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

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Day 9 - July 5

It took some time before I fell asleep and later I woke up in the middle of the night feeling pretty bad. Apparently I was having fever because I was either sweating under the blanket or I was freezing.

The fever was gone in the morning, but instead I was feeling a bit sick. This couldn't have happened at a more inconvenient time, now that we were about to leave for three days of jungle trekking. On the other hand, I didn't really feel bad enough to cancel the tour, which I was expecting to be one of the highlights of the holiday. I didn't want to worry May Tina either, so I said nothing to her about my condition and hoped it would improve by itself.

I hardly managed to eat any breakfast at all, and in addition it was raining heavily outside, so the start of our trek was less than perfect. At 0800 Boon and Keng picked us up and drove us to their headquarters, where we put all our baggage, except the things we were taking with us. Soon we were on our way, and after picking up Steve and Phil, we drove out of Chiang Mai. Everybody sat in the (open) back of the truck except Keng and another guy from the touring company.

On the outskirts of Chiang Mai we stopped at a market to buy some final supplies. We bought a flashlight and some raincoats, which all would eventually come in very handy.

After coming out of Chiang Mai the road kept going upwards and upwards. We were now entering the Doi Ithanon National Park which had Thailand's highest mountain. At the summit we had lunch and looked around at two temples that were situated right at the top. If it hadn't been for the clouds hanging below us, the view would probably have been very spectacular from here.

The drop in temperature was very noticable and it was barely advisable to walk around in shorts. However, I was feeling slightly better now after lots of fresh (but slightly cold!) air during the drive. ...