Reflexions Itinerant: April 2007 Archives
In just a few days, sleeping will be done on this here rock, diving by day, and hopefully spotting turtle vulva by night. Then comes some serious botanising, trekking jungle and mountain ridge for the greater part of three months with festering clothing and missing tent-pegs for company.
My former stomping grounds have more internet cafés than Seattle does Starbucks outlets, so one or two updates could be forthcoming from any of the unmarked (but frequent) stops on the itinerary below.
And that's that. Which leaves me to ask that you people take care of yourselves; I can't look after your interests from 7200 miles away.
Bye bye!
Stocking up on pills and vaccines is a real eye-opener toward the rape of us innocent Europeans by pharmatechs out to make a quick buck.
A case in point is my incipient requirement for anti-malarials, in this case, Malarone. In the United Kingdom, £35 to £40 for a box of twelve one-per-day tablets. On the continent proper, they get off a little easier at €45. When the nurse told me this, I told her exactly who the drugs were produced by.
"How did you know it was GSK?"
"Oh, just a wild guess" - Glaxo charge the earth and the moon in the UK. I'd like to think that it's because they need to offset the reduced costs of their products in countries where people haven't the means to pay sky-high prices, but that's really not true.
So rather than pay over £120 for the course I require, I paid £32 in total.
By buying Malarone in Kuala Lumpur.
Six recommended vaccinations, £7.50 total. Great, hit me - all done and dusted.
Japanese Encephalitis B, £140 pounds on its own, and rabies only slightly less. I'll import them too, thank you very much.
If it wasn't illegal to import medicines and prophylactics on a commercial scale, I'd have my career path sorted once and for all.
