Thailand Redux: Jet Rag, Medical Tourism, and Government by Goons

Home is where the heart is, they say. I figure they’re right, so my idea is to make as many places in the world feel like home as possible, something of a network of safe havens, you know, just in case… just in case all that apocalyptic symbolism becomes more than a metaphor; just in case things don’t work out like I have planned for my life; just in case I have a case of incurable wanderlove and feel like I’d be happier following the sun than following orders… ouch! Somebody pinched me a little too hard there! Where am I anyway? Searching searching searching… for a memory, a point of reference, anything… oh yeah, I remember now. If it’s Sunday, then this must be Thailand, and if this is Thailand, then that pinch in the butt must have come from (sound of blankets rustling) aha! The memories come flooding back now. That was a pleasant dream, though, the little bit that I can remember through my jet lag haze. Obviously all safe havens are not created equal. You wouldn’t want to try this at home anyway; concepts of home and nomadism are mutually contradictory. In reality it turns out to be not much more than a travel ethic, to feel like you’ve lived in a place you visited, as opposed to just seeing the tourist sites. I’m the lousiest of tourists actually. Friends come visit the Golden Triangle region of Thailand, where I’ve lived more than half of the last ten years, and see more in one day than I’ve seen in my whole time here. I’m jealous. My ethic may or may not be more ethical, but being a tourist is probably more fun.

People travel for all sorts of reasons now. I almost feel like everyone’s following me around, or maybe I’m following them. First there was simple backpacking, back when you’d actually carry a sleeping bag with you, and maybe even a tent. Then there was adventure travel, seeking out remote areas simply because they’re there. Then there were the world craft searches, seeking out interesting ethnic arts for sale to the Homies back stateside. Then there were the blue gene tours, looking for potential recombinant DNA possibilities. These days medical tourism is catching on quickly, not surprising given the disparity between Eastern and Western medical costs and the fact that we’re all getting older. If the US Democrats get elected and institute a health care system, Thailand may be out of a job. Don’t worry; I’m sure we can find some other work for them to do. When the cost of a simple tooth extraction can mean the difference between a few dollars or a few hundred, the logic is as simple as the arithmetic. The opportunities are endless- root canal tours, hair transplant holidays, sex change vacations, etc. The only problem is that many procedures require multiple visits, that and the fact that a day-long trip to Thailand is usually counter-indicated for emergency care. If you may need multiple visits, of course you could just hang around a while, and voila! Another new industry is born, retirement care. Bring on the private nurses! The average nurse in Thailand with ten years experience makes about three hundred dollars a month, is between thirty-five and forty years old, single, speaks enough English to get past first base, and has a little smile cute enough to melt hardened hearts. Interested? Keep checking for a Google Ad to appear somewhere on this page, and then click on it. The robots and web spiders don’t seem too smart, though. I told you I’d help you cheat the Eurail Pass, and then their ad shows up a day later, so go figure. No matter what I talk about, the ads for Thai girls keep coming up, so that seems like a growth industry. I only wish I’d clicked on ‘Timbuktu- Know Before You Go,’ before I went.

Tourists can’t get the same rates for medical care as the locals here, part of Thaksin’s legacy, but you probably wouldn’t believe it if you did. Appendectomy for six dollars? I’d be scared maybe they left a lug wrench inside or something. Even so, my wife’s scar wasn’t pretty, but it was cheap. To some extent, you do get what you paid for. Going to an American dentist after my Thai dentist was like riding in a Cadillac after a VW beetle, but guess which one I can afford the easiest? I wouldn’t advise buying into the whole Thai system of health care, though. Conceptually it can be a bit disturbing, particularly in the overemphasis on antibiotics. The EU called them on it when they started using them as food preservatives in export food products, though. The dairy industry anywhere in the world is no better of course. Livestock feed routinely includes antibiotics. Still, Thai conceptions of health are quirky. For some reason, Thais get a form of diabetes that seems to come and go. It’s typically a contributory cause of death also, usually one of four for some reason. Maybe they’re right and there is no single cause of death. I advise just taking the mechanical treatments and leave the high concepts to others, maybe yourself. I passed a remote hospital in the Isan outback once advertising brain surgery. I’d pass on that, but some Bangkok hospitals are getting a world-wide reputation, and Chiang Mai’s certainly acceptable for most procedures. I went in to a hospital in Chiang Rai a few days ago to get my kidneys checked and it was okay, if a bit factory-like. X-rays and medical advice for less than ten bucks is hard to beat.

The health care is better than the government; that’s for sure. At least Thaksin’s regime had some bright faces and some bright ideas, even if the main man was, and is, a megalomaniac who brooks no competition, nor criticism. His second-team cronies are like a re-visit to the dark side, Darth and the boys. The premier seems to think nothing really happened back in the student massacre of 1976. He must be studying conspiracy theory like others study The Art of War. But you’re supposed to wait longer than thirty years before re-writing history. Even Germans alive during WWII do it, though, using logic to make the Nazis seem more human, even though Nazism wasn’t especially logical. They like to rationalize that they wouldn’t have treated their workers ‘like that’, as though Jews had applied for work at the day labor office for temporary assignment to Auschwitz. The new Thai Interior minister is father to the son who executed a police officer point-blank in a crowded bar a few years ago for the crime of stepping on his foot. After a long runaround giving his father time to grease palms he was cleared because no one really saw anything. Now it’s payback time for daddy I guess. Mix me a Molotov.

Anything sounds better than jet lag right now. For the uninitiated, that’s something between a hangover, an attack of sleeping sickness, and Coriolis effects. I’m writing this in the dark by the light of the TV in my room, in some new take on the Lincolnian ethic. The best movies on cable TV come on in the wee hours of the morning btw. When’s the last time you saw ‘Nashville’ or anything by Robert Altman for that matter? I miss him. I love it, a kind of signature American film, even where it falls short. It’s long and sprawling, funny without really trying too hard, meaningful while trying even less, just like the America he manages to capture perfectly in the rear-view mirror. Did you know that everyone wrote the songs they sang in that movie, even Henry Gibson? And the metaphor is perfect, too. I love America most through the rear-view mirror.