AIDS Hospice2 and Chinese medicine hospital

My card ran out yesterday so here is some more updates.Anyways at the AIDS hospice they had sculptures made out of the bone fragments of AIDS patients which was a little disturbing, they then had body parts in formaldehyde of AIDS patients which was pretty disturbing, and then they had a different museum with naked stuffed bodies of AIDS patients with their pictures when they were alive which was very disturbing. Especially it was weird to see the ones that had sex change operations.That same day we went to some cool ruins that had hundreds of monkeys running all over. I felt like I was in a Indiana Jones movie. The monkeys were pretty funny until they would jump on you. They were a lot calmer than i thought that they would be though. They jumped on one girl in our group and wouldn't let go of her hair. Another girl was wearing a skirt and the monkeys would grab on the edges. I had one or two jump up on me. They didn't bite, but it was a little unnerving. there were tons of baby monkeys too. It was pretty cool.Today we went to the traditional chinese medicine hospital. It makes you look at alternative medicine in a different light when it is in a place that was as professional, hospital smelling, and with doctors rushing around with too many patients for the time they had. It was interesting we saw acupuncture with the burning incents on top of the pins, herbal pharmacy with over 500 medicines including gecko on a stick and antelope horn, cupping where they burn a match and create a negative pressure in a cup which pulls up the skin into the cups, and of course massage. these doctors would see over 100 patients in less than 6 hours. We also got some acupuncture done. I was healthy so they just put the pins in my arm. However, some students wanted to try to fix their ailments one girl had pins in her head for dizziness (it only ended up giving her a headache) Another guy had a bad back and they did a rolling needle device which punctured his skin and then put the cups on his back. it sucked the "bad blood' out and gave him a hicky on his back that will last a couple of days and he said that he actually felt worse. some of the patients we talked to swore that acupuncture had helped them incredibly. One woman who had suffered stroke said that it had stimulated her nerves in way that she was able to walk again. Another lady who was in for treatment of arm weakness said that it had given her a lot more strength and the herbal medication actually turned her white hair back again. It was interesting lecture that we had also about the Yin and Yang of the body and the universe. it makes you wonder and there probably is a place for it in medicine, but i think there probably needs to be a lot of research done.we also went to the slums of bangkok today where in one slum 100,000 people live. we visited an NGO that is working with the people to help schools, community projects, and housing rights for the people. they also do AIDS and drug campaigns to help the people. i just could n't believe that there were that many people living in make shift housing in the swamp lands. The tin roof houses were right next to each other, garbage was everywhere, and the water underneath the houses smelled terrible. with the polution of bangkok and close living conditions made it a huge problem for tuberculosis and respiratory problems, and dengue fever.