8-8-2017
(I promise there are a coupla pictures at the end of this, and a video. So feel free to skip ahead a this was tremendously random.)
Sitting at the Thonburi Train Station.
Been having the shakes and twitches starting yesterday. I recognize them as some of the symptoms that seem to take turns being the main problem. My right knee last night after I started packing started hurting whenever I went down stairs. Then this morning my hips hurt. Both are still problematic but not major as I’m on flat mostly here by the train station. The shakes and twitches are bad enough the I’m very clearly sure others have been noticing all day…
…and I ran out/rationing my anxiety meds because I didn’t realize how low I was til I went to fill my pill cases for this trip. So I went last night but it was a different pharmacist on and they said they didn’t have it in stock but I think she just told me that as she didn’t recognize what I was asking for. Sigh.
Happily a lot of meds here that you Need a prescription for in the US don’t require one, are OTC. Others a pharmacist can sell. And then, of course, there are those you need a prescription for. And then there are pharmacies/pharmacists who will sell you things needing a prescription…
Guess which few options I use. I’ll give you a hint: they don’t require you have a prescription. I’ve been refilling almost all of my prescriptions just by going to my nearby pharmacies. My key one has stated giving me a discount and finally they offered to see if they could order one med after talking to the pharmacist and would call me when it came in.
Except for one where I know the lady is ripping me off compared to where I could find it elsewhere the prices are the same as getting a note from my doc. I get refilled without doctors’ fees.
I know shadiness is involved but I’m sticking to meds I can normal get/already have prescribed. Going to the doctor’s is just walking into an appointment fee to tell him what I need refilled and, after he acts like some of my mild meds are death to even touch and we politely battle of wills, he writes me a note to by all the same pills at the hospital pharmacy.
On the pain killer point, I won’t get into all the details… let’s just say that he wrote me a prescription for a small amount of a moderate med and then had me go to the “specialist” (whose door I could read was not) where, after much arguing and a crying jag, they gave me a lighter med that they treated like was heroin.
Dude gave me Tramadol and told me every 4-6 hours as needed, then I had to deal with them acting like I might overdose on the minimum dosage of codeine they gave me if I took more than 1 a day.
I didn’t fully catch that until afterward. Then I searched the internet to make sure I wasn’t crazy memory and, yep, the dosages and timing of the meds were REALLY not what they acted like. To where I’m not even sure that main doctor knows what Tramadol is.
And yes, that IS the short summary. There are a lot of details and nuances involved in the doctors visits.
And the codeine amount I got only after wrestling a deadly if more than one every 24 hours?
A pharmacist can sell Robbitussin-DM. Same dosage.
Sigh.
But that’s just a matter of annoyance here with the medical community. Like said, I refill most of my prescriptions without dealing with the rat’s ass bother of the middle man who is just a pill dispenser when I go in.
NOW UNTO OTHER STUFFS.
I just walked through a big tent area that houses an epic size farmers’ market. I got out of it about half-way, out on the sidewalk, because the horrible smell of what I assume is rotting bit of things sold that must have soaked into the pavement some or fallen into the grate that runs down its middle.
I got out and did the long way around the block and sat for a while reading and eating veggie fried rice and a Coke in a street/cubby-food restaurant. Way too much food for $2.
God bless the rare street or buffet food I can eat. God bless them.
So, I sit here on a ledge-seat at the Thonburi Train Station as I said in the start. I’ve my rucksack and always bag with me.
I’m a packing god. Do you know how much stuff I can orderly stuff into that bag?
I usually have as a full pack stuff generally this:
- all my ultralight camping equipment except the stove
- tiny bit of makeup and jewelry
- wet weather gear
- pill cases
- My medication bag that’s when filled it is slightly smaller, maybe, than a concrete brick. Happily it piles and scrunches and isn’t hard lol. This item is a special note as it always needs to be packed in a location where I can, without spilling other items, get it out for for customs if ever required. Happily that has never come up, yet.
- a pair of sneakers
- my sleeping bag
- a small bag that contains items to make the most of a bunk like thin ratchet traps, some small carabiners, 550 cord, some small clothes pins, and odds and ends as needed
- a small Bluetooth speaker
- And all of, except a few items I put in my other bag and am wearing can that I can mix and match a few days if something happens to my main bag, my clothing.
- That’s basically it. Small stuff varies bits but not enough to mention.
Oh, and any external drives I may have at the time.
I carry an actual house with bedding, gpclothing, medicine, and entertainment. In a bag I can proudly lift with one arms.
Today it’s not full as I’m just spending about 10 days in Kanchanaburi and the Erawan National Park near it. I may camp in the latter during my paid time for the hostel or, staying longer than plan right now, in the Park.
Going 3rd class (the only class) on The Death Railroad in the awesome oldy trains they have here.
I’m in love with that night trip I took from Bangkok to Chang Mai last year.
The trains make trains noises. Like, old we-don’t-have-them types where you can really hear the clicking bumps of the wheels working. And the insides are generally pretty utilitarian except the rare one here and there. Don’t let anyone fool you, the majority of trains have a First Class that doesn’t really exist in the US or Europe. They’ve pictures online and such of more western-nice type, but I’ve yet to see one of these and no one I’ve chatted about train travel have actually come across. Weird.
I love this. I can’t believe I’ve been living in odd places out of bags I can carry with no problem for as long as I have. It only comes up once in a couple of months and it came up today… popped in my head as I’ve been turning over where next… it seems unreal… it doesn’t seem matching with the time here in me.
Going here is different with finding the how’s and where’s, but it has the same kind of time distortion as when I was on the Appalachian Trail.
There people, to very much include me, lost track of times and dates. I didn’t know my birthday was coming until I saw a log spot and went to sign it and saw the date. My birthday was the next day.
Over here I didn’t know Election Day had come and gone or who won until about 4 or 5 days later, as someone mentioned it and I went and Googled.
On the Trail your life of day after day, even just very shortly into it, became all about daylight and distance. Fuck outside world, it was gonna be 38 degrees outside of this sleeping bag… but I need to try and be packed and moving by actual sunrise comes. Then setup, eat, sleep, and again. Hit a hostel for a day or three, no need to know the date unless you reserved ahead and it meant a desperate push of all the sun and distance you could get to hit that date right sometimes.
Hostel was ultimately about food supplies and for me trying to make up for depleted calories and carb load before going back out.
It was like a food exchange all the time when you had enough or you could trade for better, checking the differences made in your pack weight. We’d sit and lay out what we had on the floor in a big gather and compare.
I’d feel like I hadn’t seen or spoken to Delta for a couple months and feel sad and like I wasn’t missed or understood how tricky but important it was to get into the Meeting or chatting. I’d have to remind myself: it’d been like a normal 3 days for them; the timing I had was standard for us on that end. I’d no match in the two as far as feeling even though I knew logically the difference. My Grumpy Cat and knitted warmers I was so sweetly given would be held sometimes to remind me I was part of a family, that I was loved and supported.
It would also build intense stress and strip spoons; forward, forward, sun, water, trying candy and cookies to slow calorie loss, water, distance, distance, sun, weather, rinse and repeat.
It made time very weird for us.
And don’t think I’m bitching there. I thought it was awesome. To include when I *was* bitching. Beautiful, difficult, impressive, pain, tired, wonderful laughs, smiling over weirdness of time, distance, priorities, goals… I was so much more hit by injury ending me than I let anyone know. And I won’t go into it here.
Let’s just say it’s been over a year and I’m still feeling lacking and disappointed and crushed inside. It was massively important to me to make it, to get the next day done and done and done.
The absolutely absurd sharing and bonding issue of trying to not get caught going pee on the edge of or on the trails because there wasn’t an off the trail option of the terrain… not knowing who would possible come around the turn and come across a bit that saw across from the trail parts… it was so desperate and hilarious.
I also learned how much toilet paper I needed to carry for the next section til resuppy in a few days. I’m not sure if that’s a useful skill.
ANYHOO, let’s end all of that with the fact that I loved every gorgeous and every misery on it and was devastated at my lack for it. I didn’t let the real intensity show. A lot of upset showed, but I’ve kept the level still quiet even here. It was hard and wonderful. I enjoyed crabby dark moods of up hills that never ended. I like to push myself and see what I can take. I try to grow.
13:40
I’m sitting on the train to Kanchanburi, waiting for time to go. I was worried it would be tight with my pack being an embarrassed fitting time with people and wondering what the inside of this one was really like.
It’s MAYBE a 12% full.
And where the train stopped and I got on stepping up and looking both ways had wooden seats to my right and cushion seats to my left. I’m in the left car.
Jittery and up about seeing the scenery as we go and hearing and feeling the train.
WOOHOO, TRAINS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!,!!,!!!!
Dudes, trains are amazing. All I’ve been on in different ways. I love trains. To include subways and such.
Will try to get some awesome snaps on the way for here. I’m intending to put ones up above here in places, if they’re not there… well, they aren’t.
Oh, awesome again: a screaming baby-toddler 2 seats down.
Lots of repeat descriptors in here, I am aware fully. There’s a reason, take them as they come.
It’s the world.
