First Rule of traveling alone - Never carry more than you can go to the bathroom with!
This is one that I learned a long time ago, but a very important one to always keep in mind. Many bathrooms don't even have stalls (just a hold in the ground that you squat over) let alone a hook or something to hang jackets or bags or anything on. If you have someone with you.. its easy to leave your bags with them... but when traveling alone.. you definitely can't leave your bag just sitting outside the bathroom and there is no way your putting it on the floor! So a small book bag that you can easily balance with while squatting is just perfect.
2. When you want to order a small plate of meat and they tell you to order the large plate and make it half price..... IT'S A TRAP!!!
We went to a pretty nice hotpot place and it was quite delicious. Dongmei ate a little bit of the meat but I ate most of it. By the end of dinner I felt VERY full.. and I didn't think I had really ate to much... but sometimes you never know. We walked back to Dongmei's dorm and on the way i took a few quick bathroom breaks.. nothing to out of the ordinary.. but my stomach still felt very full and heavy.
After getting back to my hotel... it all went bad! My stomach just decided to unload..... annoying but thats just how my stomach rolls sometimes..... But thats when the throwing up started... (first time I have thrown anything up in China). This combination of unloading my body from both ends continued for about 2 hours or so....how, I am not sure. With all of this came extreme pain in my stomach and surrounding areas.
3. Toilet seat covers in China are not meant to be sat on.
So in the middle of all the throwing up and stuff... I decided a shower would be quite nice. So while I am waiting for the hot water I sit down on the towel (I am quite exhausted) ... and totally fall through the freaking lid.... breaking it into about 6 different pieces. The lids are made purely for keeping water off the seat when you shower... they completely cover the seat but are made of a pretty weak plastic.
4. Doctors like to earn money off foreigners. (like everyone else)
The next morning, Dongmei came to my hotel as soon as she woke up and got my text messages. And tried to get me to go to the doctor, but I am used to having stomach problems and usually if I can eat something simple and then just build up from there.. I will be better in no time. But this time I also had a bit of a fever. Well I managed to throw up the basic bread and water that I was trying to eat (9 hours after the throwing up started). All this combined with the crazy amounts of pain.... I decided to let her take me to the doctor.
(Chinese hospitals are a little nuts.. but thats a different story) The doctor ran some tests and said that ya its food poisoning. After getting my list of medicine I went ahead an let them give me an injection ( I am usually very against this here... but I was in a lot of pain and still peeing out the the wrong hole every few minutes, at this point VERY dehydrated)
Food poisoning is not that uncommon... and Dongmei has taken her mom to the doctor for it before.. and the injection medicine is usually around 50yuan... but ya mine was like 150yuan.. thanks doctor... hope its good stuff.
We then went and got the actual pills he prescribed... talking the pharmacist was interesting.. she looked at the list and was like "wow.. he prescribed you the most expensive stomach medicine we have" 200yuan. So she gave us some other stuff that was a little cheaper but pretty much the same. At this point the pain was a little less.. so that was nice.
5. Don't travel during random revolutionary activity.
So... many hotels don't have the permits to let foreigners stay at their hotel... but most of the time no one cares. These hotel you have to have a Chinese Id card to check in. Well of course as a foreigner I can't get a Id card (its interesting how many people don't understand this). So Monday (the night of the food poisoning) I check into a hotel that decently cheap but pretty nice. I pay for nights and think I am good to go. Well Tuesday when we got back from the hospital... they have deactivated my room card and are telling me that I have to leave and can't stay there. I am still keeling over in pain and really wanting to get into the room so I can use the bathroom... so I let Dongmei do all the talking.
We get the stuff out of the room and tell him about the broken toilet seat. At first he wants to charge me 100yuan for that crappy toilet seat.. but we talked him down to 42yuan, mostly because he wants me to leave quickly . I get my money back for the second night and head to my usual hotel that is near by. But they are also start freaking out as soon I walk in the door and quickly rush me out telling me that I can't stay there right now..... GREAT!
I went another bigger hotel near by that is allowed to let foreigners stay.. twice the price of the other hotel.. but at this point... I just needed somewhere to stay. I knew it was government checks that had them all scared. The government generally doesn't pay attention... but sometimes they have a scare (like lots of revolutionary movement) and start to check all the hotels and find out who has been staying where and who has been traveling. They also start checking Ids and passports of every passenger on the long distance buses and trains.
6.How to travel... bus VS. train... totally go for trains!
So.. with all of this fun doctor stuff and hotel switching.... I am still a 3 hour bus ride away from home and there is no train from Daqing to Songyuan. Buses arn't to bad, they are pretty comfortable... but..................they have no bathroom. The train at least has a bathroom which makes them my preferred method of travel.
Dongmei took good care of me, so by Wednesday the pain in my stomach was mostly gone and I could kind of function. Sometimes going 5 minutes without going to the bathroom sometimes going an hour or two. Still not good conditions for making it home by bus or teaching Wednesday night... so I called in sick.
We managed to find a way I could take a train to another city near Daqing and then from there.. catch a train to Songyuan. Total travel time was much longer.. but I had continuous access to a bathroom and it ended up just being a little more expensive (trains are much cheaper than buses)
I made it home about 10:30 Wednesday night... not doing wonderful... but definitely much better than before. And this morning I am feeling pretty good and eating pretty normally... so seems to have mostly cleaned out of my system. ......what an adventure!
Sorry this post has no pictures... but I wasn't in the mood for taking any.. and I am sure no one would really want to see pictures from this post...... :)
No comments:
Post a Comment