24h ở Thailand - One night in Bangkok makes a hard man humble

There was quite a hot song, named "One night in Bangkok". Well, what I'm telling here is not about what happened to us in Bangkok, but Pattaya, a city located in the east coast of Thailand. Ever since the accident took place and then we rushed back to Vietnam safely, the 1980s famous song has been whirling in my mind. Sometimes, or should I say, many times, you listen to music but you don't pay attention to the lyrics. Then one day, you suddenly discover that what the singer says in his song is really something.

In Vietnam, we have public holidays by the occasion of 30/Apr. - 1/May. This year, I have almost one week off so I decided that my mom and I would join a tourist program to Thailand, which is a very reasonable tour to Vietnamese: inexpensive price, abundance of exotic things to see, shopping opportunities and short fly time. These are what holidays about.

We left home for Noi Bai international airport at about 10:15 April 26. The plane departed for Bangkok at 12:45. This is Nokair of Thailand. I wasn't very happy when I was told I would fly with a budget air carrier. However at the end, the service they performed turned into my fullest satisfaction. I possess a golden membership of Vietnam Airlines' frequent flyer program, which means I fly a lot, and I know what it takes to be a good air carrier. It is interesting to notice that a Vietnam Airlines' round trip ticket from Hanoi to Bangkok costs 30% more than what I paid for the entire 4-night 5-day packaged tour in Thailand.

It's aircraft looks funny, though. It was a Boeing 737.

The departure and arrival time were good with no considerable delay. We arrived in Bangkok at about 3PM. The tourist company's large bus was readily waiting for us outside Bangkok's Suvarnabhumi Airport. We headed to Pattaya right away.

It takes normaly only 2 hours to drive from Bangkok to Pattaya, but on the way the bus stopped for a while at a food complex for everyone's refreshment. Besides, when we arrived in Pattaya city, we got in a sort of traffic jam, which is not a surprise. We then arrived at Pattaya Century Hotel at about 6:45PM. The tour guide, Chack, a Thai man, announced that the group would meet again in the hotel lobby at 7:30PM so that the bus would take us to dinner.

Getting into the room, unpacking the suitcase and taking a shower consumed almost all of the allowed time. My mom decided that she would not take a shower before dinner.
The restaurant that we were going to is not to far from the hotel but again we experienced a traffic jam. When staying on the bus, I took some pictures, which turned out to be the only few pictures of Thailand that I took in this trip.

We arrived at the restaurant at about 8PM. There was an old Thai lady standing at the entrance and giving us something that tasted like pumkin seeds. I thought she works for the restaurant what she gave us was kinda welcome gift. Well, she’s not, as later I figured out.

The dinner went on for nearly an hour. That night there was a huge premierleague football match of MU playing against Chelsea so there were a lot of discussion and chatters among the guys in my group and we even ordered some beer. When we stood up for leaving, it was almost 9PM.

As I proceeded to the door, I noticed the old Thai lady who gave us free pumkin seeds when we came in. She was standing outside the restaurant, behind her flat baskets which are piled on a folding chair, looking at us. Oh, she was selling. I was about to call my mother: “buy some of this stuff, it tastes very well”.

Oops!

Shit happened!

My mom was walking about an arm length ahead of me, and she just tumbled and was lying on the road. She didn’t pay attention when walking from the pavement down to the road.

Everybody panicked. Even me, as a few seconds later I approached and held her in my arms and saw that her right hand position was wrong. The wristbone was obviously dislocated or even worse, broken.

There are millions of chances when anyone could make a false step and tumble, but when you are on a traveling trip to a foreign country and get your wrist broken, the timing is just rightfully wrong.

My mom was in pain to such extent that she couldn’t make a sound. People were standing around so close that I could hardly breathe. Everybody, please out! Someone call a taxi!

10 or 15 minutes had passed. No taxi. Go by the big bus then. The bus would take everyone back to the hotel, and I would also need to gather some stuff like passports, creadit cards, and mobile phone.

Later on, being told by Chack, the Thai tour guide, I got to know that there is no normal taxi in Pattaya, there are only 2-row taxis, the 3-wheeled taxis on which people seat on 2 opposite benches. What kind of touristy city is that? From Century hotel, we again rode the big bus to the hospital.

Chack was not so sure about which hospital to go. On the bus he kept calling somewhere by his mobilephone. Then he told me: we are heading to Pattaya International Hospital, it’s a private hospital and expensive, but by this time of the night, which is over 9PM, going to other hospitals might not be so good. I agreed. Who cares about the money? My mom needed to get treatment as soon as possible to release her from too much pain.

Pattaya International Hospital. Quite a decent one. The staff speaks English but they language skill is just so-so. I had Chack, a native speaker accompanying for translation anyway.

They asked me to fill out some forms and even made a copy of my mom’s passport. That’s right, I thought of it before so I even brought my passport with me.

Then, I was told that my mom’s right wrist and ankle needed to by x-rayed first. Oh yeah, 100% agree.

I went outside for a cigarette. I didn’t have time for preparation before the trip so the night before I almost pulled an all nighter to search for touristic information on where and how to go from the Internet and make an e-book to store in my O2 phone. I planned to get some sleep on the plane but I did not make it. I felt the tiredness.

The X-ray was finished, the films were ready and the young Thai doctor was about to announce the diagnosis.

He said: This and that are broken and we have to have an operation.

I didn’t expect that. I asked, how much would it cost. He said: “I will ask them to estimate the costs” then walked away. 20 minutes later, I was called to come to talk the the man at the cashier.

“It will be a 2-hour operation, and altogether it will cost from 110,000 to 120,000 Thai Baht (3,600 to 4,000 US Dollars). We will need you to pay the deposit before the operation”.

One night in Bangkok and the world's your oyster
The bars are temples but the pearls ain't free

I had some dollars in cash in my pocket and 2 credit cards in my wallet at that moment that allowed me to be able to pay, but I decided that I’m not going to pay that much for something I don’t believe. I demanded to talk to the doctor once more. The cashier guy, who seemed to me like a “she”, told me to wait for 15 minutes before the doctor could come.

I told the young Thai doctor: “The operation, if turned out to be a necessity, will be carried out in Vietnam for our comfortableness. Tomorrow we will catch the earliest fly to get out of here. Now I would ask you to take all necessary measures like temporary fixation, prescription of pain killers and tranquilizers and we will leave here for the hotel”.

The doctor insisted: “She needs to stay here tonight so we can provide her with treatment otherwise she could not bear the pain”.

I said: “No”. I usually have to be determined and know exactly what I want in order to survive my work.

Earlier I discussed with Chack about fly tickets and possibilities of transportation from Pattaya to Bangkok. Chack, my friends and I all reckoned that the hospital only wanted us to stay so that they could charge some more.

The payment to the hospital was about 120$. A trip back to the hotel by the hospital car was inclusive, and costed around 200,000VND. The escorted trip was very worthy because the hospital staff really took my mom up to the hotel bed.

I almost didn’t sleep that night, because at 6AM we went with the car arranged by Chack’s company from Pattaya to Bangkok to catch the 10:15 AM fly to Hanoi. The distance between Pattaya – Bangkok is 150km and it should take more than 2 hours to get there. We had to rush in everywhere: the ticket counter to buy 2 new tickets, check-in passport control, and the way from there to the boarding gate was really long and winding: I guessed it could be 2km, may be more.

And for that I have to give Nokair great compliments: they sent a guy to assist my mom with a wheelchair from the chek-in counter up to the boarding gate, and from there a bus took us directly to the air plane. At Hanoi end, as we arrived, an assistant from Nokair was readily waiting with a wheelchair and helped us up to the taxi.

So that was our 24-hour trip to Thailand recently. May be the time we stayed in Thailand was less, but taking the time we were away from home altogether, it was a little bit more than one day. Restless, emotional and eventful experiences.

One night in Bangkok makes a hard man humble
Not much between despair and ecstasy
One night in Bangkok and the tough guys tumble
Can't be too careful with your company