A couple of noteworthy events (well to me anyway) happened very soon after I arrived in Yangon in the New Year. I failed to mention them in week 20 so forgive the chronologically chaotic order of this pot-pourri of memories that form the blogs. Read more »
The hardest thing about writing a blog is making oneself do it. I’ve now been in Myanmar 24 weeks but in the last ten months have managed only 19 blogs. Two have been lost in the ether of laziness or more truthfully, the fact that I’d exhausted my capacity to say anything newsworthy or entertaining, and a further three are waiting to be written, this being the first. If I had the capacity to think ahead, I would have taken on board the need to make hay when the sun shines – and its incessant now – which in my simplistic of minds can be translated into committing newsworthy items to the keyboard and pressing the ‘saved document’ icon before it disappears in my amyloid encrusted brain cells that diminish with each refreshing Myanmar beer. Read more »
I realise now that if you write a blog, you tend to gravitate to the same old topics which can be a tad tedious for readers but is comfortable home territory for the author who, if like me, starts and finishes penning these without any idea as to what he’s going to tap out on the keyboard. To assist me in this, I need the stimulant of a few espressos at the local coffee shop in the Myanmar Plaza. Avid readers will remember it is my go-to place for Western coffee and other delicacies. So, outside of doctoring, my comfort topics are undoubtedly accommodation, dress, and food, which, so as not to change the habit of 16 weeks, is where I start today. I am now happily ensconced in my third flat since first arriving nine months ago and, I have to say, this is the equivalent to a Mayfair penthouse by previous Myanmar standards.
Trifle late with the blogs so you, whoever you poor souls might be, have three to catch up on as quickly as I can write them. So here I am back in Yangon, refreshed after a 6-week break summer back home being a retired but not too inactive pensioner, returned, reinvigorated and ready for action, a phrase I realise suggests a place in the six-nations team or serving in Afghanistan, neither of which have ever been in my grasp or indeed dreams and are certainly not pencilled in on my bucket list. But back in the thick of things in the clinics (picture) I am and thoroughly enjoying the challenges again. Read more »
‘Google Image’ Putao and you see an idyllic town at the foothills of the Himalayas, far from the madding crowd with undulating hills, see-through blue rivers, snow-capped peaks, and seemingly perpetually bathed in glorious sunshine. Lest you be fooled, this is not the sort of destination in the Abercrombie and Kent brochure for would be honeymooners but is a city of two seasons – rainy and winter: sunshine blesses it but 30 days in the year and unfortunately the week of my visit fell right in the middle of the rainy season. Read more »
They say the British always talk about their bowels. I must admit to being culpable of this habit and so I promise to make this an (almost) tummy-related free blog. The trouble is that there is an embarrassment of riches for the ID physician, everything from simple malaria to Zika and dengue, from filariasis to liver fluke and unusual fungi, but also to a plethora of gut afflictions, namely enteric worms, parasites, and bog-standard tummy-bugs; and apologies for all the unintended puns.
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Week 11 and what a week.
The breathtakingly tropical storms with accompanying health warnings of last week have been replaced with the tropical super-humid conditions typical of June with the cold shower in the flat working overtime. My children who have forever challenged my love of showers would be deeply proud of the speed with which I’m getting through shower-gel. However, it does mean the wards are full again which of course is the reason for all of us being here.
Week 10
Now normally Saturday morning is blog-time in my Western paradise, the Myanmar plaza. However, instead I was scaling what was rather exaggeratedly called Hpa Pu mountain (it took about 45 minutes to climb): views of course stunning. But weather changes with the blink of an eyelid here and I was soon in the thick of a tropical storm: luckily the police in a little hut took pity and allowed me to take refuge in their cosy shelter together with two goats with the same idea. Read more »
Week 9….or 10 – have forgotten
It’s been a busy week in many ways. However, underpinning every activity is preparing for the ever-present humidity of over 90% and the occasional dump of what seems like half the Indian ocean in a couple of hours. Now, this is where the umbrella performs its second important function, which is to protect its handler from a drenching: so, it’s a recent and essential purchase for me. Read more »
Much as I was getting into the swing of blogging, a trip home gave me a legitimate excuse not to put fingers to keyboard: reading about my life-enhancing experiences with a first world existence of Cornish holiday treats with the family would not quicken the pulse of many.