Home » Thailand » Southeast Asia 2000 - Travel Diary, Part 4: Hilltribe trekking and hospitalisation

The hilltribe trek became a very interesting experience for other reasons than we had intended. During the journey we walked through some amazing jungle scenery in the hills outside Chiang Mai and visited a genuine hilltribe village, but unfortunately my main memory is of the severe diarrhoea that I suffered from. Eventually I was taken to a hospital in Chiang Mai where my condition quickly improved. My travel insurance in Gjensidige Forsikring turned out to be of little help in this situation, as Gjensidige failed to acknowledge to the hospital that they would cover my expenses, and I therefore ended up having to pay the hospital bill myself.

Southeast Asia 2000 - Travel Diary, Part 4: Hilltribe trekking and hospitalisation

Jan Arild Teland
2006-05-08 18:27:08

Displayed times (last time: )

so I was immediately connected to such a "machine". It was great to just lay down in bed, knowing that they would take care of me at the hospital. May Tina went with the others to retrieve our bags and put them in our hotel.

The machine was a little bit annoying because I had to drag it along every time I went to the bathroom, which was quite often (thanks to the machine!), even though I wasn't drinking anything. During the day several nurses came inside at regular intervals giving me various pills. I was never informed what kind of pills they were, but apparently it was some kind of antibiotics. The doctor also came by once, poked my stomach with his fingers, mumbled something about "some gas inside", and left without really saying anything about my diagnosis.

For dinner I was given a menu to choose from, just like in a restaurant. The prices were added to my hospital bill and were about the same as in any Thai restaurant. I managed to eat some egg salad, and later in the evening I fell asleep and slept quite well during the night.

Day 12 - July 8

When I woke up, I was feeling quite alright. I was even able to eat a large American breakfast, which was my first meal of some size in a while. When the doctor came by to see me, he said I could leave the hospital later today. He didn't say anything about what had been wrong with me in the first place, though.

May Tina arrived quite early at the hospital and together we sat in my room waiting for the nurses to discharge me. Early in the morning, there had nurses coming and going all the time, but then we were left completely alone for a long period. After a while I was getting tired of waiting and used the intercom system to inform the nurses that I wanted to leave. "Wait for insurance" was the reply.

What was going on? Had Gjensidige managed to mess things up again? It appeared they had, and after talking with two nurses the scenario ...