We Hit Pai, and Pai Hit Back, AKA What Would We Have Done Without Ed and Wendy?

You can’t help but be taken in by the charm of Pai as soon as you drive in. Of course, some of it is simply relief from making it to the end of a three hour (north of Chiang Mai) endlessly winding uphill journey. Besides that, you can instantly see why so many expats make Pai their home, or at least get “stuck” there for a while. It’s beautiful, friendly, cheap ($2 dinners and $6 massages) and just seems to exude relaxation from its pores. The focus is definitely on living in the moment—generally not my long suit, but I am improving a bit every day. One expat (coincidentally from Connecticut) made the cynical if incredibly astute comment that they are all so busy living in the moment that no one actually does anything. Hence the town motto: “do nothing in Pai.” We stayed at a cute little bungalow resort with natural hot spring showers. The guy who ran the place was kind of an interesting fellow—the son of a patient of Ed’s. He was from Greenwich, CT and had left to live in Thailand 6 or 7 years ago.

We did our best to get into the spirit of Pai. For a new adventure, we rented motor bikes to tool around town (note to grandparents—we went slow, wore helmets and, no, the kids did not ride their own—OK I did wipe out once, but I was barely moving and just scraped my knee). Then, we decided to have an afternoon at the waterfall…

It all started out well. The kids tore off their clothes and jumped in as per normal. The adults had just settled in for a few minutes of peaceful conversation when we heard panicked screams from Emma and Jessica that Maya had fallen. Both girls are slightly prone toward histrionics and we had been through this drill with them before on many occasions, so we weren’t especially worried, but, in an abundance of caution, we ran to where Maya was. Not such a false alarm this time—Maya had slipped at the top of the waterfall and slid 20 or 30 feet down on her stomach before bumping her head as well as several other parts of her body and landed in the water at the bottom. Ed, thankfully a doctor, got down the slippery rocks to where Maya was first, did his best to calm her and assess her condition. Emma was hysterical—completely freaked that Maya was seriously hurt—so I stayed with her while Adam slid down to Ed to attend to Maya. There was a fairly large cut above her eye and Ed immediately determined she needed stitches. We quickly gathered our stuff, hopped back on the motorbikes and headed toward Pai Hospital which we had fortuitously passed on the way up (I actually recall making a mental note when we passed it that I hoped not to see the inside of it—oh well).

I was still so focused on calming everyone down and making sure Maya was OK, that I didn’t have time to freak out myself. I think the reality finally hit me when I was holding Maya’s hands as the seemingly competent (if completely devoid of any bedside manner) doctor was stitching her up (8 stitches). I had been feeling a bit under the weather that morning anyway and was suddenly drenched in sweat in the midst of a wave of nausea and light headedness. It must have been the combination of intense heat and stress—but I sat down and managed to keep it together while the doctor finished. Fortunately, Ed was there to talk us through it all—assuring Maya and I that the doctor was doing a great job and all the right things. The hospital was not nearly as bad as I had expected and I was particularly pleased when Ed noted that they were employing all of the appropriate sanitary and sterilizing procedures. I recall noting the nurse taking the suture kit out with tongs and gloves and being incredibly grateful that we were not in Africa. I had the opportunity to witness a procedure in the hospital in Tanzania in which no gloves were used and there was blood all over the floor and did not relish the thought of having to avail ourselves of their services.

Maya was understandably shaken up so we got her some Mexican food (her idea of comfort food) and had the kids relax and watch a movie. She spent the next few days in pain, looking like she had gone a few rounds with George Forman and discovering new scrapes bruises and aches on various parts of her body on almost and hourly basis. Despite that, she was in reasonably good spirits and had a healthy sense of humor about the whole thing once the original crisis was over.

The next day we all (except for Adam, who was making travel arrangement) went riding and swimming with the elephants. Maya had to refrain from swimming with the elephants (we both sat on ours and thoroughly enjoyed watching the others as they frolicked in the river with the enormous and playful pachyderms), but other than that, she has managed to continue with our adventures. She also had us eating out the palm of her hand for the first few days and has managed to procure soda at every meal since the accident and a foot massage (she kindly got her sister in on that deal as well).

All in all—it was a bit more excitement than we were planning for the trip, but it could have been a lot worse. Our plan was to leave Pai for a 7 hour car ride and then a 2 day, somewhat rugged boat trip down the Meekong River to Luang Prabang (Laos). Under the circumstances, we decided to skip the boat, head back to Chiang Mai to have another doctor give her a look and then fly to Luang Prabang. In retrospect, it was a good move as the boat would have been very uncomfortable for Maya and the medical system in Luang Prabang appears to be non existent. In fact, we are likely to have an Israeli medic who we met at the local Chabad Shabbat remove the stitches rather than brave the “hospital” here.

We are all exceedingly grateful to Ed and Wendy. They were unbelievably helpful and reassuring throughout. It feels like an odd stroke of luck (for us-not them) that it happened the day before they were leaving. They changed and cleaned the dressing for Maya, evaluated the medicine she was prescribed and got all of our questions answered—even when it required calling the states and various doctor friends and family at all hours. I am actually not sure what we would have done had they not been there (other than call them every 5 minutes with questions). I am sure they could have thought of a million other ways to spend their last days in Southeast Asia, but their deep care and concern for Maya was unreserved. Adam and I both felt that they were caring for Maya in no less the manner than they would have cared for their own children. On our return to Chiang Mai, we dropped Ed and Wendy, and their kids, off at the airport for the beginning of their return trip home. We were very sad to see them go, not only for their medical oversight of Maya, but also because we knew we would miss them greatly. Traveling with friends is a risky proposition (especially for five weeks), but, in this instance, it only served to further enhance an already close and important relationship. We look forward to many more adventures together—to places other than the ER.