Monday 17 November 2014

The hotel made the appointment for me at the Family Medical Practice Hanoi at 11am as requested, called the taxi for me and instructed the driver. No problems.

When I got there I found you have to go up two steep flights of stairs and feeling the way I did, that was hard, but I got there. I had to wait nearly 3/4 hr (just like at home /:( but eventually I got in to see Dr Brian. He’s an Irishman. I described how low I am feeling, weak and washed out. After some talk, I had blood taken (expertly! first go) and another 30 min wait for the results. They have their own lab in the building.

He called me in again – result – chest infection, different antiobiotic to the one I’m taking, and too low sodium level. That was a surprise. I need to eat more salt, add salt to my food. Wow. BP was 137/60, by the way. Pretty good, I reckon.

He prescribed several medications for me, all dispensed from the in-house pharmacy, all looking absolutely kosher in proper packaging, carefully labelled.

All this cost a fair bit – his fee was $60, the lab tests cost $110 and the meds added $90 for a total of US$238. Lucky they took Visa.

See what I mean? This is typical of the streets around here, but in other areas it’s much more open and normal.

So back to the hotel, getting quite an interesting tour from the taxi on the way. This is a great place, a wide range from total chaos, like in the street outside my room, to a Rolls Royce showroom! Huge classy hotels to ultra cheap but nice looking hotels. Sophisticated Italian dining to hawker food. Classy clothes shops to jam packed little crevices. I love it.

And I’m even a little cold. It’s cool and dry, perfect weather.

We ate around the corner with beers at $1.80 for 500ml and a gin and tonic for $4. Jan’s off to Ha Long Bay tomorrow. I can’t go due to my illness but also because I need mains power for my CPAP machine to sleep. Can’t do, I’m afraid.