Sunday, March 22nd
And this is the part of the story where everything went horribly wrong. I woke up in the night to the sounds of somebody throwing up in the bathroom. My condolences to whichever one of my friends drank too much. As the night went on, I thought "wow, whoever this is must really not drink very often." That morning, I again got out of bed quickly, ready to hit the pool. As the others stirred, Jaime and Marta admitted that they'd both been throwing up all night. More specifically, "projectile vomiting." They felt terrible, and knew it wasn't just alcohol related. Then, Kimber confessed that she was afraid this might happen. She explained that because Railay is an incredibly secluded place, contained by massive limestone cliffs, the norovirus is known to live there. She said that most people get it when they first arrive there, but then your immune system builds up a tolerance. She'd been hoping that we were all fine, since we'd been there for a few days now with no symptoms. Alas, it got us at the end. Needless to say, I was livid. Besides sharing a room for the past few days, we'd also been sharing drinks and meals and I hadn't taken any precautions to help avoid getting sick. But, two of us had it and at this point in the day, I felt fine. So I got the girls some toast and watermelon from the breakfast buffet and spent my day at the pool in the fresh air.
Check-out was at noon, so as the time approached I went back to the room to check on the others. Entering the room was pretty unpleasant, the air wreaked of stale vomit and the girls did not look good. I turned the AC down, opened the windows, and tried not to breath. It was evident that they were in absolutely no position to leave Railay now. Fortunately, the front desk understood and gave us until 4pm to check-out. And, back to the pool I went.
A few hours later, I ventured back to the room to assess the situation. Jaime was doing a lot better, and had already started packing up her things. We helped get Marta together, as Kimber returned from a day of errands. And, only then, as the three of us were ready to depart, did my stomach decide it was time to start hating me. I puked in the bathroom just as we were leaving the room.
As I mentioned, Railay is only accessible by boat and is not built for car transportation. Thus, we had to schelp down from our hotel to the boat docking station and catch a taxi boat to the nearest town, and then catch a shuttle van to the Krabi airport. En route, I threw up twice on the streets of Thailand. Although I felt absolutely miserable, I was really glad to have my friends with me and really glad to be going home. Jaime, Marta, and I made it to the Krabi airport and spent a very long time sitting on the ground just outside the bathrooms whereas Kimber stayed in Railay. She had another friend from the US joining her later that day and was venturing on to Ko Phi Phi.
Fortunately, the three of us made it to Bangkok without any barfing on the plane. We parted ways with Marta, who was staying the night in downtown Bangkok so she could explore the next day, before her flight back to Barcelona. I'd booked a hotel near the airport because I had a 6:30am flight to Chicago the following day.
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