We spent two days in Pakchong. The hospital there is medium sized. It has internal medicine, OB, peds, surgery, and the other basics. We weren’t really in the hospital as much as the clinics though. On Thursday we were at the alternative medicine clinic. We saw acupuncture, cupping, and thai massage. With the acupuncture they hook it up to electrodes, or put what looks like burning little marshmallows on the end to heat them up. She treats all sorts of pain, obesity, behavior disorders. It was very interesting. In the clinic they have a cabinet full of Chinese herbal things for pain, bug repellant, soaps, shampoos, etc. Lots of stuff. Thai massage reminds me a lot of OMM class. They do a brief range of motion test on you prior to starting. There are a lot of positions they put you in for muscle relaxation. They don’t use oil. It takes a long time to train to be a masseuse here.
In the afternoon, since a few of our people weren’t feeling well we checked into our hotel to relax. I went back to the hospital for a Thai massage. It was over an hour and a half! Absolutely amazing. I kept thinking she was going to be done, but she kept going. Another one of the residents got acupuncture.
We went to the night market for dinner and shopping. This was by far the best night market we’ve been to. Not too overwhelming like the other ones. The food all looked amazing too. I had satay and a kabob for my meal, then those delicious green noodles in coconut milk for dessert.
On Friday we visited a Primary Care Unit and got to hear their role in the health care system and in the community and see what opportunities they had for their 1st-2nd year medical students. Very interesting. In the afternoon we did three home visits. The first man (don’t know what his diagnosis is- he looked healthy as a horse and we didn’t talk to him about his health) raises and breeds brahmas. One of them was pregnant and in labor. We saw her lose her mucous plug, but she didn’t deliver while we were there. I wish she did. The second home was a 57 year old lady who had a hemorrhagic stroke and is incapacitated. They get such great home care here with their community health workers in every community. Much better than in the US. The third home was a lady with heart failure and diabetes who was in the ICU for months with sepsis. Everyone thought she’d die, but she made it and now is very well controlled with all of her illnesses. She can do housework and walk around a lot. She is doing fantastic!
For more touristy things we went to see a Buddhist temple in the mountains. Absolutely beautiful!!! the view from the temple was amazing too. I love and miss the mountains so much! Texas doesn’t have enough elevation change for me. Not far away was a small cave that had another worshipping area for Buddha. We got to go see that. Dinner was pork on a stick and sticky rice from a street vendor (that stuff is soooooooo good). We ate it at the home of one of the family medicine doctors who runs the PCU we visited in the morning. We sat on her porch (the weather is perfect in the mornings and evenings) and ate. They kept bringing us food from the market across the street too. But I’ll never turn down fresh Thai fruit.
Yesterday we went to the National Reserve. It’s the oldest and biggest in Thailand. There were deer roaming free, very tame. And monkeys were everywhere too. It was so awesome! At one point we saw an elephant cross the road and disappear into the jungle. We saw two waterfalls and stood on the edge of a cliff. No rails on the cliff. We were hanging our feet off the edge and everything. America wouldn’t be like that. We walked a premade path out to the waterfalls. It’s dry season so we got to go in pretty far before seeing water. One had 118 stairs for its main staircase (there was much more to the walk down than the stairs) and the other had 200 that went straight up and straight down- so steep! I burned my calories for the month just on those walks to the waterfalls. This reserve was absolutely beautiful. It was like a Tarzan jungle. We saw a lot of cyclist. Beautiful place to ride a bike.
Just relaxing today before going to Surin tomorrow.
