Going It Alone in Malaysia

So as I'd mentioned previously, pretty much the minute we left Sihanoukville on the bus heading north for Phnom Penh, Micha's unfortunate bout of dengue fever set in. Of course, we didn't know it was dengue fever at the time and I was hoping it was "merely" a 24-hour bug or the flu at the worst. But in the back of my mind, I was convinced it was malaria, hypochondriac that I am. Mainly because in Siem Reap, it was the literal only time that all the mosquitoes were attracted to him and not me. And so if someone would get a mosquito-born disease, it would be his luck to get it from one of the three mosquitoes that stung him on our trip so far (as opposed to the 600 that had already gotten me).

After the poor dude had suffered through a high fever and bad chills the whole bus ride to Phnom Penh, we waited out the rest of the day in the hostel we'd previously stayed at (88 Backpackers) - the plan having been to enjoy the pool and their good food but instead, Micha enjoyed a comfy beanbag chair for a nap and I enjoyed their free internet for webmd (always the worst idea ever). We talked through our options and agreed to continue with our flight to Singapore and head to the medical clinic located in the airport. Seriously folks, that airport has EVERYTHING. The doctor somewhat allayed our fears, saying it looked like a random virus infection (ahhh, my favorite, non-specific and completely unhelpful diagnosis), which is how we came to take a three-hour bus ride to Malaysia the next morning. After another night in the Singapore airport, but of course.

As you may imagine, this amount of travel and backpack-schlepping is not particularly the best remedy for someone with a fever, chills, and body ache and so once we arrived in Melaka, Micha basically holed up in our not-so-pleasant-but-it-didn't-bother-him-in-the-least-at-that-point hostel for the entire two days there and I spent the time exploring on my own in between trips back to him in the hostel ("are you ok?" "what do you need?" "are you feeling any better?") and the tiny shop nearby ("two large bottles of water and two cans of tonic water, please").

 Jonker waffle hot dog whaaaat?

Melaka was a cute little place. Well, at least the old town part of it that we stayed in and I meandered through, which also happens to be a World Heritage Site. It had precious old fashioned buildings with bright colors and vintage-looking store fronts. It had a lovely little river with an old Dutch windmill from colonial times and a big giant ship that I didn't bother to look up why it's so important. It had amazing flower-covered tricycles that lit up in neon Christmas lights at night!

It had a statue of the "man who brought bodybuilding to Malaysia" (who knews?!). It had a bustling night market in the middle of Chinatown (where we stayed - hey, we might miss the Chinese if we didn't!) where they sold everything from hot dogs wrapped in waffles, to durian pies, to stinky tofu on a stick. It had a pool, that just happened to be closed the days we were there (and it was one million degrees) due to the end of Ramadan holidays. And happily of all, it had a pharmacy with a super helpful pharmacist, who looked about 14 but nonetheless helped get me hydrocortisone for my new sort of mosquito welts (those Malaysian mosquitoes DESTROYED me) and myriad other goodies to ease Micha's various symptoms. I mean, just take a look at these bites:

The unfortunate part being that, after those evil mosquitoes got me, every single mosquito bite I got from then on was in multiples of 10, with those lovely welts then becoming the norm. Who does that happen to?!? I'm convinced it was some kind of Micha-has-dengue-so-you-have-to-suffer-too kind of punishment.