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Well I woke up about 9am this morning having slept clean through the introduction to 1st of January 2013. I'm not sure how I did it, because if there is one thing the Balinese love apart from their surfing, is letting off Fireworks. When I caught up with the boys at breakfast it turned out I hadn't missed out as much as I thought after all - Joey hadnt made it out either due to a brutal bout of Bali belly, but Matt had gone to Echo Beach and had a good time.
I still felt rough as hell, aside from the obvious ear infection all my body and eye sockets and head were still hurting, so I booked a trip to the 'BIMC' hospital in Kuta. It's the one Saskia went to with her ear infection and was very impressed with, so I thought it must be a good option.
I got the Taxi down to Kuta at 11am, but around New Year is one of the busiest times of year, so the roads were even more insane than usual. It took just less than hour to get there and 150,000R ($15). The BIMC appeared to be a very new looking private hospital. Within 15 minutes I had filled in a patient details form and been seen to by a nurse who took my blood pressure and basically made sure I wouldn't keel over waiting for the doctor, not that I'd wait long anyway. 10 minutes later I was sat listing all my symptoms from 2 weeks ago when I had fevers etc and the problems this time. The doctor was very very good, listing everything and taking blood samples etc.
She explained I had an out ear infection and just some side effects of the infection combined with being run down after doing a lot in Lembongan. She said I had a lot of the Dengue Fever symptoms when I was really ill a few weeks ago, but my blood pressure suggested I hadn't actually got it, but took the samples to make sure.
She then prescribed Antibiotic Eardrops, Special anti inflammatory pills to relax my constricted ear tubes, something for a sore throat (even though I explained it wasn't that bad) and more ibuprofen as I had run out.
Having picked up my drugs and been given a full detailed typed report of what she'd seen/done/prescribed etc, I paid $140 for my troubles, and asked them to get me a taxi.
It turned out that the longest wait I would have all day was for the taxi! As its here was such heavy traffic and flooding the roads where chaos so a taxi could take forever to arrive. I didn't really mind as I was sat reading my book, but after an hour I was a bit fed up. Then I saw one outside drop someone off, and jumped in before he could leave.
The driver turned out to be a really nice chatty bloke with very good English. On one hand he was interesting to talk to, but on the other my head and ear hurt so much I could have done with just looking out the window. I did however learn some interesting things from him.
Firstly was about the Wet/Dry Seasons in Bali. Apparently the wet season used to reliably run from Septemer to April. However since 2000, he and others have noticed often the rains don't come until November/December, can be more intermittent, and still finish at the same time April/May.
Second he was telling me about Hindu's, as I has asked about whether he was allowed to drink (being new year and all). Apparently the religion doesnt allow it, but it's pretty flexible, and if you chose to "it's your Karma". Which I thought was pretty intereting. He was also telling me why they don't eat beef;
"We drink cows milk, like babies do from their bothers, so a cow is classed as a 'Holy Mother'. That's why it's frowned on to kill the supplier of milk". However this too was down to the individual, and it only affected their 'Karma' if they ate beef.
All pretty interesting I thought, despite having very little time for religion myself.
When I got back to the Villa Serenity I was feeling pretty rough. I spent the rest of the day alternating between reading/slumming it in bed, and wandering around trying to be a little bit active and talking the Matt and Joey.
I materialised again about 7/8pm to have some dinner, then watched a bit of a movie being going to sleep later on.
(Photo - The place I stayed at on the 3rd in Bingin)
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