I have Malaria
Out of context: Reply #27
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- MrT0
@Projectile
Long story short, MrsT and I spent one night in Pak Beng, it's the standard, traveller stopover on the 2-day Mekong cruise between Thailand and Laos.
The area is (was) pretty high malaria risk. We got there at dusk and went out for some food. While we waited for it to arrive the town lost all power. The food still came out from a pitch black kitchen (?!) so I was eating luke warm fish stew with floating unknowns in it, in the dark, with mosquitoes buzzing everywhere.
You get the idea, and will understand why I hit the local herbs straight afterwards.
Our room for the night had open windows, no glass or screens, a hole in the ground for a toilet which you flushed by using a bucket of water taken from a large open tank, also in the room. There were no mossie nets, the beds were raised, tiled slabs with only wool blankets to sleep on.
It was hot and humid and all we could do was wet our towels with water from the tank and sleep under them.
If we could have been more at risk I'd struggle to know how...
Afterwards it was horrible, I was given tablets and it eventually cleared up. When I say months, I was at work and generally fine after a couple of weeks, but sport or anything strenuous left me a wreck for the best part of 6 months.