On the last day on 2012 (Monday), we departed shortly after midnight for Jakarta. A few hours later, we crossed the International Date Line and started a new year.
We planned to join a cruise in the Molluca islands in Indonesia retracing the voyages of Alfred Russel Wallace. We expected our trip to be somewhat different from our usual: lots of snorkeling, just a little birding, but with the possibility of three new species of Birds-of-Paradise.
That's not what happened.
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Linda in Ambulance
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Linda in the International Ward
We changed planes in Taiwan. After walking up the ramp, Linda complained of having trouble catching her breath. I suggested she sit down a bit to recover. When that didn't help, Linda asked for a doctor. She correctly diagnosed her problem as a pulmonary embolism, albeit not as serious as it might have been. (A serious PE can be fatal.) After a brief medical exam, we found ourselves in an ambulance heading for a hospital some 20 minutes (less in an ambulance) away. Jim commented, “I'm glad it was you, and that you knew what to do. I think I would have just sat down for a while, then gotten on the plane for the next flight.” That might have been a total disaster. At best, we would have wound up in a hospital in Jakarta. All things considered, I think Taiwan was a better place to be.
Initially, the doctors seemed a bit skeptical, but when a D-Dimer test returned a value of 9000, where 500 is normal, they switched gears quickly. After a CAT scan and echocardiogram, Linda was transferred to ICU for the night. We were told to expect at least three days in the hospital. Goodbye trip to Indonesia.
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Friendly Food Vendor near the Hospital
Jim wandered around the area near the hospital looking for something to eat.
A cute young 20-something jumped at the chance to practice her English and led me to a nearby food vendor who
specialized in vegetarian offerings. We soon became regular patrons.
The next afternoon, the ICU doctor wanted the bed back. Linda was transferred to the International Ward
of the hospital, which was accurately described as like a hotel room. It included a small bed where Jim could sleep.
So he transferred from the Novotel at the airport, where half the staff seemed to know about our problem and asked about Linda frequently, to the hospital. We were told to expect at least five days before we could fly home.
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Jim shows how to use Google Maps
By Friday, Linda was ready to walk around the area near the hospital. We strolled around a large field, picking up two lifers in the process.
With our appetite whetted we decided on an outing to the Taipei Botanical Gardens on Saturday.
We negotiated a four-hour pass and promised to be back by 5:00 pm.
When we tried to explain where we wanted to go in order to get a written address, we hit a blank wall.
Finally, Jim borrowed a computer and got directions from Google maps. This was quite an event.
We wandered around the Botanical Gardens for several hours, searching in vain for the Malay Night-heron that was easy.
Photographers were everywhere, but concentrated mostly on two colorful birds that we ultimately identified as escaped cage birds,
White-rumped Shama and Oriental Magpie-robin. When it was time to return to the hospital, we had trouble finding a taxi, but Linda managed to flag one down.
When the driver saw the destination address, he managed, “Sorry.” After several phone calls, he changed his mind and agreed to take us to the hospital.
Unfortunately, we had found what was probably the only taxi on the island without a GPS unit.
Two stops to ask directions, though, sufficed to deliver us with 15 minutes to spare.
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Wu Jien-Long and Wang Ling-Min
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Swinhoe's Pheasant
Determined to make lemonade from our lemon, we set about arranging to go birding in Taiwan. After some exchanges on the internet, we found a young couple, Wu Jien-Long and his wife Wang Ling-Min who signed up to show us around for a couple of days. We arranged to fly back to San Francisco on Tuesday night, and left on Sunday afternoon for some birding.
We managed to see 19 completely new birds, including the spectacular Swinhoe's Pheasant, thanks to a group of photographers who scattered food next to a do not feed the birds sign. In their defense, they could claim to be feeding squirrels rather than birds. The squirrel turned out to be a new mammal species, Perny's (Long-nosed) Ground Squirrel, Dremomys pernyi.
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A Few Photographers
The photographers had staked out a fruiting tree by the side of the road where several rarities showed up regularly. Wu said, “This is something of a sacred tree for Taiwanese photographers.”
In case you are interested, the total bill for medical care at the hospital in Taiwan was about $2600. That says something about how we handle health care in the USA.
