Wow...I haven't written in a few days. And now my wrist is sprained, dangit.
Saturday in the morning we did resource development after breakfast til lunchtime. We had to pack for going into town for the weekend, then we had a debrief meeting with everyone to talk about the week. There were a few volunteers leaving...kinda sad.
Two songtaews took us into town to our guesthouse--Boon Bun Dan. Steph, Nella, and I got a room--it was $3 a night per person lol. Cheapest ever. And after staying at Mirror, pretty much anything is a step up. We went to Central Plaza--air conditioning is the greatest! We got mango sticky rice for 30 baht, I bought some crepes filled with some kind of coconut gelatin for 20 baht, and then we went to McDonald's haha. Always craving burgers and American food here. We all got McNuggets. And their barbecue sauce is definitely not bbq sauce. It's super spicey. Anywho, can't go wrong with mcnuggets and ovaltine :)
After that, Nella and Steph got a foot massage. I walked around the mall while that happened. Boooring lol. After that we went to Big C to get stuff for our homestay. When we got back to the hostel, the partying of the other volunteers had already begun. They were all drinking and smoking. Typical weekend here, apparently. We 3 just went to bed early. I was dead tired.
Sunday morning we got breakfast at Nice Kitchen. It was $3 for an omelette, fresh orange juice, an apple banana, and two slices of toast. We had to eat super fast because people were already renting motorbikes to head to the Waterfall National Park called Khun Kon. We found out Boon Bun Dan had motorbikes, so we decided to rent the two automatics they had. Nella and Steph would ride together, and I'd ride alone (definitely didn't trust myself with another person's life). So we had to get gas in ours first--not the slightest idea how to work them. We headed out as a big group to get gas. As I'm pulling out of the guesthouse, I accelerate and didn't turn wide enough--crashed straight into the wall. Yep. I shook it off, but my wrist felt a bit off. I just kept going, and after turning into a very busy and scary intersection, I found out that Steph had crashed into a parked car. Yeah, so we had to sit there with no idea what they were saying or what was going on. One guy finally told us they were calling the police--Steph asked if she could just give them money. She gave them $6000 baht--about $200. Then we walked our bikes most of the way back. My wrist was definitely not feeling right by then. It hurt a lot to try to push the bike at all. We put the bikes back, ashamed haha.
Definitely decided to skip out on the waterfall trip because of that experience. Instead we got a songtaew to see the White Temple. Wow! It was incredible. Completely white with silver mirror-type accents all over. It's incredible. And across from it, there's a huge gold building in a similar architectural style--for the restrooms haha. Anyway, the interior of the White Temple was an anticlimax after seeing the exterior. They had a couple Buddha statues and then a monk made of wax in front of the Buddha statues. Kinda strange. He looked creepily real. Anyway, by then my hand was hurting really bad. Getting worse and worse pain, swelling and whatnot. So we went to the hospital--Overbrook Hospital. Turns out it's a Christian hospital. There were pictures of Christ all over. And on my meds it says, "We prescribe the medicine, but Christ is the healer." Interesting. I went to the empty emergency room where they wrapped my arm to a plastic board. Man, that hurt like crazy. My wrist hurt no matter where it was placed. The pain was hardly bearable by then. I just wanted some drugs! I got 3 Xrays taken--most ancient-looking equipment ever lol. Then I waited and waited in a TON of pain. Finally I got to go in to see the doctor. He told me in broken English that my wrist wasn't broken, but sprained. That was somewhat relieving, but I know how long it took my ankle to heal. Anyway, after that I got an injection of who-knows-what in my butt. All the nurses wear lilac-colored scrubs haha. Then I got some cream for pain relief, and then two other medicines to take as well. My whole visit plus meds and all came to 1,100 baht=$36. That's less than my co-pay to see the doctor.
After that I went to take a nap while Nella and Steph went to eat. I was nauseated from the pain. They brought me Ovaltine, Maltesers, Taro bread, and Cheetos afterwards. Then we basically just chatted for a long time. All the way til 7:30 or 8 when we went to eat at the Pizza Company and then walked around the Night Bazaar. Then we headed to the hostel. One of those poisonous millipedes kept coming in our room. We also saw the most ginormous gecko ever. Atleast a foot long.
This morning we tried to go to Central Plaza for breakfast. We arrived at 9, the songtaew driver assured us it opened at 9. Um no. It opens at 11. So we went back and had breafast at Nice Kitchen before getting a tuk-tuk back to Mirror. We crammed all 3 of us plus our bags in that tuk-tuk. Tuk-tuks are nice because you get a breeze. Songtaews are faster but hotter.
Here at Mirror it was incredibly hot. 97 degrees today plus the humidity. YUCK. It was miserable. We decided...you guessed it...to go back into town haha. We went to the mall, got mango sticky rice and then went to...yep...McDonald's. Then we went to see Pirates 4 in 3-D. I'm not big on movies anymore, so I was a bit bored during it. But it was an okay movie. It was nice to watch it in English (Thai subtitles.)
Anyway, our tuk-tuk ride back was interesting. The driver didn't know where he was going. He stopped to ask directions a couple times. The last time, he stopped where there were some drunk guys. They saw who was in the tuk-tuk and came over. Great. One started putting his hand on Nella's leg. Ugh, so creepy. Anyway, we made it here alright. Now we're packing for homestay. It'll be an interesting week. Extremely hot, no shade in that village, working outside all day doing labor, language barrier, sleeping on bamboo, bucket showers, and squat toilets. Apparently the people there use a bucket (no toilet paper) to clean themselves after using the toilet. Yeah...uh, I'm definitely taking TP and then bags to put the rubbish in. On Saturday we have our elephant ride. Then we go into town for the weekend.
So that's what's been going on here in Chiang Rai.
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