/u/isleeplikeacat’s guide to Chonburi
##I’m in my bed, bored to hell these last few hours, so I thought I could type a list of suggestions to whoever is going to Suporn. In case some girls are traveling in the next days, here’re my suggestions based on my actual experience.
Anyone is free to copy/paste/do whatever with that list. You don’t even have to mention it was written by a cat.
##At home Buy a small spray bottle for betadine. Don’t bother with antibotics. You’ll find much better in Thailand.
Buy multiplugs and extension cords. Make sure they fit will together as some AC adapters have weird weird shapes. If you’re lucky you’ll have one plug in the hospital. You got to use it to your best.
My setup is: one extension cord : multiplug : computer ac adapter, usb adapter 1, usb adapter 2.
Why 2 usb adapters? Because one may fail. Or be rated 220V but only take 110 and die on you. Also, take 2 cables of 2 different colors, one for each of your devices. When you are on morphine, this may be handy to realize which cable goes into which device.
Also buy elastics, velcro cable wrap, plastic wrap and duct tape. That’s for your room. More on that later.
You may want to get some nail care kit (cutter, acetone, etc) and plyiers but they will have to travel with your luggage. I forgot to take nail polish, and I really really want to fix the nails that had to be cleaned for anesthesia. I guess it will have to wait.
##Plane Only eat meat and potatotes/rice/pasta. No veggies from now on. You want your digestive system as clean as can be (that’s called a “no residue” or “low fiber” diet). When the nurse will clean your bowels, this will make the process faster. easier and less painful. But feel free to disregard that advice if you enjoy enemas.
Unless you’re rich, you won’t be traveling first class and getting all their nice amenities. But when these people leave the plane, a lot of them first class travelers leave their nice bag of goodies. On air Korea, it’s a brown bag with toothpaste, facial cream, toothbrush, soap, airbrush+comb, etc.
It would be sad to leave all that behind, so snatch one, as they will be thrown away when the plane is cleaned up. And it will be useful to you in the hospital.
##Airport
When you arrive at the Bankgok airport, there are many shops selling cellphone plans. Most insist seeing your plane ticket and your passport. I absolutely hate my passport name so I had a hard time there.
Depending on your degree of persuasion and your generosity (giving some dollars wrapped around your driver license) they may agree to only use your ID instead of your passport. Just say it has the same number as the passport and that your passport is deep in your bag. They will insist on cash, pretending they don’t accept credit card (they do if you accept adding 3%). It’s part of a nice scam with the nearby shops changing at awful rates, but go with it and get one sim card. They’ve got to make a living, and if they’re willing to bend the rules a bit in my favor so that I can use my legal name, I’m willing to be nice to them in return :-)
The 3 big brands are AIS, DTAC and TRUE. After comparing the prices, I recommend DTAC next to exit 5 for 550 THB giving you 4GB at LTE speed for 1 month. Also, DTAC cover the Aikchol hospital at 4G speed, which has shitty wifi coverage. I use it for skype and google talk in high resolution. It works great!! If you want more data, pay more (DUH!). But I recommend getting multiple sim instead, so just get one with enough to get by.
They will put the simcard in your phone, activate it and test it. Thai service is great!! Of course, you need an unlocked phone. Can’t help you with that. Go to ebay before you leave the US lol.
##Chonburi
There is a big blue bridge, with a pizza shop on the other size. Next to the pizza shop is a TRUE mobile shop. Get a TRUE simcard giving you 4 Gigs for about 400 THB. The speed is not as great as DTAC, but you don’t want to be in a place where you don’t have coverage. Some places are covered by one network, some by the other. I like to play it safe. Having one sim of each network is best, especially if you have multiple devices (ex: ipad + cellphone)
One funny cultural thing: they will show you many possible numbers and ask you to pick one. That’s because some numbers bring bad luck. Take advantage of that to pick a number you like or that you will remember. Also, at least one person speak english in this store so you will not have any problem getting what you want. Just speak slowly.
Cross back the bridge and keep walking towards the traffic lights. There is a big pharmacy selling absolutely anything you want, but OTC. Xanax, antibiotics, hormones, you name it, they got it. And prices are great, like $6 for a tube of estrogel. Buy enough for 3 month (or the US custom will not let you in) at this great great price! And if your health insurance is not that good, take advantage of that opportunity to get all the meds you regularly use. My antibiotic eyedrops have a $45 copay in the US, and require a prescription which carries its own $30 copay. I need them several times a year. Here the same eyedrops are $4, no question asked. So I got a few vials. Thank you Thailand! For antibiotic cream, I recommend bactroban and fuscidine in case you get an infection when you’re back in the US.
If you purchased many things, once you have paid the pharmacist (so that it’s not seen as an obligation) ask nicely if you may have a gift they gave me a nice bag. Not a purse, but very decent to go shopping!
##Chon Inter Hotel
There is a shuttle leaving at 5:30 pm to a big mall, and returning at like 7:30pm. Go to the mall and walk to the supermarket at the very end of it to get anything you may have forgotten to buy in the states like for me: light plastic shoes (for the shower), umbrella (to protect yourself from the sun and the rain), nail polish remover (because of the anesthesia) sanitary napkins (Suporn’s brand is said to be uncomfortable), listerine, body wash, and a bed table.
Why a bed table? For when you’re back in the hotel! It will be very handy to use your computer in bed, like in the hospital. At that supermarket, women shoes stop at size 40, but I do question the accuracy because I wear US size 8.5W (or 7M) yet these 40 didn’t even fit me. So make sure to check the shoes fit you!
I was told I should have bought chocolate to leave in the room, as it is considered very polite in Thailand. I didn’t know. Sorry!!
##Hospital
Once you are admitted, you’ll have about 5 hours by yourself. Use that time to setup your room. Remember, you’ll be bed bound for a week. There is a flat screen tv but it was too far from the bed so I didn’t bother with it. Instead I put flowers next to it, as it gave a nice vibe to the room
Instead, I made sure my electrical setup wouldn’t be messed up by nurses or the cleaning team who may want to quickly access a plug and won’t bother with the consequences of unplugging a device, which is bad when you’re stuck in bed and unable to fix that.
My rule of thumb: there were 2 plugs, I leave one, and I take one and shrink wrap + duct tape the hell of all my ac adapters so that they can’t be removed from the multiplug. The other plug is free for the hospital use. If they want both plugs, they can unplug my duct taped mess and use a multiplug I conveniently left on the shelf (I had a few spares). At least I know the USB adapters won’t be unplugged, as it sometimes happens to me in my bedroom.
If like me you’re traveling alone, your electronics will be your only line of contact with the rest of the world. You want to make damn sure they’ll work regardless of the tampering they’ll be subjected to.
So I also took the end cables and velcroed them to the bed, so that they never fall out of my reach. Also, I used an elastic to keep my cellphone from hanging. That has been the most handy thing so far. I’ll try to post a picture.
There is a safe on a table, then some drawers and your bed. My suggestion is to move your bed as close as possible to this drawer thing, and put anything you may need inside. The first class pack you took from the airplane will come in handy: you’ll get a spare if you don’t like the Aikchol toothbrush (too hard), toothpaste (yucky), etc.
Also, put one of the chair next to that: you can put your laptop there when you need the table to eat. I didn’t bother much with the safe - I only put my id cards and my cash in there.
In my drawer I have multi vitamins, a pen and paper (vital when people don’t understand your accent), a brush (my hair get messy in bed, some makeup, an mp3 player, the Aikchol pack and the Air Korea pack.
I hope these small hints can be useful to anyone traveling!