Nothin' but a heartache

Tempting though it might be to spend my entire stay at Eurana Boutique Hotel – it’d run about $1,440 for a whole month, buffet breakfast included – I decide to conserve funds and move downscale.

The Kim Guest House turns out to be maybe too downscale.

Set way back from the street in a tangled little grotto, the Kim’s outdoor sitting area offers a scruffily pleasant place to work, and the wi-fi signal is sensational. Shuffling about is the venerable Mr. Kim himself, cadaverous and leathery, eyeing visitors from under a shock of white hair. If I didn’t eventually have to go indoors to sleep, the Kim might be a comfy stay.

But, oh, that room …

Clearly Mr. Kim is as casual about cleanliness as he is about gardening. And the residual funk is only made worse by the bathtub-ring effect on the walls and doors left from Chiang Mai’s recent floods.  But, hey!  Just fifteen bucks, including toast and coffee for breakfast!

The only thing Lian likes about this new place is my pet name for it: The ke maa guest house. Ke maa is Thai for “dog shit.”

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I really need to be better about taking, or even ordering, my blood pressure meds. I brought none with me and my body is letting me know what an idiot I am during a walk after breakfast.

“Chest hurts why?” Lian demands, staring at me. So I start to explain that it’s nothing really, and--

“We go to hospital now!” And that ends the discussion.

Here is my experience with the Thai health care system: we check in at the non-emergency desk of Rajavej Chiang Mai Hospital and within moments a nurse is cuffing my left arm. Shortly after that, I meet with a physician who sends me around the corner for an EKG and blood work. Everything checks out normally and it’s back to the physician to receive a stern talking-to and a prescription. I will return in two weeks for a follow-up exam.

Meanwhile as she waits for me, Lian requests and immediately receives her own periodic physical, most of which is covered under the Thai public health insurance system.

My final tab for all of the above – the hospital visit, the physician, the EKG and blood work, the prescription, even throwing in Lian’s exam – comes in at just over a hundred bucks. And a big chunk of that amount was for the American-made pharmaceuticals.

The American health care system must be working fine for somebody, I just don’t know who. No such question here in Thailand.

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Who says you need a kitchen to be a great cook? Today’s lunch: ground pork with homemade curry (using lime leaves picked from the tree out front) and a broccoli-chicken stir-fry. Imagine if this girl had an actual stove, countertop and serving table.