rabid in thailand and first serious thoughts of coming home

Arrived in Bangkok on tuesday night and located my favorite guesthouse on the soi rambuttri area. The next day I had a few things to do in bangkok. Pick up some packages sent by my mom to the hualomphong area. Thanks mom!! You're the best. And then visit the cebu pacific office way off into sukhummvit to try and get my refund for a cancelled flight. I started early so that I could just walk there and avoid the taxis, but on the way back took the water taxi on the smelly side canals (which is much faster than cars as there is no traffic) and the subway.

Took an "overnight" bus from khao san that night to get to chumphon. Problem was it wasn't quite overnight. It left at 6pm and the bus dropped me off at 3am at soe bus stop in God knows where near chumphon. It dropped 4 other people off as well who were continuing on to ko tao. The bus driver in what little english he knew said there would be a bus coming by to pick us up. Around 4am a minivan stopped by and picked up the other 4: they had onward tickets to ko tao, but I couldn't get on that van. One of the guys looked at me sincerely and said "good luck" as he got on the van, little did I know I would need it. So at this point is was 4 and not too far from sunrise and when the public transportation starts (5:30), so I decided not to pay the motorcycle driver who was there and offering to take me the 8km to the town center for almost 1/2 the price it cost to go the 500km from bangkok...just the principle of the thing, plus if I just waited til 5 or so I wouldn't have to pay for a room for that night either. There was a little eatery with tables out there so I was just going to wait another hour or so until the public transport started. I got my book out to read and remember noticing a couple rats digging through the trash about 15m away, but didn't think much of it. I quickly got too tired to read and just laid my head on the table to sleep. I was awoken at some point by a sharp pain in my right little toe. I swatted down in my drowsiness pissed that I had been bit by another bee (would be 3rd on the trip), but as I woke up I quickly came to my senses and realized that bees weren't out at this time of night and mosquitos are not near that painful. I looked down at my toe and it was bleeding quite badly. I immediately figured I was bit by something bigger, perhaps a rat. I began to panic a bit. I showed it to the lady in the store. She didn't speak any english, but pointed to the sewer/ditch area where there was a rat, and I knew she figured it was a rat. Of course she had me wash the wound in some most likely not so clean water from some spicket behind the building. I was quite scared as I feared rabies. I paid the motorcyclist to take me into town. I woke up a woman at a guesthouse my book said knew english. She directed me to where a 7-11 was so that I could make an international call. I didn't really know what to do and I wanted to call my mom b/c I was very sketched to go to a rural thai hospital and get a shot (shared needle?) considering the hospital experience we had with lucas. On the way, I walked by the ferry office and they were open and had internet which would be loads cheaper and easier than an international call from a payphone. So I signed in, Sherman, (mr L3) was online so I got him to call my mom and tell her to go online. We decided it was best to go to the hospital there and try and trust them (rabies shots need to be administered rather quickly). The hospital seemed ok and rather clean and sterile, though they didn't speak a lick of english and they were obviously most concerned with the fact that my pulse was 40 (i did find that a tad unusual considering I was quite scared so I should have had an elevated hr and i'm not exactly in great cardio shape right now...I think i've read Lance Armstrongs resting hr is 37). But they did give me a shot and a little pamphlet (in thai) that showed I needed 5 more. I went back to the iternet place and my mom had conferred with my father and my uncle, a vet. And they believed I needed another shot with the human immunoglobins. So it was off to bangkok (in a rush) for me again in hopes of getting to an english speaking hospital. Left at 10:30am for bangkok, got in around 7:30 and after a nerve wracking 1 hour long taxi ride I made it to an american run hospital a bit after 9. The clinic was closed so I had to go to the ER. They seemed much more professional and at least the doctor and the orderlies spoke english. They said I need 11cc's of the vaccination fluid. They wanted to put 2mL in my little toe, 4 in each butt cheek and 1ml in the other arm that didn't have the shot. Well, I don't know if you've ever tried to put 2 mL's of fluid into your tiny little toe, but after about 10 minutes (probably shorter, but it seemed much longer), the doctor gave up on trying to squeeze any more liquid in there, so I just got 1mL in there. The shots in the butt and arm didn't really hurt at all luckily.
Perhaps the funniest thing was the tact (maybe not quite the right word, but it'll work) they used for having you pay the bill. The cashier guy walked up while I was lying on my stomach with my drawers down and a needle in my butt. He didn't have the best english but he put a piece of paper under my nose that showed the bill. Far from cheap. I cringed and the nurse giving the shot asked if it hurt...i shook my head, no the shot didn't hurt...but something else did.
I think the people there got a slight kick out of me. It was a very, very fancy hospital. From the outside it looked more like a ritz carlton or something. Most likely used mainly by rich business travelers or rich westerners living abroad. I hadn't changed my outfit I was wearing since, well before lucas left, so at least a month. Of course everynow and then I washed it in the shower or jumped in the river and I am often wearing a swimsuit. When you're with other backpackers or with everyday filipinos you don't notice a smell, but once in the sterile hospital I could tell I smelled quite badly. (my clothes are currently being washed in bangkok as we speak). And my feet are pretty badly cut up, scarred, etc b/c that's what you get when you are wearing sandals non-stop in areas far from grassy fields or nice sidewalks. Plus the humid weather and saltwater doesn't exactly help healing. The doctor looked at me when he first met me, "which one is the rat bite" I also felt sorry for the nurse cleaning my feet. I hadn't been able to shower in a couple days and if you walk for a whole day in bangkok like I had done the day before in sandals with very sweaty feet and all the pollution and dirt everywhere, your feet just don't look the same as when you wear sandals on the aci campus on their clean grass and swept sidewalks!

Today I'm waiting for the night bus again that leaves at 6pm. This time though I'm going straight to ko tao insteading of stopping in chumphon. I had wanted to stop in chumphon b/c the lonely planet said it had very budget accomadation (it did) and had some nice beaches nearby with good windsurfing (one of my favorite water sports). But I have decided I guess I'm not meant to go there and now of course I'm a bit behind schedule with my visa (you're only given 30 days before you have to leave thailand or at least do a border run) and I know I can always go with my brother to bellingham and windsurf all I want when i'm home.

So I've found myself in a bit of a rut and quite a fair amount of bad luck I think, recently. The day before I said goodbye to lucas and sari my camera broke and then the next day I had to say goodbye to them which was really tough, b/c I love lucas and the three of us were very compatible travellers and had the best times together. But I got over that and had 3 great weeks after that, then somethings started happening again, nothing big, but they can add up. My nice trusty alarmful watch broke (you wouldn't believe how important a watch with a good alarm here is important...i bought a replacement, but it's not too loud and I've heard watches out here often don't last more than a month), I left my john grisham book I was in the middle of at an airport ticket booth (I found the same book in bangkok), my headphones broke (2nd pair that's broken on the trip), my sandals have worn through again (and it's so hard to find sandals my size and quality ones that I don't feel will ruin my joints), I was unsuccessful at obtaining my 40 dollar refund from cebu pacific that they owe me and wasted a lot of time doing it, the ferry to manila left everyday but the day I needed to go, so I had to waste a lot of money on an airplane, and some other small things. But the two biggest most upsetting things were my external hard drive I'm carrying seems to have failed, which of course has all my pictures from the trip so far (luckily I still have quite a lot of the pictures on my memory card, but not all, including all the ones I had taken with an underwater camera that I rented for a pretty penny on my liveaboard), and then b/c I altered my schedule a bit to go see lucas early in the philippines (I don't regret it at all!!!) I am behind my planned climate driven schedule and so I may be running into rain and storms, which is not what you want to do when travelling through southern thailand which apparently has some of the most beautiful scenery in the world...but white sands, turquoise lagoons, and the ocean never looks good in monsoon rains. But I can't really come back later b/c the dry season doesn't start again until november (as does cambodia, vietnam, laos) all of which I still want to visit. So I'm a bit frustrated with this. It has been raining hard here the last 3 days. Then came the rat. It has been a lot to deal with, and during this last week I haven't exactly been enjoying myself and it's been stressful, at times lonely, and scary. And of course I greatly miss my family, my friends, my roommates at the house of sin, and some other things back home. So all told I gave serious consideration to leaving and coming home. But I'm partially stubborn, determined, don't give up easily, and do have hope things will get better, so I'm still going on. If it's nasty rain in thailand I'll guess I'll forget about it and just head to malaysia. We'll see.
Can't wait to eat rats when I get to vietnam though for a little payback!