My not-so-fun trip(s!) to the dentist – Day 112 – Dec 23, 2025

It’s Tuesday, and what is going to be a day I’d rather forget happened. It’s not going to be that easy though. I’m writing this three days later, and I’m still in pain. Let me take it from the beginning…

We had a big day yesterday, and we’re having a relaxing morning. I have a dentist appointment at 10.30am, and there’s a fixer man coming at 11am to see if there’s anything to do with the smell from the girls’ washroom. It’s weird, it only comes out at night, but it’s potent. It smells like sewage, and we don’t know if it’s because our individual toilet isn’t being flushed overnight, or if it has to do with the building not flushing overnight. It’s not an issue at all during the day (well, in the morning it’s there, but then it disappates, and doesn’t return until a few hours into the night), so it’ll be hard even to demonstrate to the fixer man.

My appointment is not along the major strip of Hua Hin, where I can take a tuktuk bus door to door, so I head out early and take the tuktuk bus as far as I can. It’s a beautiful morning, and I have never seen this truck fuller than what it is today. I snap a selfie while I still have space to do so, all the way at the back where I am standing on the grid hanging out over the road.

The tuktuk bus only wants to make money, they don’t really care how many people are clinging on to the back of their truck. It gets fuller and fuller, and I start looking at how this grid is attached to the truck itself. (It;s been glued and repaired in all the contact points that I see, but it’s not even creaking.) We keep stopping to pick up more people, and some wave us on, but others actually cram on! We are four people standing on the grid barely above the road in the end, and the three others are a lot taller and heavier than I am.

At last I am able to hop off, and start my walk. It’s a dusty and dingy walk, taking me on a side road away from the tourist areas. There are lots of vendors along this street, very obviously not geared towards tourists, but I also see a few other foreigners walking around. There are a couple of coffee shops that I think – oh, maybe I could stop by for an iced coffee after my appointment, because it sure is hot out after my walk.

I arrive at the dentist office. This is the dentist that has a tiny office presence at Village Market mall, and so they send people here for the every day appointments, and do the cosmetic treatments at the mall. I have to leave my shoes outside the office, and walk in on the cool tiles barefoot, which feels so odd in a dentist office, but is also a great relief from the heat. I am early because I didn’t know when a tuktuk bus would be by, and I didn’t know how easy it would be to find. I sit down and take in my environment. There are two couches, a very cool lamp, and some fish in a fish tank.

The dentist is ready for me at 10.45, and I am taken into the chair. She has two rooms divided by a half wall, so there’s another mirrored room on the other side with another patient. She looks at my bottom molar and finds a large hole in what she says is a cracked filling. Then she finds a crack in the filling on the molar directly above this one, which is why the two teeth have been bothering me. She asks me if I want an injection for the pain (absolutely, yes please), takes x-rays and writes out the cost on a slip of paper for me.

It all moves very fast from there, I guess once they have the patient’s approval of the costs, they just go ahead with the procedure, which I like. I don’t like the green cloth with a hole for my mouth suddenly covering my eyes, but “it’s for my own protection”. Imagine a cloth dinner napkin with a hole cut out so the dentist can work without having someone watching her? And then they use a thingamajiggy to hold my mouth (or lips? I don’t remember) open, which I’m not used to either.

The procedure is fast, but the injection wears off faster. They inject some more before they continue, never the less the last part of the appointment is very painful. Then they fill the cavities in, and then she kind of just… leaves it? I tell her I can’t bite down on any of my other teeth other than the two meeting molars that she just fixed. She files a bit more down, and then she sends me on my way, saying it will feel different once the numbing wears off.

I message Joe when I’m back outside, and he sends a Grab to come pick me up and bring me home. The fixer man hasn’t showed up yet, and he asks me to take the girls to the mall. By the time I get back however, the fixer man hasn’t replied to any messages, nor has our landlord’s local representative, and Joe is not having it. We all leave for lunch at Bluport.

My mouth is still numb and I’m not feeling good at all. I opt for the softest options at the food market, an omelette, some rice, and Joe adds a soup to my plate, which is tasty but spicy. Maylin went back to her favourite pork and dumpling soup stall, and Téa chose crispy pork belly over rice with soup. Joe has a fishball noodle soup.

After we eat, we head to the grocery store. It’s Dec 23rd after all, we are planning tomorrow night’s dinner, and see pork belly with crispy skin in all directions, and say we’ll get it tomorrow. We have a couple of feelers out for Christmas Eve dinner events, and so don’t want to buy it today, in case we end up going to one of them.

And that’s where my day takes another turn. Joe and the girls head home, and my numbing has worn off, I still can’t bite down on any other teeth, and so I head back to the dentist. When she brings me in, she starts filing off both top and bottom fillings, but stops and asks after each touch “how about now”. Then she goes and works on the patient in the next door room, before coming back. She seems so rushed, and I fear she’s accidentally (or on purpose?) filed through the new filling straight into the nerve. When I can finally bite down and have all my teeth touch, I am so relieved and ready to get out of there.

I book a Grab (now that we figured out how to get it working on my phone) and head home. Joe and the girls are in the pool by now, and I stop by to say I’m home. I tell them I’m going to lie down, and so I go upstairs, and I nap. I don’t even wake up when they come home and start their showers. I wake up for dinner, which is more egg and rice and soft papaya for dessert. I feel absolutely miserable. My mouth hurts and I try to relax and give it some time. I hope to feel better tomorrow!