For the past couple of days, I have been quite ill with all the bad stuff associated with the flu — high temperatures, diarrhea and vomiting — but, luckily, retained my senses of smell and taste which, I think, tells me that I do not have COVID. Tonight, I am feeling much better, although still somewhat weak, and made my way to 7-Eleven an hour or so ago. My big fear was that the temperature scanner would read too high and the alarm would sound but it was 36.4 — much lower than my last visit on Monday. My appetite has also returned (I have not eaten anything since Tuesday) so I bought a bag of frozen French fries which I am now waiting for a handful to finish cooking in my toaster oven.

Other than the aforementioned illness activities, I did absolutely nothing but drift in and out of consciousness from late Tuesday, all through Wednesday, and the first half of Thursday before I forced myself to take a much needed shower. I did spend a bit of time on Facebook but that was more strenuous than beneficial. I have not worked on my stamp collection or posted on any of my blogs in all of this time but I did force myself to read a few pages in my book whenever I was alert enough to do so (I don’t want to break a very long-held reading streak but I have absolutely no memory of anything I did read!). I plan to take it easy around my home tomorrow (I keep looking at how cluttered it is and have some ideas on how to clear those messes) and then make another attempt to retrieve my tax refund on Saturday (a message was sent verifying that the office would be open).

The photo above is one I took during my Old Town walkabout on Songkran Day (Tuesday). I also have a couple of additional closer shots of this building but they are all oddly tilted. This is currently the Besavana Hotel on Krabi Road, just west of the intersection with Yaoworat Road (turning into Thalang Road as you go further east — the heart of Old Town) and just east of the turn north into Surin Road (the corner of which is the location of The Blue Elephant Restaurant). This used to be the original location of Phuket’s first hospital — Sirioj — which was constructed about 1916. Sirioj moved a number of years ago to the Bypass Road north of Central Festival and also seems to be in a state of expansion. This is where I go for my annual health checkup which I need to do to renew my work permit.

The tarmac in the right side of this photo leads towards an old school purchased by the company that I work for several years ago. At one point, this was to be our agency’s new location but the owners in Bangkok felt that we would be more visible by moving elsewhere within the same shopping mall. We moved three times in less than a year but seem to be in our final spot now. At least until they decide to reappropriate our area once again. As for the old school, they did some work remodeling it to be a Chinese language school and it was an alternate working area for our front-office staff during the lockdown of 2020. Currently, it is just being used to store old classroom and office furniture as well as much of the material I have created over the years for various English camps and other activities.

Oh, one last note. I found out this evening that the Mexican restaurant that I have been searching for has not even been built yet! They are set to begin their “build-out” on 1 June but hope to be open for business by the end of July or early August. I also got the name wrong — Mamasita is a restaurant in Cherng Thalay (far from Phuket Town) while this new establishment will be called Manaw Taqueria and located somewhere on Deebuk Road, meaning that it will be between a 3- or 12-minute walk from my home depending where exactly on the road they put it. They already have a location in Hua Hin and I downloaded a copy of the menu from their website — looks like they know what they are doing with plenty of mouth-watering meals (all named in Spanish) and the prices seem very reasonable. I cannot wait for July/August and I just hope they don’t get caught up in some sort of lockdown craziness.

At this point, another lockdown seems inevitable although nobody is really admitting it yet. The signs are all there and the outbreak is rapidly expanding (we had more cases yesterday in the entire first year of the pandemic!) with all sorts of alerts for people who were present at certain places at certain times (the latest being all the passengers on an Air Asia flight that arrived on Friday and all of those who rode the Airport Bus on the same date).

Maybe it is just better to stay inside.