In hindsight it's amazing that I avoided it this long considering I've been feasting at dirty street stalls. When the cramps and nausea began whilst walking down a street in Pai I waved them off as a minor complaint, but now I'm camping out in the hostel toilet, hoiking my guts up every half hour. Because I'm in the top bunk up a rickety bamboo ladder a bucket must accompany any attempt I make at sleeping or I risk puking all over my mosquito net.
Jackie suggested I drink gatorade as it works as a salt and fluid replacement. I take a sip, but all it does is make the next wave of vomit a vibrant electric blue colour. She is an absolute rock though, and it helps to have someone looking out for you when you are feeling so crappy.
My previous experience with food poisoning tells me to get it all up and avoid eating anything for 24 hours. It's grim business. I've done a lot of toilet hugging. Jackie's being polite, but I can tell I look like shite. My accomodation for this night is up, and the lure of a private hut in town with its own bathroom rallies me to don my heavy pack and dawdle to the town centre riverside in a sweaty delerium.
It's clear that I can't face the bus today; I nearly vommed on it on the way here in perfect health, and the souvenir t-shirts declaring "bus to Pai: I survived 872 turns" remind me that this is a battle for another day. I check into my hut to ride it out and spend the entire day sleeping and hydrating. I'm glad that there's room in my schedule to do this; I don't want my prevailing memory of Pai to be covering the entire population of a mini van in electric blue puke.
No comments:
Post a Comment