful of local customs (such as shoe-removal), impossibly demanding , and view the staff as their personal slaves.

But surely this  place must look and seem like paradise to your average apartment-dweller in many Russian cities, or indeed Paris, so I’m baffled as to how completely it seems to fall short of their expectations. Perhaps they see Asia as a submissive mistress on whom to dump their western industrialized frustrations, desperately prostituting herself to the lowest bidder, afraid to answer back? I think the Thais are driven by something of a work ethic, and a sevice ethos, but even they seem to know when a line has been crossed. Respect is respect, wherever you go. I for one have nothing but deep gratitude for these charming people who have enabled me, despite my comparatively lowly social status back home, to have a relaxing holiday.

This is the BBC…

The Asian-focused BBC World News offers some interesting information:

• Today is the 40^th anniversary of the birth of Hip Hop (in the  Bronks)
•  Two elections with long-serving dodgy, bully boy political leaders are contesting election results: Cambodia and Zimbabwe
• A typhoon is currently tearing through the Philippines, the tail end of which is hitting Phuket (this explains the deluge during our island boat cruise).
•  Half the world’s languages will disappear within 20 years, based on current trends, largely as  result of young people favouring English as the global tongue of technology and social media, over their first language. It is describe by a Chinese critic as the socio-economic pressure of English (you might as well say America) as the dominant language. All the commentators interviewed emphasize how important it is to keep these languages alive.
•  A young Thai woman (18) became the world badminton champion today.
•  Ayam Akhavan, an Iranian lawyer who as a child witnessed his uncle being executed for being a Baha'i, speaks eloquently and passionately at length about his campaign to address human rights abuses and genocide all over the world. What a courageous spunk- I think I’m in love!

“Happy Birthday Queen Sirikit... Happy Birthday to you!”

Today is the Queen of Thailand’s Birthday, and a national holiday. Not that you'd know from the holiday crowds. I guess low season tourism stops for no one, so desperate a price war is there between companies to get people on boats in the uncertain weather.

I have no idea how old Her Maj is and so I  go a-wiki-ing to find out. I do know that she lives on Koh Samui (this information from the young bus driver today). There are pictures of her everywhere at the moment, mainly outside hotels. Some depict her as a pretty young woman, others are perhaps more realistic and suggest a mature woman grown stout with age.

Wikipedia provides some futher details: Sirikit (Thai: สิริกิติ์; Thai pronunciation: [sìrìkìt];  listen (help·info)), born 12 August 1932 as Mom Rajawongse Sirikit Kittiyakara (Thai: สิริกิติ์ กิติยากร;RTGS: Sirikit Kittiyakon), is the queen consort of Bhumibol Adulyadej, King (Rama IX) of Thailand. She met Bhumibol in Paris, where her father was the Thai ambassador. They married in 1950, shortly before Bhumibol's coronation. Sirikit was appointed Queen Regent in 1956. Sirikit produced one son and three daughters. As the consort of the king who is the world's longest-reigning head of state, she is also the world's longest-serving consort of a monarch. Sirikit suffered a stroke on 21 July 2012 and has since refrained from public appearances.

So there you go, Her Maj is four years older than my Mum, which makes her 81.

I watched a little of the coverage on local Thai TV, but it was pomp and ceremony and speech after speech in Thai that dragged on, with no sign of the old girl, so I switched off in boredom.

The quest for beauty and perpetual youth operates strongly here, especially where women are concerned, so I have no doubt the younger-looking the image, the more highly she is being held in esteem. Female Asian dignatories do not, on the whole, go grey gracefully. It’s all right for the blokes apparently. The usual round of myths about looking distinguished/sexy/powerful etc etc prevails.

Ditto skin colour. All the Asian ‘aristocrats’ and dignatories I see are depicted as improbably fair-skinned. This pursuit of whiteness makes me cringe a bit: all these beautiful brown-skinned people trying to look more European, yet avoiding a swim, the sensible thing to do to keep cool in the heat when you are after all surrounded by water. But no, it’s not on, because it means tanning, which is associated with low status labour in the fields.  As in Bali, I’ve seen whitening treatments and even a ‘skin lightening’ drink for sale to locals and tourists. What do they expect- to drink this magic remedy and then pee out their melanin?! Speaking of which, I swear my wee is beginning to smell of coconut and papaya…

Hell for Leather: The Price of Chic

I’m not wild (pardon the pun) about the whole, wacky Asian exotic leather thing, where any creature with feet, flippers or fins seems fair game. I guess it’s some women’s idea of elegant luxury but it strikes me as decadent. So far, I have been invited to purchase handbags, clothes, ‘wayang kulit’ style  shadow puppets, art and shoes made variously of shark, buffalo, crocodile and even stingray. My jaw dropped when I first saw a Gladstone bag made of spangly ray leather, which looked a bit like a cane toad had mated with some sandpaper, then taken a shower in Fairyland.

I can’t help but visualize the poor creatures, still alive and in their wholeness: a backpack the wingspan of a live angry stingray, flailing to be put down; a pair of traditional pointy-toed Siamese shoes made from whole baby alligators, their slim snouts forming the skyward Mr Curly curve in an attempt to wriggle free of human toes; a small shark draped fetchingly from a chic shoulder, calculating how much of a flying leap would be required to make it back to the beach.

Maybe if it was the same ray that ‘got’ Steve Irwin, I’d feel okay about it. Highly unlikely though, so I reckon I’ll pass, kop kun ka very much for the offer.