Pain in the Ass

The doctor was a she and spoke no English. Vuong interpreted. Between his vagueness and what got lost in translation I'm not sure what transpired but for 135,000 VND (about 7.50) I got my blood pressure and temp checked by a nurse. The Dr.--a young very tired looking woman who works primarily a pediatric clinic that just turned out to be across the street from the hotel--listened to my lungs and had me cough. Then she sat tiredly in her seat across the room and told Vuong what was going to happen. I was going to get two shots and a prescription of pills for three days. So we looked at each other and finally it was made clear to me the first shot was going to be in my ass. So I slid my sweaty pants down and was instructed in pantomime to lie on my stomach. On the sordid sheet that had probably covered the table all day judging by the gray and green and yellow and brown and red marks and received the most painful shot I'd had in thirty years. At least. The next shot was in my hand, on the back in the vein. The second most painful shot I'd had in thirty years. Then I was gestured out of the office. I paid the nurse right then and there. I asked if they would help the hives. She gestured me out and said (via Vuong) "Take the pills." So we got the pills measured out in doses and stapled together by days. The first dose I took when I got back to my room while I rubbed my throbbing (and not in a good way) ass. And passed out fifteen minutes later. I wobbled down to supper and nearly face-planted in my soup, and took the second dose at bed time and slept for ten hours. Well, they helped the hives and everything else.

This morning I realized I couldn't face the day as dopey as the medication made me and decided to see if I could figure out which one was making me sleepy. First glance. It was the codeine. None of the others was labeled so that was lucky. I decided I'd hoard the opiates for when I needed them, and am on the road of recovery and developing a little stash of class four substances. Just in case.

We spent the day on a bus between Chao Doc and Ha Tien and the extreme South West coast of Vietnam. We stopped at a palm sugar processing farm where we had water coconut (like little jellied coconuts without milk but opalescent fruit) tea rocking in hammocks in the shade. Then we went next door and checked out the sugar bush (as it were--there was some confusion about where the sap came from--tree like rubber and maple, or what). It's collected, as it turns out, in bags from the palm flowers (which produce a lot of milk, apparently) and then is cooked down like maple syrup into brown cakes. They decide which flower bunches will be sacked for sap and which grown into the water coconuts. (The other surprise is that the trees look like palmetto rather than the usual coconut palms, so I'm hoping for the best for my prostate as well.)

I tried it and immediately went next door and bought a kilo for a dollar and started a run which sold her out. I can't believe I was the first person to try it but it was delicious.

We spent the rest of the day boating in stages through a mangrove swamp bird sanctuary. It was blessedly quiet and lovely except for bird song: egrets, storks, and others that prefer estuarine life. It was lovely. A long time since I'd been in a swamp. Most of this, like the rest of the delta, had been completely defoliated during the American war. Some pockets of mangrove remained (one of which we spent most of our time in) but much of the rest has been replanted with eucalyptus which is, apparently, resistant to Agent Orange, Dioxin and other toxins. Guerrillas take note. We had a late lunch of an a huge variety of seafood prepared in a huge variety of ways all caught fresh today. Tamarind fish sauce, Tamarind baked fish (I love tamarind), little fish and shrimp (if that's not redundant) fried up potato chip sized and eaten whole. Chilis. Banana flower salad. Hot pot with bun (cold round rice noodles) fish and vegetables I've never seen before which happens pretty much every day here. It was heavenly but I'm eating like a pig on this trip.

Anyway, it was a really nice day and a pleasure to have a day of good health and alert and rested for the first time in three weeks. Now we're in Ha Tien for the evening and leave for Phuc Quoc Island tomorrow for a couple of days of rain forest, fish sauce economy, and the BEACH.