LAX~ BANGKOK

Like a pair of whirling dervish spinning spinning spinning for weeks and months planning this trip, preparing the houses and gardens, saying farewells, tiding up lose ends and leaving Cardiff behind, Ron and I headed to LAX in our rental BMW sedan the day after Thanksgiving.  It was a long journey!  From home to BKK took thirty hours.  The 16 hour flight to Hong Kong was moderately turbulent most of the flight. No time to enjoy the business class lounge in HK as we rushed through another round of security on our way to the next flight.  Three hours to Bangkok and we had arrived.  Changed money, got our bags, arranged for a taxi and off we went. I always like that first taxi ride with Buddhist amulets dangling from the rear view mirror and the driver sitting on the right hand side.  We arrived at the New Siam Riverside Hotel and were greeted warmly.  While our room was being prepared we went outside into the garden restaurant and had our first lunch, cold Chang beer and the most wonderful plate of stir fried rice noodles, Pad See Ew.  We had arrived!   Later we had a swim, took a walk and tried to stay awake until 8 pm and it wasn’t easy. Fifteen hours time change can do that to you regardless of the day and a half it took to get to our hotel.  But we were so happy to finally be here and all looked very promising.  Until it didn’t!  The next day Ron started feeling bad.  Headache.  Stuffy nasal passages.  Sore throat.  Clammy.  Feverish.  Uh oh… I chocked it up to jet lag.  The next day he felt worse.  Weak.  Fatigued.  Congested.  We didn’t do much except lay around the pool, take short walks, eat.  That last night in BKK we watched the party boats cruise up and down the river lit up with bright neon lights and music blaring. We just focused all our energy into getting ourselves packed and off to our flight to Chiang Mai the next morning.  That was all we wanted.  We had a beautiful week planned at the most serene resort in the heart of town and we knew if we could get there we would be OK.  We got a nice taxi driver to the airport, made the hour flight, and got another taxi to the hotel.  After greetings, a welcoming drink and a cold fresh scented towel we were shown our room.  It was magical.  So quiet. It was only 3 in the afternoon but we were spent.  We crawled into the soft cozy bed with soft fat pillows and we slept until the next morning to the sounds of thunder and torrential rain.  The next day we tested.  We had Covid.