Today was another interesting day at the provincial hospital of Siem Reab. After ward rounds, I incised another knee abcess which produced an incredible amount of pus. This reminded me of the blackadder quote "What amazes me, Baldrick, is how you managed to get so much custard out of such a small cat."Then I helped a coughing and sneezing dr Rada with a tibial intramedullary nail. But first we reduced a dislocated shoulder and to dislocated tarsal fractures, all on the same patient. Since dr Rada was nearly breathless, I did most of the drilling and hammering; terrific fun! The afternoon started with a little job dr Rada had set for me. Taking out to thorax drains. Not a big deal, but still a bit scary when you're on your own. But everything went fine, I was well prepared (with a last minute refreshing course) and the aid of the nursing staff I got the two drains out and this evening both patients were doing fine. While I was doing the second drain, which took very long because while knotting my thread broke and I had to start all over again, I was interrupted by a young american medical student who came to offer his help. I said that this would be no problem and send him to the OR to talk with dr Rithy. I don't know whether it was the patients he saw on the way up to find me, or the sound of my patient moaning loudly ( though as soon as it was over he gave me a big smile and looked ready to play a football match, I'm sure it really didn't hurt that much), anyway; I never saw the american again, and nobody else did either.
After a lot of waxing and waning we decided to cut the gordian knot and hire bikes for a 4-5day trip in the jungle of preah vihear province. Following Katie's intuition we went and asked for advice from a local adventure bicycle tour organizer called... Vicious Cycle; scary name, friendly people. They said that our plan was adventurous to say the least and crazy at most. So they suggested we took someone with us on a motorbike. Especially since Kate was probably going to refuse attempting the trip without motorized assistance, I agreed.
The plan is to go to the temple of Beng Mealeny (one of Angkor's best kept secrets apparently) then to continue towards Svau on the old holy (and hopefully not too wholy) road to Preah Khan Kompong Svay, our final destination. With the temperature nearly at 40°C and the roads having turned to fine dust and sand... this will be a nice challenge to end our time in Siem Reab and earn our long postponed massage. Mr Vong will be accompanying us on his motorbike and carrying water and other supplies. We will probably be sleeping in our mosquito-netted-hangmats with local people (if there are any at all). Thanks to Vicious Cycle we managed to get hold of inner tubes, a pump, patch sets and helmets. We went over the map details, sleeping and eating possibilities (and lack of such). The only thing that worried me a little is that the road is now referred to as "the khmer rouge road". Well, I guess we'll find out ;-).
Finishing our packing as we write, it's an early wake up call for us tomorrow so;
Good night,
L.
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