Trip 4 - Day 103

November 20th

I awake at 10:30 and see Joy sleeping next to me and the memories of last night come flooding back. It has to be said that I felt little shame and it was another hour before I was getting up to have a shower.

I left the money for Joy on her bag which disappeared quite discreetly whilst she was dressing and then handed her another 100 baht note “For taxi”. She thanked me and then I let her out of the house and watched her disappear down the Soi probably never to be seen again.

A sniff of the pillowcases was enough for me to realise that I was going to have another marathon clean up, so the duvet went through the wash as did the sheets, pillowcases and the clothes that I’d been wearing the previous night. Mop the floor and a good dousing of air freshener and the place was ‘as new’.

All this activity took me some time and I went out for some food. Feeling ever more confident, I ventured to a different cart and after lifting the lids on the many big pots of food, chose a chicken panang along with 5 baht of rice. I had also told A that I would get the ‘Buddha’ items for her, so I buy two apples; a kilo of oranges; 4 garlands & 4 bottles of Red Fanta.

After eating, I have a quick nap and then read for a little bit when I am disturbed by the ’toot’ of the bike and A has returned (with Phil). She is in obvious pain when walking and just heads indoors and crashes out on the sofa. She says that she couldn’t sleep last night as her foot hurt so much, but then she sits up and insists on going out to get food.

She returns and we all eat, but she is in a lot of distress. She’s also left the gauze dressing at Aunties, so she asks me if I could go to the pharmacy for her. She writes out a shopping list and I go for the various items.

Ibuprofen; Antibiotics; Gauze; Tape & Hydrogen Peroxide.

When I get back, she removes the old dressing and I can see her foot starting to bruising in several places and a nasty looking ‘hole’ in her foot with a nasty looking discharge.

She applies the Hydrogen Peroxide to clean the wound thoroughly and is reduced to tears whilst she carries out this task. By 20:45, she says that she is tired and so she gets Phil ready for bed and they both crash out whilst I clear away the remnants of dinner.

By 21:30, A calls out for me and when I go in to see her, she’s laying in bed and her face is streaked with tears. She is in pain and she cannot sleep and I feel pretty helpless. The best I can offer is a Vallium to assist in getting her to sleep. She takes a 5mg tablet and I sit with her for 20 minutes as she finally dozes off.

At 22:00, I get a call from Hammer asking if I’m coming to the Cherry Bar party that’s taking place and I try to explain why I need to ‘cry off’, but it’s so noisy that I don’t know if Eric or Hammer heard why I couldn’t come out.


Expenditure :

Short time – 1000 baht + 100 baht for taxi
Stall Food lunch – 35 baht
Stall Food Evening – 70 baht
Pharmacy – 115 baht
Buddha ‘stuff’ – 136 baht