Medical tourism part of the post - there was a tiny counting problem with the pain medication they gave Gwyne, take this one every 4 - 6 hours as needed for pain, come back in a week.  They gave her 10 pills, you do math.  So, while we were at Bumrungrad for the fitting of the crown (think teeth, people, not tiaras), we thought we'd pop by the orthopedic department and see if we could get some additional medicine a tich stronger than tylenol.  We were advised to return at 1300 for the stand by queue.  We came a little early, and shortly after 1300, we were taken in to see a doctor, got a prescription for some additional medicine and were out.  The cost of the doctor's visit and the medicine would have been $55, but insurance covered it, and it was delivered via the vacuum tubes that so impresses me. For the level of care, the efficiency and the price, it's amazing.

Now for the fun part of the post.  There's a restaurant down the street that advertises Bangladeshi food.  It is not a packed establishment and it may be because it sells Bangladeshi food.  Here's a short story from one of my trips to Bangladesh, back in the day.

Dacca, Bangladesh, January 2^nd, 1984.  Rickshaw heaven or hell, depending on your perspective.  I had just flown in the night before from Burma on Biman Airlines, the national airline of Bangladesh.  For those not in the know, Biman is the absolutely cheapest ride in Southeast Asia; and yes, there is a direct correlation between price and their service and safety record.   I had an onward ticket to Calcutta for the next day, but for some reason, (Recklessness?  Youthful naiveté? Pure foolishness?) I had wanted to cross Bangladesh by land.  I had one day to locate the embassy to get an extension on my visa to accomplish the land crossing or I would have to fly out.

Now the Lonely Planet guide book, which was the Bible for frugal travelers in Southeast Asia, said that English is widely spoken in Bangladesh.  They lied.  Perhaps there are pockets of Dacca where English is widely spoken, but they must be very cleverly hidden.  As a result of reading the guidebook, I put absolutely zero time and energy into learning any Bengali.  And let me tell you, among the rickshaw driver population, English isn’t spoken at all.  (Mental note to self:  Don’t believe everything you read.)  Anyway, my challenge was to find a rickshaw driver who spoke English, knew where the embassy was, if it was open on January 2^nd, and, on top of that, I had to negotiate a price for the ride as well.  The tough part, as you can now imagine, was finding a rickshaw driver who spoke English.  I had been through about 20 boys, pointed at them, asking quickly, “English?  English?  English?”  I had received 20 shrugs of the shoulders and now they formed a circle around me, gawking at me with their heads slightly tilted and their mouths wide open.   I finally found a rickshaw wallah, who in response to my question, “Do you speak English,” enthusiastically wagged his head back and forth as they are wont to do on the Indian subcontinent and said, “Yes, yes, yes baba, get in.”  My sigh of relief was audible.  “Thank goodness.  I need to extend my visa.  Do you know where the embassy is?”  Again, the head wagging followed by “Yes, yes, yes baba, get in.”  “Oh, good.  Now, do you know if the embassy is open today?”  His head appeared as if it were mounted on gimbals, the way it was wagging as he said, “Yes, yes, yes baba, get in!”  The teensiest alarm bell went off in the back of my mind.  “How much?” I asked as I squinted my eyes suspiciously.  His response?  “Yes, yes, yes baba, get in!”  The alarm bell was now clanging wildly, the sirens began to wail.  “Why you don’t understand one single fucking word of English, do you,” I slowly enunciated.  “Yes, yes, yes baba, get in!”  (Mental note to self:  Don’t ask any more yes/no questions in Bangladesh.)   Now remember, I was a reckless, youthful, naïve, foolish guy back then, so what did I do?  I got in.   After all, he did have that phrase, “Yes, yes, yes baba, get in!” down pat, and that was more than I had gotten from anyone else. 

He cycled around for a while and found one of the very few English speaking people in the enormous metropolis of Dacca who translated for me.  Everything worked out just fine and dandy; I got my visa extended and I got a good price for the rickshaw ride too.  I had asked the translator what a fair price to pay for the trip would be and he said (as he too wagged his head back and forth furiously), “Do not pay that thieving rickshaw wallah any more than 10 taka – he will try to tell you the price is 30, 40 or even 50 taka, but 10 is a fair price.”   He was so vehement in his insistence that I pay only 10 taka that I wanted to say, “Now have we been cheated by a rickshaw wallah before?”  But I exercised restraint.

 I made my way across Bangladesh in about a week’s time, using just about every imaginable mode of transportation along the way.   I remember getting into one, well, kind of like a bus, but with benches on either side of the vehicle.  Bangladesh is a predominantly Muslim country, so there were all the veiled ladies on one side, and all the skull capped men on the other side.  Now remember, young, reckless, naïve, blah, blah, blah, right?  I figured the odds were in my favour, one man, 45 women, so I naturally sat with all the women.  Before I could wink at them (after all, I couldn’t see their faces, but I could make eye contact), the men had me sitting on the wrong side of the bus with them.  (Mental note to self:  Do like the locals do in the future.)  

It was time to head out of Bangladesh and into India.  I had been staying in a very small village and had consumed some of their not so pristine water.  I wasn’t feeling well at all.  To get to the border, I had to take a rickshaw, boat, train, bus, and finally an oxcart.  To get the ox to move at a decent pace, they usually put a stick between his enormous testicles, and give them a poke whenever the ox slows down.  Remember, I really wasn’t feeling well, and seeing this poor fellow’s testicles get prodded when he slowed down to less than a trot wasn’t helping matters at all.  I’m a very sensitive man when it comes to any kind of testicular prodding.  After bouncing up and down on the oxcart for what seemed like an interminable amount of time, I finally made it to the border.  My innards were beginning to quiver.  I needed to find a toilet fast, or my entry into India was not going to be a pretty sight.  I pinched my cheeks together, and found a row of stalls – all occupied except for one.  With my fists clenched, I went in, barely got the door closed, and, well, let’s not go into the details there, okay?  I think a good story should leave something to the imagination.   

Now in Southeast Asian squat toilets, there is no toilet paper.  Folks there clean themselves with water and their hands, which is why you’re not supposed to touch anything with your left hand in that part of the world.  At least that's the way it was done back then.  Perhaps the places charging more than $1/night had fancier facilities.  I had been traveling for a while and had adopted that custom out of practicality.  So, I reached over to the spigot and turned it on and waited and waited for the water pressure to build up, waited for those first few drops of water to drip out, but there was absolutely nothing.  A moment of horror gripped me.  It had not been, as a friend once put it, a ‘no wiper.’  And then, in one of life’s great ‘aha’ moments, it hit me.  There I squatted, on the border between Bangladesh and India.  The guidebook!  I would certainly have no need for the Bangladesh portion of the book in India!   Not only did I come up with this brilliant thought, but I also had the presence of mind to look for the particular page where it said that English was widely spoken in Bangladesh.  That page would be put to the test first.  The texture is certainly not recommended for non-emergency situations, but it was functional.  I derived no small amount of pleasure from looking for inaccurate entries in the guide book and disposing of it properly.  (Mental note to self:  Save a few extra sheets of the Bangladesh guidebook for the train ride to Calcutta…)