We arrived to Bangkok on March 13 for a 19 day stay at a very nice Airbnb. We return to Bangkok for our last 8 nights & plan to do our remaining touristy things then so this was just a place to relax. Immigration was easy & fairly quick but our car that our host sent was badly delayed so it was late when we finally arrived & the driver was not as helpful with our check in as the host implied. But we made it. A compact but well equipped condo with a separate bedroom & small balcony, use of a pool & fitness room & a much appreciated shuttle service every 30 minutes to the closest BTS station (train) & big Lotus grocery store & food court.
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| Our home for 19 days |
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| Robin’s favorite place |
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| Not much of a view |
We stocked the fridge to do a lot of our own cooking after only resturants in Sri Lanka, but we did check out the food court at the mall & the outdoor food stalls nearby. Also nice to have a TV again, just YouTube but better than nothing. We also made time to do an application for the Lloydminster Christmas Craft Fair this year.
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| Food stalls |
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| Typical hand position for a Thai greeting - on Ronald McDonald |
We spent our mornings exercising, going to our gym & to the pool. Really enjoyed having a treadmill, way easier than running outside in the 30+ C heat, we’re thinking we will be needing one of those in the future.
We are not sure what got us onto the idea of doing a medical check up in Bangkok, but it’s definitely a thing here. Several large internationally recognized hospitals offer packages & there are plenty of YouTube videos outlining the process. I did a lot of research, comparing what tests were done & prices & settled on the Bangkok Hospital. There are numerous packages on offer, depending on your age bracket plus additional things that could be added. We chose the “Longevity, over 60” packages, a bit different for men & women, base cost - Women 35,000 baht = $1492 CAD, Men 31,000 baht = $1322.
We decided that this was worth it for us, knowing full well that all this was free in Canada, but many of these tests are never ordered routinely & certainly not unless there is a problem. There is also the issue of wait times that we took into consideration. We both had some fairly minor issues plaguing us recently - I am experiencing heart palpitations on a frequent basis, more annoying than worrisome & Robin was having some swallowing problems & atypical chest pains that needed checking out. Being a male he has been reluctant to have them checked out previously, worrying that it would affect his “out of country medical insurance”. So the inclusion of full abdominal ultrasounds, checking carotid arteries for blockages, stress EKG’s & chest X-rays was something we wanted.
The only preparation needed was a 12 hour fast, so we arrived at the hospital for our “half day” of tests. And surprisingly no one asked for any payment until the day was done! We met with a “nurse” to do a medical history & to go over the included tests, then sent to change into our attire for the day.
The list of all that was done
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| Nurses in caps & nylons, mainly fitted uniforms |
From then on the day became a blur, we would be taken off for blood work, then a strange “In body” scan for body fat percentages, chest X-rays, full abdominal ultrasounds, EKG, stress test, echocardiogram, hearing. & eye exams, mammogram & ultrasound (for me), carotid Doppler, tumor markers for cancer blood tests, bone density scans, ABI testing, pharmacist consult & medical exam & test explanations. Plus given a CD of all our scans & all the test results including thick pages of my stress test. We should also receive a full written report within a few weeks.
We saw each other in passing throughout the morning, at one point Robin was whisked off to the Chest Centre in a golf cart - all indoors thru connecting walkways. Because of his years of smoking & inhaling questionable chemicals at work he wanted his lungs checked - so we requested a lung CT scan. No problem, just an additional cost of $295 & it was done. And then a consult with a chest specialist $36, & his issues were diagnosed! He has a hiatus hernia which explains the swallowing issues & most likely the chest pain as it is always “cured” with Tums & a Coke. They wanted to send him off to a surgeon right then & there to repair it, but we chose to deal with it with medication first & follow up back home.
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| Golf cart transport through the buildings |
We can say that they were thorough, I had my mammogram & ultrasound, then was sent for 2 more mammograms & another ultrasound, all to satisfy the doctor that all my cysts were properly identified.
The cardiologist doing my stress test was not happy with the results, saying it was equivocal & needed follow up, so a cardiology appointment was made for 2 days away. We had also booked a cardiology appointment for Robin when we originally booked the check up because of his atypical chest pain & it was accepted & booked for the day & time we asked for! So our first day ended after about 7 hours & we went away with thick envelopes of results & we’re happy to get back into proper clothes. As we waited for our taxi we realized that there was valet parking! At a hospital! Strange.
Something else that we realized was that most of the people getting check ups done were Thai people, having been sent by their employers for regular, routine check ups, most likely paid for by the company. There were other “tourists” like us, plus people in robes & head wear that seemed very “Middle East”.
We returned on the Monday for our follow up, first the chest doctor to discuss the CT results so I could hear & ask questions (no additional cost), then off to cardiology. We had the initial consultation, he ordered the stress tests & we saw him again at the end for the results. Robin was unable to do the typical stress test, running on a treadmill, so they did a stress echocardiogram with medication to increase his heart rate, which he “passed” with no issues. His chest pain caused by the hiatus hernia, thankfully.
I had to do the regular stress test, running uphill on a treadmill after having an echocardiogram done, to get my heart rate above 140, then quickly lying down for a repeat echo at a fast heart rate. I also passed with “flying colors”, my extra beats being PVC’s which won’t kill me!
We then went off to see a gastroenterologist for discussion of Robin’s hiatus hernia & follow up recommendations.
Cost of these extra tests - cardiologist consults $78 each, my stress echo $546, Robin’s dobutamine echo $625, a Gastroenterologist consults $46 & meds for a week for the hiatus hernia $100 (a big rip off as we bought more for a quarter of that cost in a pharmacy with no prescription).
So in our opinion money well spent for peace of mind & a fast diagnosis & treatment.
Our family doctor back home will be given copies of all our results & will hopefully send Robin off for a gastroscopy as recommended by the GI doctor.
On our taxi ride back home we were hit from behind by a motorbike, just a small dent, but added a bit of excitement to the day.
Now that we’ve been told that we will still “be kicking” for many years it was time to smarten up with our eating, so we’ve sworn off fried food, at least until we forget & pulled out the resistance band that we’ve carried around until now & actually started using it.
The rest of our time in Bangkok was spent hanging out in the pool, a trip to Chinatown & a couple of local parks.
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| Chinatown |
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| A cute little park under an elevated road |
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| Tuk Tuks |
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| A lovely tree that smelled amazing! |
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| Dried mushrooms in Chinatown |
We also visited a mall - Terminal 21, each floor a different theme, London, Tokyo, Paris, Rome, Caribbean, San Francisco. The most notable features were the themed bathrooms, quite impressive!
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| Tokyo bath room |
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| London bathroom |
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| San Francisco |
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| San Francisco Chinatown |
I managed to fit a massage & a pedicure into our “busy” schedule - I will definitely miss the great prices for these, Thai massage for $15, gel pedicure for $18. I also needed a haircut but it was a terrible job that will need some repair work when we get home!
We head off to the island of Koh Samet from here, for a week. Our original plan was Koh Chang island but it is within the 50 km of the Thai-Cambodia border & the Canadian government still has a travel warning to the area. If we chose to ignore the warning & we needed our medical insurance it would be invalid because of the warning. So we picked the closest island to Bangkok that we could travel to without a flight & we will hang out by the ocean as we eagerly await our flights home.
