ระวัง! มันจะมา! (Look out... It's coming!)

So there's an epidemic of hemorrhagic dengue fever going around Chiang Mai and the epicenter seems to be at PRC! Four of my colleagues and over 10 students have come down with it. It's really scary- it's called ไข้เลือดออก (kai leuad auk) in Thai, or "the fever where blood comes out." From this description, I was expecting it to be some kind of ebola-esque nightmare where you start slowly bleeding out of your pores, and so it was with great trepidation that I went to visit my friend in the hospital. But she looked OK, except for some abnormally large bruises on her arms, and the fact that she was on oxygen and was too weak even to lift her head off the pillow.

She explained that the virus has actually mutated and now, instead of bleeding out of your pores, you hemorrhage internally. So you're at home and you come down with a fever and headache and you think that's it. But really what's happening is you are bleeding inside. This is how many people die of this disease. My friend actually ended up needing a blood transfusion on her 6th day in the hospital. (Now she's better, thank God).

The scariest thing is that the virus is transmitted by mosquitoes... Great, right? Now all you have to do to protect yourself is simply not get bitten by mosquitoes. But now, in the height of the rainy season, with puddles of standing water everywhere, that's about as helpful as suggesting that Bush avoid sounding like an idiot when he speaks- it's just not going to happen.

Mosquitoes are everywhere and most of the time you don't even notice when you get bitten.
So basically if you're reading this and you live in Chiang Mai, get some good lemongrass juice (น้ำตะไคร้-nam ta-krai- in Thai) and douse yourself from head to toe every day. Or, if you don't mind handling poison, you could also bathe in DEET bug spray.

Either way, be as careful as you can.

That's all for now. Hope everyone is having a good weekend!