Jungle Fever

May 7 I explored georgetown on pulau penang Walked to the sea front, checked out the old british colonial area and their forts. Checked out little india and chinatown and of course the food there. Went to the baba nonya area for dinner and just had a good time eating lots of cheap food. I love Indian food so I ate quite a bit of that and they also have lots of lassis and cow's milk tea and warm cows milk, which I of course was a big fan of. Everyone here as been really nice, which has be great for sure. As a muslim country it's quite conservative and some of the signs you see are quite interesting. Like one at a massage place that said any muslim men receiving massages from a female will receive at least five years of jail. Possessing drugs here carries the death penalty. A few days ago an Australian on one of the islands was caught with some marijuana and he was sentenced to death. The australians are all up in arms that there government won't step in, but it is clearly outlined in the visa and entry papers and all guidebooks mention it. Because muslims don't drink, beer is quite expensive here. The same can of chang that costs 50 cents in thailand, costs 3 dollars here

I was still feeling a bit under the weather and feverish and to make sure I didn't have malaria I went to the government hospital to get tested, which involves taking some blood samples and looking for the parasite. I came out negative, which was good, but I had quite low WBC and platelet counts, so they said I had dengue fever, also known as breakbone fever b/c of how bad the aches and pains are. The doctor was quite surprised I was able to make the border trip from thailand to penang with the fever and with no pain killers (with my bags at the bottom of the bus), and then of course touring around the day before. Then she really felt sorry for me when I pulled out my rabies vaccine card and said I needed a shot for that as I'm onto my last of the series for my rabies vaccines.

Today I went back to the hospital to get my blood tested again. My platelet count had fallen even further so they said I shouldn't leave (I had a bus ticket purchased for tonights overnight bus) and need to come back tomorrow, b/c if my count drops below 100x10^3 (it's now at 112, down from 135 yesterday), they'll have to admit me to the hospital and give me a transfusion. It also meant I couldn't get my last rabies vaccine b/c of the danger of bleeding too much with the shot. So not exactly having much fun now b/c I don't feel the best, and going to the hospital is a full day ordeal b/c of all the lines, the transport getting there, and the waiting for the tests and I would rather be spending my time in the islands where I had wanted to be 2 days ago. Did go and see the new x-men movie yesterday, but that's about the only fun thing I've done the last few days