Give me the Feva

This is a bit of a catch up post, as I have been a bit slack of late..... but there is a reason for that (other than my slackness that is), and that reason is Dengue fever.
Dengue fever is definately not on my top 10 list of diseases. I have just spent a week in hospital with it in Bangkok (the flashest hospital I have ever seen, more like a 5 star hotel!), so basically I havent been arsed to sit in front of a computer!

For those who dont know (or cant be bothered to google it): Dengue fever is basically like the worst flu you have ever had, headache, sore joints and a very high fever (mine was 39.6 at its height). This lasts for a week. In the very young, old or frail it can be fatal, but I supose the flu can be too. I was spared the worst of it fortunately.

Since the last post, we took a ferry to phuket (so we could catch a flight to Bangers), which is a bizarre place to say the least. The population is about 10:1 ladyboys - and being Thais, its almost impossible to tell the difference. We battled our way through that, and made it out alive (many didnt).... We saw several westerners "getting lucky" and walking out with a "girl" under their arm.... then again, perhaps they already knew. Enough of that anyway.

We traveled to Bangers, I spent a week in hospital, and another 3 days recovering at our guest house, and have now traveled to Siam Reap, Cambodia - where the Angkor Wat ruins are. The bus ride took something like 546 years to get here, and even went backwards some times. Which is the real reason the temples were abandoned..... Its so bloody hard to get here, no one could be arsed.

Cambodia is a lovely place though - the kids are friendly, running up to practice their English on you (whats your name, where are you from, how old are you, my name is etc etc). You invariably get a wave from people as you pass by in a tuk tuk or bus, and as it is currently the rice harvesting season, that means alot of waves.

Time to go now though, we are going to watch the sunset from the Angkor temple tonight (hopefully not with 2 million other tourists).

It's Official: Sea Urchin is now definately ON the menu.

sea urchin
n.

Any of various echinoderms of the class Echinoidea, having a soft body enclosed in a round, symmetrical, calcareous shell covered with long spines.

Little bastards.

What the above definition doesn't tell you, is that some species of sea urchin (eg. the long-spined diadema, as pictured above) have smaller spines inbetween the long spines that they shoot out at anything that crosses that invisible boundary.

On our second dive of the day, I found that invisible line and swam boldly over it to collect my reward: 12 spines in the hand. I copped it in a particularly sweet spot too.

An interesting fact you may not know about the shot spines of sea urchins, is that once they break the surface of the predators skin, they turn into little hooks so you can't get the bloody things out.


The western dive instructors on the boat gave helpful hints like, "Nothing you can do about that. You're going to be picking them out of your hands for weeks. Try soaking your hand in hot water... you could always dig them out with tweezers."

Fortunately, the Thai boat driver knew what to do...

1) pee on your hand, and

2) apply lemon juice to the area for 1 hour

All in all, it was great advice (I skipped step one though and went straight to the iodine). Five hours later, I could close my hand again and by the next morning my hand was almost back to normal.

Happily, I hear that the insides of sea urchins are quite delicious (like fish roe) and even better - they are cut open while they're still alive! Not that I'm a vengefull person, but it's now a delicacy that I will eat whenever possible.