Hurry Up and Wait
Welcome to my random musings about the world, on a weekly-to-occasional basis.
Where we are: We’re back in Bangkok, in our fourth quarantine. Sadly, the food this time is dire—lots of beige.
Hurry Up and Wait
When we are released from quarantine on Saturday, we will have spent a total of 43 nights under lock and key since the pandemic began. This time around, frankly, it’s beginning to wear on me.
Our flight landed late in the evening on October 29. The rules changed—as we knew they would—on November 1st, when Thailand flung open the doors to vaccinated tourists from a list of 63 countries. If we had arrived three days later, we would’ve been exempt from quarantine.
We talked about trying to delay, but it seemed like more trouble than it was worth, given the cast on my foot. It’s not as if I’d be out enjoying the city anyway.
So here we are, stuck in our room at the Hyatt Place. I have no idea what floor we’re on—we don’t even have our own key. If we have to leave the room (for instance, yesterday we went to the nurse’s station for our second Covid test), we are accompanied by a hazmat-suited attendant, who lets us out of our room, then back in again.
We stare out at the meteorological drama that is rainy season in the tropics: jet lag wakes me up as soon as dawn breaks, hot and sunny. Clouds build all afternoon, piling up higher and darker, until they burst open with a show of lightning. Rain pounds down, and tomorrow the cycle starts again. In the meantime, holiday-makers are arriving at the airport and going on their merry way, headed for beaches and temples and spas.
The local news is all about the border reopening; the economic hopes of the nation are pinned on a tourism rebound. I fear it will be slow coming. Things are still changing; border restrictions are easing slowly. But at the same time, other countries and cities are locking back down again. I guess this is how it’s going to go: stumbling along in fits and starts, as the whole world learns to live with the virus.
During our (long!) journey from Raleigh to Bangkok last week, we saw two people turned away from flights. The first was because he had booked a flight to Argentina, but cluelessly hadn’t confirmed that their borders were open (I believe they reopened on the first of November). The second was a guy trying to get here, to Thailand, who didn’t have the right kind of health insurance (the Thai government is VERY specific about what you have to have to get into the country right now). We watched their plans unravel, held our breath, handed over our paperwork, and waited patiently while it was checked and triple-checked. Then we sat patiently through three long flights.
If we had arrived three days later, we would’ve been exempt from quarantine.
I’m spending these eight days working very hard to be patient. Patient with my ankle, patient with myself, patient with my spouse, patient with all the people in the world who are busting their butts trying to get this damned covid under control.
Ommmmm. This is me, being patient.
From my writer’s notebook:
An interesting tidbit came to light in the Pandora Papers, released last month: one Douglas Latchford, widely known as a scholar/explorer of ancient Khmer archaeology, turns out to have also been a big-time trafficker in looted antiquities.
Latchford spent most of his adult life living here in Bangkok, amassing a fortune and collecting ancient statues from temple ruins around the region. He sold pieces to collectors and museums all over the world, while creating an elaborate system to funnel his money through layers of offshore trusts and shell companies.
But Cambodia called; they want their stuff back. At least eight American museums, and others around the world, are going to have to return the many items in their collections that have links to Latchford, or provide documentation sufficient to prove their rightful ownership.
The idea of stealing from the Cambodian people is just repugnant. As if they haven’t had enough trouble, what with Pol Pot and the Killing Fields and all that.
Take care,
Lisa
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