What can I say

The cold season has arrived, mornings are fresh and typically here in Thailand & especially in the north, people take breaks to go camping and book a few nights at a ‘Home Stay’ which in effect is a mini resort or place to stay you can call your home for a night.

Having worked so hard just lately and feeling we both needed to have a break together and do some bonding, we thought we would take ourselves off for a couple of days, after all, Amandine was at the shelter covering for me and I desperately needed to have some wilderness rest.

Last week John & I had ridden the Chae Son National Park loop on bikes and we had spotted a Home Stay which I liked the look of. Took booked it on the phone and we arrived Friday lunch time to settle in.

The house opposite was still being built, the whining noise of the wood plane was deafening and we didn’t even take our shoes off to look at the room.

We drove on through the park to another place I had seen on the ride and eventually we arrived an hour later to find the place almost fully booked except for a very basic wooden cabin that moved & creaked with every step. But it was charming, we could cal it home for a night and it was cheap.

Trickling mountain streams and some twitters from birds put us at ease and we both dozed of for the afternoon following a quick bite to eat.

That evening we joined the 20+ other guests as they limbered up for their wild night of kareoke and we ordered 4 dishes with the waitress. We were still tired even though we had slept most of the afternoon and as the food wasn’t very tasty we decided that even before the noise of the ‘live’ show started, tonight would be the only night we would stay here.

The 4 dishes we ate were tom yom gai, kai nam lae, pad pak ruam & pla thod and of course a serving of rice.

Tired, we turned in just as soon as we had finished the meal, we actually left quite a bit of it as it didn’t really please us.

After about an hour, my head started to ache, my neck in the front & back ached and I felt a burning sensation in my stomach and and my arms became increasingly irritable. My left eye was painful and the pulsing headache grew in intensity over the coming hours making me writhe in pain and suffer a sleepless night.

I immediately knew what I was suffering with. The same problem I had experienced several times in the last 6 years.

When I moved to Thailand, I started to get these occurrences, at first thinking it was something to do with the heat or the sun. Then I thought it was nuts, then coffee but then I hit upon it as being after I had eaten a meal. After talking with the restaurant after the event, I found they indeed put MSG – Mono Sodium Glutamate in my food and this they believed was a totally acceptable thing to do.

WHAT THE FUCK!

Never in my life have I ever been so sure about something being totally wrong ! Not only is this chemical supposed to add flavour which is contrary to the chef’s own belief , otherwise what on earth are they wasting their time for but the food doesn’t taste any good let alone better when compared to food without it ! Trust me, I have tasted both.

The symptoms of MSG reaction are just short of the same as having a tooth abscess on a long weekend, combined with a tourniquet around your arms and indigestion all at the same time. Typically the meal you just ate is in the evening, your sleep deprivation makes things worse. Light and noise bother the hell out of you and the pain you inflict upon yourself with massage or pressure holds, you know very well will hurt like heck after the nightmare has gone.

Indeed the nightmare does go, generally just after 24 hours. This last bout was approximately 28 hours because I think the chef (idiot / moron) used a fistful rather than pinch of the lethal stuff.

On a previous occasion I actually counted down the minutes until the 24 hours was up & just like magic, the aches & pains lifted.

I would only wish this experience on people who harm animals and chefs who think that adding MSG to their food does them some justice, it is certainly a bad chemical to have in a kitchen, in the hands of people who so many trust and definitely not something I want to repeat although I know very well I will have to suffer again all too soon.

I will try the recommendations of this site the next time I suffer intolerance to MSG.