Bent Over in Bangkok – Part 1

It’s not always easy to travel – not even for “pros”.  There are some days / cities / countries that are simply hard – and that’s okay! To make you feel a bit better about any mishaps you have had on the road, I’d like to take a moment to humiliate myself for your amusement.

Madrid has been freezing for the last 7 months, so Bangkok was the ideal place to score some heat and catch up with quite a few travel bloggers who happen to be in the area. Don’t tell anyone – but I always get a bit nervous before meeting other bloggers. However, I met up with my darling friend from Madrid : the crazy, fabulous Fernando of Wondrlust and we headed to the meetup together.

Ian of Where Sidewalks End,  Matthew of Expert Vagabond, Turner of Around the World in 80 Jobs,  and James Clark of Nomadic Notes (who is celebrating TEN years of digital nomadism) took us to a close by location which is touted as a hidden restaurant gem. The name of said restaurant is being withheld to protect the innocent / guilty.

Once inside, the boys pored over the menu, revving their carnivorous appetites and engines, while feeble jawed Fernando and I asked the owner what options existed for vegetarians. She suggested I have the stir fried morning glory and Fernando chose the mixed veggies- a veritable smorgasbord of vitamins and minerals.

One of these things is not like the other.

The he-men ate all sorts of crazy dishes : boar, funky chicken, and a curry that brought most of them to tears. We were in the thick of a discussion about the Paleo diet when I started to feel a piercing pain shoot into my eyebrows.

I blinked it away and downed a few more glasses of cold water – the heat must be getting to me.
Things moved along smoothly for a few more minutes, until I felt like I was upside down on a roller coaster. My mouth was suddenly full of spit, and I knew it was coming.

I pardoned myself to Fernando whispering “I need to go outside – I think I am sick” and made for the exit asap. On the street, I looked for a place to discreetly lose my lunch, but my body was sending me the message that I had about 10 seconds before it hit the flip switch.

Luckily, littering is pretty prolific in Bangkok and a plastic bag was just ahead of me on the road, waiting to be my vomit vessel. I grabbed it, and leaned against a light post ever so casually.

Thanks to a hardcore night of partying the week before, I was well on my way to becoming a professional-cookie-tosser. Let’s not talk about what happened in the next two minutes – suffice to say, painful relocation of my dinner.

A bit embarrassed (okay, mortified) about my situation, I tied the bag and hid it behind a plant so that I could grab it as we left the restaurant and bin it.

When I sat back down at the table, conversation continued as normal and I think I held it together fairly well. Fernando was fretting, but that’s just because he’s a mama’s boy.

We paid the bill and as the group exited the restaurant, my body sent me another message that it was about to turn on me yet again. Shit. I ran back to the bag, untied the knot, and filled that beast up in the middle of the street. This can’t be happening.

Dying to keep a shred of dignity, I re-tied the bag, carried it in my left hand away from my body and walked down the street towards the SkyTrain with the crew, dumping it in the nearest bin. When the group started up the stairs for the train, I had to take my leave – terrified that I would pull a repeat on transportation.

like this — coming out of me.

Fernando, my Spanish Knight in Hairy Armor ran into oncoming traffic to flag down a taxi, telling the driver to take the freeway, and make it snappy, please.

We paid the toll and continued along the onramp, about to hit the freeway when I yelled to the driver to stop please!

I climbed over Fernando and doubled over in the emergency lane, hoping the driver didn’t think I was some drunk-idiot-farang when I felt Fernando’s comforting hand on my back. I looked to the right and saw the taxi driving away.

“Fernando!!! MY WALLET!” I screamed while running after the taxi that had my money, key to the hostel safe, and  my favorite lip gloss.

Luckily, the adrenaline moved my feet faster than normal and we were able to catch the car right before he merged onto the freeway. We got back in and I held my wallet close, thankful for not having the obstacle of replacing money to worry about.

Again, the retching begins. Fernando asked the driver for a bag. He doesn’t understand and I have only seconds before I have to use my own shoe. “Kleenex?!”

The driver finally understands, and digs out a plastic bag from the console. It’s the size of a grapefruit and I fill it in thirty seconds, dump it out the window (oh yeah, class act) and repeat.

Finally able to catch my breath, but not wanting to fill the car with the stench of Morning Glory and bile, I hung the bag out the window – but the humidity made everything worse …. so I rolled the window up, and let the bag o barf fly in the wind. Yup. I did that. No, I’m not proud of it.

Eventually, I made it back to the hostel and the staff at Mile Map were kind enough to give me an upgrade as well as re-hydration salts and fuss over me.

The next day, I woke weak but due to the extreme and fast nature of the food poisoning, I was able to still go ahead with my chores for the day : write blog posts, not vomit, and get my hair dyed. What could possibly go wrong?

I’ll tell you. Stay tuned for Bent Over in Bangkok : Part 2!