Sunday, March 14

I am writing from my hotel room in Bangkok. Quarantine. Day zero of fifteen.

I have to remember to not frame this as a prison diary because that's totally offensive to people who are actually in prison and not, you know, voluntarily spending two weeks in a hotel room, getting all their meals delivered to their door so they can embark on an adventure living in Bangkok.

Right.

The flights were long (28 hours traveling time? 29?) and there were many checkpoints...in Vegas, in Seattle, in Doha, in Bangkok...where we had to have our bags x-rayed, our temperatures taken, and our many documents handed over. But nothing went wrong and in the end it was almost...rewarding?...to hand over our Thai tourist visas, our travel health insurance, our hotel quarantine documents, our negative covid tests, etc, etc, and feel like all the research and paperwork and money expended over the last few months was actually necessary. Gathering it all was still a fucking headache, though.

Still, we made it to Thailand, something I hadn't really dared to hope for until we actually stepped outside the airport in Bangkok.

We were driven to our hotel and in our (separate!) rooms by...I don't know...about 9:00am this morning? What is time, anyway?

I was a little disappointed by the room at first glance. I guess I had thought it would be a little fancier—I don't know why, since it's one of the cheaper quarantine hotel options. But I had still managed to conjure up a slightly more upscale image of this place than I guess I ought to have. The room has two twin-sized beds, a desk, a luggage-storage bench, a TV, a mini-fridge and a hot water kettle. It's totally fine...pretty clean and comfortable, just not fancy.

The view from the entry

The view from the balcony-wall

The view out the balcony is of...other balconies, construction zones, and busy roads. 

I am not trying to complain! I just conjured up a slightly inaccurate notion of being some fancy princess in a tower for 15 days that just isn't the reality. No matter.

I showered and dressed and put some things away—setting out some toiletries and teas and photos to make the place more comfortable.

At first, the smallest things seemed a little overwhelming—how was I supposed to text my temperature reading to the hotel? Or my meal choices? And WHY hadn't Roman gotten back to me yet?

But at some point I realized that the knock on the door I thought I'd heard from the shower probably related to breakfast, and I opened the door to see my meal had been set out on the table just outside the door.

It wasn't great—sweet juice and a crustless sandwich with some kind of cooked egg, ham, and cheese, with a little slaw, and papaya on the side. But I realized I was famished because it tasted amazing.

I also made some black tea to make this feel a little more like breakfast, and to communicate to my body that this is morning.

And then I was fed and Roman got back to me and everything seemed fine. I emailed/texted family, fiddled with the AC, sent my temperature reading to the hotel, and drank a lot of tea. I feel kinda lousy but I think it's just from the long flight.

As the day went on, I read and meditated and did a couple Youtube yoga classes (I even did a “yoga for jetlag”! Who am I?). Lunch and dinner were brought to the table outside the door.

After today, I'll choose my meals, but on the first day, they selected for me.

Lunch was poached chicken served over rice cooked in broth with carrots and some egg. 

It wasn't bad, though was better with the included fish sauce with chili.

Dinner was very similar...a kind of khao man gai—poached chicken with rice and garlic-ginger sauce and broth served on the side. Like all the meals, it came with fruit (watermelon) and juice.

I feel a little discombobulated—I feel unmoored without a schedule and also like I keep waiting for something to happen...but of course nothing is about to happen, which is pretty much the point of quarantine (can we just called it q-tine?).

I know this is mostly jetlag and my sleep schedule being off. Tomorrow will be a day for making a schedule.