Huay Xai to Chiang Rai, Thailand

With my friend still left with high fever among other unexplained symptoms, we had still decided we would cross the border to Laos not realizing we would soon be going from Huay Xai to Chiang Rai. My visa would be expiring the following day and hers would be expiring in three days so both of us needed to cross the border quickly. We decided to go ahead and take the seven hour drive through the mountains of northern Thailand. Our driver was probably the craziest person I’ve had to spend time with in a vehicle since arriving into SE Asia and for some reason he felt he needed to get us to the border at warp speed in the middle of the night. We eventually arrived at 2AM into Chiang Khong, Thailand which is a small town that sits on the border of the Mekong River. And just over the river, is Huay Xai, Laos. We were given a dingy room in a small guesthouse to try and sleep for just a few hours before they woke us up around 6:30AM to get us to the border crossing. We crossed into Laos around 9AM and the ‘slow’ boat to Luang Prabeng was set to leave around 11AM which we were planning to take originally but we thought it was best to wait another day here in this border town to see if this fever and other symptoms subsided.

The only shot from Laos I’d taken…

Deciding to stay one night in Huay Xai, there really isn’t much to do other than to do a whole lot of nothing. OK, maybe there is some stuff to do but sightseeing for us was definitely put on hold even if there were sights to see. After finding a guesthouse to park our bags, we headed to the local hospital for further tests to see if we could get an answer on what was causing this fever. After all the various symptoms she was having, chances were strong that this was caused by a mosquito and in southeast Asia, this typically means Malaria or Dengue Fever.

A concert going on at the night market in Chiang Rai

The “White Temple” in Chiang Rai. It has only recently been built and is very different than any other temple you’ll come across throughout all of Asia.

Well, after spending an interesting hour in the Huay Xai hospital, she had taken a second blood test and we were looking at the results with the doctor. I might add he was the only doctor in the hospital and was about my age but I was glad we could at least communicate well enough together. He told us that there would need a third test done in a few more days before he could know for sure what she had and that we would need to stay in Huay Xai a week longer for rest and monitoring. This hit me with a  bit of shock and the last thing either of us wanted was to stay in Huay Xai. If we took the slow boat further into Laos, we’d then be committing ourselves to two full days floating down the Mekong River. Surprisingly, she wanted to chance it and take the trip but after convincing her we didn’t even know how serious a problem she had, I decided it best to head back to Thailand, from Huay Xai to Chiang Rai, which had the nearest and largest hospital we could make it to. It was only a two hour drive to get there and we made it from the Laos border at Huay Xai that morning to the inside lobby of the Chiang Rai hospital in less than four hours. Less than thirty minutes later, we had the results back from an additional blood test. The doctor told us she had Dengue Fever.

A temple we visited on top of a mountain that overlooks Chiang Rai

From everything I’d read in the past few days, Dengue can be just as serious as Malaria and you can die from it depending on which type of it you get along with many other factors.

No, this is not a look you end up with from Dengue Fever… It just happens to be one of many crazy statues out in front of the White Temple

Luckily, we were told she did not have the type of Dengue that can force you into shock but that she would soon be experiencing all the symptoms that go along with this disease which include fever, chills, nausea, vomiting, rash, headaches, fatigue, and severe pain in your bones and joints (sounds awesome doesn’t it?). We ended up spending about four or five days in Chiang Rai letting this disease takes its course and everyday, the stages of the disease seemed to change. There is no vaccine for the disease and you just have to wait it out. The only thing you can really take is some pills to keep the fever down and oral re-hydration salts. Its also said to take between 8-10 days for a full recovery. For her, it took eight days before the symptoms had passed since things first began in Pai. After waiting an additional day in Chiang Rai to see if things had stabilized, we were once again headed back to Laos from Chiang Rai to Huay Xai! This would now mark my FIFTH time crossing a Thai border since arriving in this country only two months ago!