Dentist - go often, there's a reason

I looked at the clock this morning at 10:00 am and rolled over and went back to sleep. I would miss breakfast, but I was tired. I was up late last night chatting with mom and Hiroshi. So, instead, I grabbed my book and went down to the restaurant for lunch. Another sailboat arrived in the bay today, so now there are two I can look at.

When I came back, they were cleaning my room. Housekeeping finally left my “daily” fruit (if daily means on the third day, we’re in doing ok). It was a huge basket with grapes, bananas, mangosteens, a giant mango and a fruit called shampoo in Thai (don't know the English name). Excellent! So, this must be like three days rolled into one. I just laid outside on the balcony and read my book while they cleaned.

Later in the afternoon, I headed out for my dentist appointment. I took one of the price gouging taxis just outside the hotel (they are the only transportation, so they pretty much charge what they want). The driver took me to the wrong dentist too! Luckily there was a woman who spoke English at this office and she helped me. She even let me use her cell phone to call Joy and straighten things out about where I was supposed to be. So I walked a half a kilometer to the real dentist… and then had to apologize profusely for being late. The guy had come in especially for me. I had gone to a satellite office – normally he works at his office in Phuket Town.

Anyway, I haven’t had my teeth cleaned in 3 years. Yes, I know that is bad. At first the doctor said he’d check my teeth and see because getting a cleaning too often was bad for your teeth. He took one look and said, “You need a cleaning”. Umm, ok, I knew that, but when you put it like that, it sounds so much worse.

Well, I now understand why people hate the dentist and why you should go every year for a cleaning. Drills. He used a drill instead of those metal picks to clean my teeth. My teeth are sensitive too, so I was wincing and tensing about every five seconds. After the cleaning was finished he did some work on a sensitive area I had pointed out near my gum line. He said the enamel was eroding (hard bristled tooth brush damage, not a cavity), so he put on some ceramic filling for me so it wouldn't be sensitive anymore. Cool.

So all up, the whole thing ended up costing 2500 baht (about US$70)… and that included the overpriced toothbrush and sensitive teeth toothpaste. (I think they added up to about 500 baht!). I must say the toothbrush is really nice and worth a bit extra cost. The bristles clean well, but are not hard. That’s the problem I have with soft bristled brushes – my teeth have never felt clean. Anyway, my own fault for not thinking about the exchange properly – he told me the prices, and I didn’t convert them into dollars or yen. A few hundred baht for toothpaste sounded cheap at the time. I did get a nice toothbrush out of the deal though.

Back at the hotel, I went down for dinner a while later. Earlier in the day I met a woman named Barb. She broke her leg on her fist day here! I invited her to join me for dinner as we were both traveling alone. She has had an amazing life. She gave me all kinds of tips on where to shop and we ended up gabbing for five hours! Very interesting lady – she’s 68 years old, and this is her 69th time to Thailand. It is nice to meet someone to gab to while I am here.