Loy Krathong & “minor surgery”

Thailand – November 2022

The reason why I was in a bit of a hurry in Chiang Dao is that I really wanted to be in Chiang Rai in time for Loy Krathong. I don’t remember how I first became aware of the Thai festival of lights, but the image of the sky lanterns rising into the air was firmly etched in my memory. These days, it is only possible to release them at designated locations – which is why many tourists prefer Chiang Mai to witness the tradition. However, my plan for after the festival is to travel on to Laos by boat, which is only possible from Chiang Rai.

After a long day of traveling, I finally arrive at the bus station and start looking for accommodation for the next few days. The choice is limited and I decide on the hostel with the shortest walking distance. I find what I’m looking for 2 side streets further on and even manage to get a lower bed. (It’s certainly a lot different in Chiang Mai). I relax a little on the roof terrace and go to bed early after a short walk through the neighborhood.

The next morning, I visit the White Temple – one of the few tourist attractions in the vicinity of the city. I take the public bus, which is very easy on the way there. In my opinion, the temple is extremely overrated. But perhaps it also depends on how you look at it: it was not built as a place of worship, but was only completed in 1997 as an architectural monument. In any case, it has too many visitors and too little space for my taste.

So I’m out again quickly and wait on the main road for the bus back to the city. I’m going to miss out on the equally famous Blue Temple, I just want my Pad Thai. But the bus just doesn’t show up. At some point I am joined by 2 Spaniards who are also traveling by public transport. We wait together, but after about 15 minutes it gets too much for them. In the end, the three of us decide to share a cab – I get off at the bus station and the other two continue to Wat Rong Suea Ten.

I spend the afternoon on the roof terrace of the hostel and around sunset various groups of travelers join me at the table. We have a good time and it’s only natural that we go to the night market together and have a few beers in a local bar. My conversation with 2 British women and a Spanish woman is very interesting, but at around 02:00 I can no longer ignore the pain in my lower left leg. Fortunately, it’s time to get going and I head back to the hostel.

I take a quick shower and inspect the area around a mosquito bite, which seems quite swollen (I’ll spare you the picture). But there’s nothing I can do about it now. I toss and turn in bed and try to sleep. I don’t manage this very well and I’m down at reception early in the morning to ask for a clinic recommendation. The owner of the hostel only takes a quick look at my now swollen and red leg. She gives me the address of a private Catholic hospital (Overbrook Hospital) nearby and wishes me good luck.

I walk the 20 minutes as fast as I can and try not to let my mind wander to the worst possible scenarios. When I arrive at the hospital, I ask my way from the emergency room to the right department. Even with the staff who don’t speak much English, it’s easy to get a response: I simply point to my exposed left leg and grimace in pain. Finally, a nurse gives me a slip of paper with the number 45 and I give the receptionist my personal details such as nationality, height, weight and date of birth.

Then I sit down with the many Thai people waiting for their consultation. The nurse soon asks me to see the surgeon. The scenario in which I am prescribed an amputation immediately comes to the fore again. However, the surgeon only said that it was an abscess and that he would have to make a small incision to drain the pus. I agree and sit back down in the waiting room. Shortly afterwards, the nurse returns with a sheet of paper and a depressed expression. “The procedure can cost up to 4000 baht,” she announces in English.

I do a quick mental calculation and assure her that I can pay the equivalent of around 100 euros immediately. Then she hands me the paper and says I have to go to the second floor, where the surgery department is located. So I set off on my own and find it straight away. I knock on the sliding door, a friendly member of staff opens it for me and asks me to swap my slippers for loafers (Welcome to Asia). Apart from that, I don’t need to change. I am shown directly to the free cot where I should lie down.

On the bed next door, an elderly man is being poked in the arm – we are only separated by a curtain. Then the surgeon arrives and immediately starts to clean the infected area. “What kind of stitch is that?” he asks. I don’t know exactly, I reply. “Maybe a mosquito?” I say, shrugging my shoulders. It doesn’t matter now. I just want the throbbing pain to stop. But first it gets a little worse again. I’m given 4 injections for the local anaesthetic for my lower leg, which burn like hell. After the last injection, the doctor briefly presses on the red area and asks: “Pain?”.

“No pain”, I say delightedly, and he immediately makes an incision in my leg with his scalpel. I watch as he drains the yellow pus and am fascinated by the fact that I can’t feel anything from the whole procedure. When the wound is finally cleaned, a nice bandage is applied and I am sent to the in-house pharmacy with a prescription. There I am given antibiotics, painkillers and instructions to have the dressing changed at a clinic every day for a week. I pay 1900 baht and say goodbye to the planned river trip to Laos.

The way back to the hostel is much easier. I’m just annoyed that, despite not going on a motorcycle tour, I now have to slog around with my leg tied up – like all the tourists in Pai who I had looked at disdainfully just a week before. But there’s nothing I can do about it. So I decide to take it easy for the rest of the day and once again sit on the roof terrace of my accommodation. Shortly afterwards, I meet a French woman and a German-South African woman who also want to attend the Loy Krathong celebrations today. There’s no way this little intervention is going to stop me!

We ask the hostel owner for recommendations on the best place to attend the festival. But first we make a short detour to Wat Huay Pla Kang – a huge statue dedicated to the Goddess of Mercy (1000x better than the White Temple) and watch the sunset there. Then we take a cab to Mae Fah Luang Bridge, where the traffic jam suggests that we are in the right place. We get out early and follow the crowd on foot to the huge night market with food stalls (the khao soy soup is a little too spicy for the newly landed Frenchwoman), funfair stalls and incredibly loud music.

After dinner, we choose one of the stalls to buy our “foats”. There are, for example, colorful playdough figures or sacks of writhing eels to buy as offerings. But we opt for the ones made of woven banana leaves and decorated with candles, flowers and incense sticks. We light the candle and incense, put a few coins on each and walk down to the riverbank. There we let the krathongs float down the Mae Nam Kok in honor of the river goddess Mae Phra Khongkha.

Then we watch from a slight elevation as people launch their own floats into the water. Children and volunteers help to guide the baskets along the watercourse. (We watch a few boys who also pocket the donated money). The flickering candles and moonlight make the river seem incredibly peaceful. Then some families let off sky lanterns. Although they look wonderful, they are dangerous because they can cause fires if they land on fields and wooden houses.

This is also indicated by countless signs that we encounter on the long walk back to the city center. What is not described anywhere, however, is what happens to the floats further down the river. A quick internet search reveals that even the Thais disagree as to whether tradition or pollution should be given more weight… In any case, we observe various private Loy Krathong celebrations on the riverbank along the way. Because I have to go back to Chiang Mai the next day due to the medical prescription, I still get the chance to attend the celebrations there. But that’s a story for another time.