I'd been trying to leave BK, the city of angels for nearly three months now, but with the sort of ad-hoc things that kept cropping up - robbery, yeast infections sheer inertia and so sprinkled with the odd positive reason for staying 'just a few days longer' suddenly it was now October.

Things that got in the way - such as? Well the ongoing gastritis problem was wearying, but I also discovered the delights of the late night street bars, open to six o'clock in the morning. One such bar was run by a delightful woman called Annie, and she was stock full of stories that I made many notes from. That meant I would get up until 2-3 in the afternoon, after which it was always, blog? maniana, forums, maniana get out to Kho Shui - maniana. Then the cricket series between England and Australia caught my imagination which I watched with my Ozzie mates - fantastic!

About a week before I ran out of excuses to leave (I still had the gastritis but I might as well have that by the sun and the sea as the filthy grime of BK) I developed a small sore in my mouth, not uncommon to me, they come and go, a lttle irritating for a day and then disappear.Still the tongue would be constantly probing it like an aching tooth. I shrugged it off. That night I woke up in the middle of the night to take a whizz. The pillows felt damp, oh well, I drool from time to time in my sleep I just wish I knew who it was I was drooling over! Sitting on the bowl, my lips were feeling rough so I rubbed them on my hand and looked at the result. Dark flakes of blood soaked skin. I went to the mirror and looked like Caligula having eaten his own baby. BLood was pouring out of my mouth and down my chin, I turned on the lights in the bedroom and sure enough, the drool was blood - pints of it it would seem, it looked like something out of crime scene 1. I turned back to the bathroom and stuck a digit into the sore - it had swollen to the size of cherry tomato! I dug my finger around the sore and removed thick black slugs of congealed blood, throwing them on the floor. I spat the blood out of my mouth as quicly as it gathered and before long the bathroom resembled an abbatoir with floor and walls spattered with my blood. I rinsed my mouth out with water and and an anti-septic moutwash and went back to sleep. A few hours later I awoke again - same problem. The sore was still swollen so I decided to self medicate by sticking my finger against it until the wound exploded - much like popping a zit and squeezing until all the puss comes out. My mouth poured an river of blood in between rinses until finally it ran clear. A couple more rinses with the mouthwash seemed to do the trick. After half an hour I could leave the hotel without the superstitous Thais thinking I was some sort of vampire 'phee' and being staked on the spot!

This went on for three or four days, three or four more days of putting off leaving BK - would I ever escape?

 yechydda,