25/8/10 Bangkok

We followed our disturbing outing to the produce market, with a trip to some disturbing local museums, namely the parasitology and forensic medicine museums. At the parasitology museum, we learned about all of the nasty parasites we may have picked up during our little adventure in Asia. Intestinal worms; worms that invade your liver, kidneys, brain and lungs; parasites carried by mosquitoes that cause all sorts of fun symptoms. This was some hard core graphic stuff complete with close-up photos of victims, 10,000 x blow up models of the nasties, and gross descriptions like “after copulation, the female pin worm migrates at night to the victims peri-anal region to deposit her eggs” so on. I'll spare you further details, but this picture gives you an idea of the experience. I am reading about elephantitis and pickled in that clear case in front of me is a man's elephantitis-infected scrotum. It's the size of a beachball. Jeff was squirming like he'd been electrocuted.

After the parasitology museum, we headed over the forensic medicine museum, which was equally, if not more, nausea-inducing. There were graphic pictures of dead people and in fact, lots of dead people and body parts pickled and presented in clear plastic cases. These are babies that died for various reasons. Real babies.

We had our fill of the grotesque and headed to the mall to see how the local teens spend their days (and to soak up some sweet sweet air conditioning). The mall was more like 5 or 6 malls covering several city blocks and was filled with all sorts of weird Asian stuff. Even McDonald's had weird food.

Finally, a tuk-tuk ride back to the hotel to pick up our bags and head to the airport. The one rule in the tuk-tuk? No farting apparently.