Koh Lanta

After a few more days of sun, sea and sand, my tan lines are now so dark that I have acquired an lovely white anti-bikini. Which looks pretty ridiculous I must admit but, luckily, only I can see it. Although now of course, you all know about it so I expect merciless teasing from some of you.

John has been deaf, on and off, for the past few days, so we decided it was time to get that sorted out and headed to Koh Lanta Hospital...if you can call it that. It was, ahem, 'open plan'...no outside doors. Pretty primitive - grimy, spiders on the walls, cats running through the place, no privacy. Rat droppings on the soap dish in the toilet. The X-Ray unit is separated from the wards by only a sliding wooden door (no metal lining as far as I could see anyway). Not much in the way of walls really...heard a kid yelling out in pain as his blood was taken , sharply reprimanded by his Dad. They weigh parcels and babies on the same set of scales.

Having said this, this is nowhere near as primitive as the hospital in Pokhara, Nepal...the grime is you have to buy your own sterile equipment, including the doctors gloves (if you can afford it of course; otherwise you just have to make do with what's going). Bed bugs on the hospital sheets. Post-operative care consists of being unceremoniously dumped off the surgery table into the hands of relatives, should you be lucky enough to have relatives to help you out - otherwise, elderly, frail, post-surgery, you're at the mercy of passers-by. In the maternity ward, newborns line the floors for lack of cots. Horrendous. 'I'll never complain about the NHS again' says Ann, whose profession was once that of a nurse.

So yeah, not as bad as that, but you wouldn't want to be seriously sick here. Luckily it turns out that John's ear only needed syringing and he can now hear perfectly. Phew.

Have been to a couple of parties, one of which turned into a spontaneous jamming session when the power went out. I was rather inebriated at the time and, as the guitarist was playing flamenco, decided I'd improvise a song or two with him. A couple of my new friends came up, in awe, 'Wow, Louise, you speak Spanish?!' I smiled enigmatically; I hadn't the heart to tell them that I was not only improvising the tune but also the words.

Today, I saw a bird. It definitely wasn't a parrot. It looked somewhat like a big blackbird with fluffy, floppy yellow ears hanging on the back of its head. Anyway, it wasn't a parrot. I liked this bird, and playfully 'Sawadee-kaa'ed it (hello in Thai). To my consternation, I received a 'Sawadee-kaa' in return! I wondered if I had passively inhaled the exotic scents that were circulating the bar the night before. But no. The bird, in fact, had a whole repertoire of Thai phrases, could whistle, and was intelligent enough to realise that John is a fellow worth laughing at on occasion. Hilarious.

On random pets: went to a fish farm a few days ago, and the Australian owner was keeping a tiny turtle in a fish bowl as a pet! Genius! I asked her if it had grown at all in the 3 years she'd kept it; apparently not. She'd been keeping it in the fish tank with a companion, who unfortunately met his demise in a tête-à-tête with the filter. Now,the survivor lives in solitude but safety. I might have to get myself a tiny turtle and a parrot-cum-blackbird-thing when I get back. Alongside a cat named Oscar of course. Maybe I'll have a whole menagerie of weird and wonderful creatures. How sinfully Victorian of me.

Muahaha.