Of hospitals and not giving in

Day 81: Injured

Rachna still can’t walk or use her hand, and is still in a lot of pain, so the hotel employees offered to take us to the hospital to check her knee and wrist out. The hotel staff stayed with us and talked to the doctors for us, which was so nice of them to do. The nurse cleaned out Rachna’s wounds and checked her wrist and thumb, which seem to be ok. Rachna is not a fan of pain as she has a very small threshold for it, and she was holding back her screams as the nurse was cleaning the wound. There was another individual in the next bed getting basic surgery on his ankle out in the open, but you wouldn’t know it as he was very relaxed (without anesthetic!).  There were some other tourists there who also were hurt but seemed lost so we were especially thankful for our hotel staff to help us.

The X-ray machine in this hospital was broken, so we paid our (very cheap) bill, and the hotel shuttle took us to the other hospital, where we had her knee X-rayed (for a whole $3). Everything seems ok. We are so fortunate that the accident wasn’t worse than it was – even though Rachna is in a lot of pain, we are so thankful to have only minor healable injuries.

After our hospital visits, we went back to the hotel and rested for a bit before Rachna decided she didn’t want to lose out on our last day Laos. So Rachna took a crutch from the hotel, wrapped up her wounds, put on her arm sling, and we grabbed the shuttle to town. We found a tuktuk to take us to the waterfalls that we didn’t see yesterday. We saw what the ride would have been and knew we could have done it had it not been for the accident! The waterfalls were spectacular, and we were so happy to have gone to see them. They were enormous and formed pools of water on the way down, which people were swimming in. Gaurav ended up swinging on the rope and jumping into one of the pools, which was incredibly fun (Rachna watched on from the sidelines). 

When we arrived back to town, we walked (well, Rachna hobbled) to a restaurant, had some dinner, and did a final walk through the night market before going back to our hotel and resting. 

In pain, but not giving in!

 Passing by the scene of yesterday's accident

Kuang Xi waterfall

 Gaurav jumping from the rope into the pool

Of Bicycles and Accidents

Day 80: The waterfall that wasn't

This morning, we had breakfast and decided to follow through on our decision to rent bikes for the day and bike the 30km mountainous ride to a huge waterfall outside of town. We were excited, albeit a bit nervous, because we heard the ride was extremely difficult and would take at least 2-3 hours in the intense summer heat.

Still, we went on our way, and rode through beautiful mountain scenery and little villages with children waving at us as we rode by. The uphill parts were particularly difficult, and we sometimes had to get off the bike and walk it up the hill! At one point, a tuktuk drove by and stopped to offer us a ride to the falls (we think he saw how tired we looked), but we politely declined – hoping to conquer this trip on our own.

We made it about 11km of the ride, and were on a downhill portion of the mountain, cruising along, when it happened. Rachna, normally extremely cautious, was riding down the hill pretty fast, and hit a pothole before a bridge, slipped off the tire planks of the bridge, fell sideways and slid across it. Gaurav, who was ahead, came back, and some locals stopped to help. Rachna was in shock and the pain hadn’t kicked in yet, so she was still trying to convince Gaurav that we could continue on to the waterfalls.  We waited until the shock subsided and the pain sunk in before she admitted we had to turn around and go back to the hotel.

As we waited, many people stopped to check on Rachna, and two tourists and their guide helped bring her off the road and to the side and gave her some painkillers. We flagged down a pickup truck with a family and asked if they could give us a ride to town (they didn’t speak English but we managed). They were very nice to oblige, and Gaurav climbed into the back of the truck with the bikes and some of the family members, while Rachna rode in front.

Once we got back to the hotel, Rachna couldn’t walk on her left leg and didn’t have use of her right hand, as both were extremely bruised, scraped up, and swollen. She had scrapes and bruises everywhere, and that was pretty much the end of the day. We sat in the hotel room all day, because Rachna was in a lot of pain. We had lunch and dinner in our room, and just rested.  We hoped the swelling and bruising would settle down tomorrow, and from what we could see, nothing seemed broken. That was a bit too much of an adventure for us.