I think now is when I stop raving about Chinese food, because yesterday's bowel affliction has become nausea, body-bending stomach pains and a general feeling of faintness, weakness and pathetic-ness. I once got giardia in India, and I would rather never have it again, so the services of the hotel doctor were called upon to determine whether intestine-stripping antibiotics would be required. He arrived less than an hour after the phone call and informed me that a) I have food poisoning and b) the reason that he asked for my left arm to take my blood pressure is that manufacturers have chosen to make the blood pressure instrument for the left arm only. I said, “why?,” thinking it was something to do with the position of the heart. He made a “who the hell knows” face and said, “Ask the manufacturers.” He also said, “you're the first person who's ever asked me that. You must be creative.”
I said, “no. I am paid to be nosy.”
Then the doctor dug into his carry-on doctor's bag, removed a tupperware container stuffed with pills and prescribed me four different varieties. I now have to take:
Famotide, For Stomach
Gasteel, For gas
Holopon, For abdominal pain
and
Gravol, For vomiting
I thought this was a bit excessive but that was before I'd seen his bill. As well as informing me about blood-pressure instrumentation and about what's going on in my stomach, I have now also learned that to see a doctor in this hotel has cost me (or will cost me - I put it on the room, being too shocked by the figure to do much else) US$218. The consultation lasted ten minutes.
Remind me in the next life to be reborn as a five-star hotel doctor in Hong Kong.