7 - 23 December 2007

Two new clowns

It's the same old song again. We're getting older and during our beautiful days in Chiang Mai we are suffering. Both Peter and I have toothache. My problem is a molar with an old filling, the root under Peter's ten years old crown is painful. Peter's cheek has developed a big swelling, which looks like somebody has hit him quite hard.
Fortunately we're in a civilized country with a highly developed healthcare system. Just as high as the prices, unfortunately. We visit a number of dentists and choose one of the wide range available.
The dentist is a young guy, his own teeth in braces. I ask myself: is this a new marketing technique or does he really need them? While he explains the pricelist and the procedures I closely watch his dentures that are somewhat askew and have to conclude the braces are a necessity and no sales trick.
Many Thai have trouble pronouncing the lettter 'R', and his braces don't make this any easier for dentist Pongsakorn.
He checks our painful molars and anxiously hear him say we both need a root canal treatment and a new crown. We suspected and feared this diagnosis and we got it. Even more inconvenient though is that we'll be stuck in Chiang Mai for three weeks and won't be able to continue our planned itinerary in Thailand.
The dentist starts Peters treatment with a painkiller injection and sawing off his beautiful and smooth ceramic crown. A nasty job for him and even nastier for Peter, because a tiny circle saw is turning fastly in his mouth. And that's something he'd rather not want.
Suppose the man unexpectedly has to sneeze, and the device jerks in his hand. Peter tries hard thinking about other things, but the searing sound of the torture saw makes it virtually impossible. Slowly his mouth fills with ceramic sawdust; he really shouldn't swallow now, although the inclination to do so is very hard to suppress.
Finally, the old crown breaks in two. Braces now sticks a metal pin in his mouth and with all his strength he tries to pull the two halves of the crown loose. At the first attempt he doesn't succeed. High quality Dutch glue.

From a different angle the dentist now pulls at one half crown with a hook. Peters head twists askew, until after a cracking sound he and the dentist shoot back in their old position. One half is loose, and the other half is no problem now.
Peter feels with his tongue at his dentures, and it turns out that most of them are still there. What a lucky guy.
And then, the first root canal treatment starts. One of the two female assistants is frantically sucking the surplus of fluids from Peters mouth, according to Peter she's a bit too fanatic. With the gurgling hose she hits his cheeks and tongue, from left to right, and sometimes she sticks the device deep into his throat. Peter suspects her initial ambition to work in an abortion clinic has stranded, and now she abreacts this on him.
One hour later Peter looks into the hotelroom mirror for the result. His left cheek is double the size of the right. He feels like Geronimo, the hunchback of the Notre Dame, and, begins to look like him.
In the meantime I suffer the first of three root canal treatments, but fortunately no circle saw is needed. In the evening we eat soft food and swallow the first pills of the bad antibiotics.

Four days later we receive our second treatment. Braces has found three root canals in Peters molar. He tells the dentist that the opposite molar has four canals instead of the usual three, and asks him to look extra carefully. And yes, there's number four.
The files get a big fatter and longer. This ttime there's no need for anaesthetics, says the colourful dentist. But, at one moment Peter feels a soaring pain all through his body, when mister braces drills a little bit too deep with a file the size of a rat tail. In between the filing the four mine holes are flushed with some kind of chloride water; the disinfectant might officially be called natriumhypochloride, it still smells like the household bleech used to clean the toilet.
Cheerfully happy being free of the dentist for a couple of days, he later walks home with a big feeling of relief.

In between the treatments we go by bus to the old Birma for the so-called visa-run. Our four weeks Thai visa expires; by crossing the Birmese border for an hour or so we can renew our Thai visa for another four weeks for free.

At the Birmese side of the border sits a big market, where vendors try to rip you of your hard currency by selling 'real' Raybans, 'real' viagrapills, 'real' American Marlboro's, Saddam Hussain playing cards and cheap radio's.
With four fresh legal weeks of Thailand in our pockets, but without viagra or Rayban, we return to Chiang Mai late in the evening.

Jane has arrived in Chiang Mai, together with a friend, Andy. Sunday December 17th we cycle with the four of us to Doi Suthep, the almost 1800 metres high mountain nearby the city. Here we visit the fascinating Wat Phrathat Doi Suthep, the holiest temple complex of northern Thailand.

At the end of the 14th century King Ku Na needed a special place for building a temple in honour of a holy relic. He tied the relic at the back of an elephant and freed the animal. The elephant walked to mountain Doi Suthep, and started climbing. At a certain spot he stopped, trumpetted three times, walked three times in a circle, sqatted and died. The place for the temple was determined.
The holiest part of the temple consists of a dizzlingly marvellous combination of red, green and gold, made of wood carvings, philigrane and sparkling precious metals.

The 21st we hire a motorbike and drive two temples nearly one hundred kilometres south east of Chiang Mai. On the way back we visit an elephant school, where the powerful animals show their strength, smartness and elegance.

And then there is Peters last day of torture.
While he lays powerless on his back, the dentist files out the four mine holes even further, although it feels like a complete plate of spaghetti already fits in them. Peter stares at the white ceiling, and there's nothing to be seen. However, there is a big smear that definitely resembles a footprint. Must be from a patient who went through the ceiling.
He watches the 50Watt dentist lamp of the brand TDP. Undoubtedly the abbreviation of Torture Dentist Patient.
The dentist announces he has finished the root canals. He fiils them with gutta percha, a kind of cement, makes a small fire on his working table and does something with fluid rubber.
Peter one more time needs to ask the dentist what he's going to do next, although he knows the answer by heart.
"Now I will fix the clown on the tooth, and then it is finished."

Peter smiles happily; nice, such a tiny and funny man in his mouth.