Oh god oh god oh god! I’m screaming in my head as I clutch my stomach and elbow through crowds of locals and tourists from all over the world. People are yelling profanities in my direction in multiple languages as I shove through them. The smells wafting from the food carts that had me drooling earlier in the day were making my stomach churn.
I have food poisoning in Thailand, in the middle of Chiang Mai’s largest market!
Throughout the day I had sampled a wide variety of foods I had never seen before that may have been left out too long in the humid heat of Thailand.
Was it the fried bugs? No, I had those hours ago.
Was it the baked cheese that had the consistency of heated rubber? Gross, but probably not dangerous.
Oh god…the McDonalds!
The group of girls I was traveling with and I were all craving some salty American food after eating the highly sweetened Thai food for the last week. We stumbled across a Mcdonald’s and agreed to sit down for a quick snack that reminded us of home. Being a pescatarian, all I ordered were some French fries.
The French fries!!!
NEVER eat at an American chain restaurant abroad! I screamed at myself. I had broken one of my rules, and now I was paying dearly for it.
And not just with my stomach.
Coughing up the Thai Bahts for use of a toilet and paying extra for toilet paper, I ran into the only bathroom I could find in the bustling market.
They didn’t give me enough toilet paper for this.
My insides are screaming and I’m clutching the sides of the toilet, extremely grateful that the bathroom I found had Western toilets. Using the standing toilets I found in other parts of the country would have been disastrous. Finally, after my face is dripping in sweat and my worried, new friends have checked on me more than once, the storm calms in my stomach.
I pop a handful of tums and Pepto tablets in my mouth and dive back into the crowd of shoppers, saddened by the fact I would not be able to sample any more food for the evening.
I’m never eating at McDonald’s again.
Edit: Apparently McDonald’s French fries are not actually vegetarian in most of the world. I have a meat allergy, and this is probably why I got so sick!
Have you ever gotten food poisoning in a foreign country? Share your story in a comment!
Getting sick while traveling is scary. Lessen the fear by getting travel insurance, just in case! Check out prices and coverage here.
Like this article? Pin it!
Leave a Reply