Posts in Thailand
Home Again
It's funny how small the world really is. For some reason air travel still feels very strange to us. There's something not quite right about being able to wake up in a hotel room in Thailand and 31 hours later climb into a bed in Connecticut on the other side of Earth. At least it seems odd that you can do it without getting scurvy, losing half the crew and sinking a ship. In any case, Anjuli and I left the warm humid storms of the Gulf of Thailand this morning and 9,500 miles later we stepped outside at JFK into the chilly NYC rain.
We weren't planning to come back to the US so soon, but sometimes it just makes sense to be home. I need to recuperate and get my strength back, we wanted to get out of the tropics before one of us picked up another disease, and we have to finish planning ... View Post »
"Recuperation means doing things that make me happy."
GalleryDengue in full color
Thank you to everyone who has supported us with stats, a good word, or well wishes. Matt's fever is finished, which should mean that his platelet count will begin to rise. He just took his first actual, real stretch - hands up high - without having an IV stuck into his hand. So he looks a bit less geriatric now. He'll be doing another blood test tomorrow morning, and if his platelet count is rising, he'll be discharged. So he's almost out-of-the-woods and on the mend. (And by out-of-the-woods we mean into two to four weeks of recovery.) View Gallery »
"Twitching, sweating, aching and feeling generally assed-out with an exploding fever for 6 days definitely makes me feel studly and indestructible."
StoryDo you want a sandwich?
Sometimes when you're traveling with another person - your boyfriend, your partner - something happens to one of you and the other one doesn't have obvious recourse.
It could be something silly like one of you is sad, not having fun, feeling sick, or stubbed a toe. Maybe you're coming down with a cold. You may not even know what's wrong. But things are happening and your partner, finding themselves the momentary problem solver in your dynamic duo of two, wants to help, to keep the momentum going. They know you're plucky, but they just want you to smile.
Usually I am the one with an affliction and Matt plays problem solver, but either way we'll get into a process something like this.
Me: Something's wrong.
Him: OK, what's wrong?
Me: Not sure… I don't know. [Insert ... View Story »
"Am I still raw?"
StoryGimme Shelter
There is a pretty amusing pattern we've fallen into when selecting and checking into a new hotel, cabin, bungalow, etc. On the island, it's a particularly comical process.
Most of the bungalows are made of cement with wood or bamboo "accents" (and sometimes even wood accents made of painted cement!). They are in varying states of construction, repair and disrepair (and sometimes all three).
When finding a new place to stay or observing a new road we haven't visited we always check the beachside resorts. Our little hunt goes as follows.
We drive down a paved main road on the island, then down a paved side road. As we head farther east from west or north/south from midland west coast, the pavement becomes ever narrower and cracked. As we angle downhill, maybe take a fork off ... View Story »
GalleryLife on an island
Turtle Island. Koh Tao.
After many trips to the clinic, it's finally been determined I had bruising in my left inner ear (healed now) and am still recovering from a tiny, tiny rupture (no infection) in my right one. I also have sinusitis and fluid in both inner ears. Yes, we've figured out the what, but we're flummoxed as to how the f*ck I managed all this without feeling any pain or having a cold. I have been banned from dunking my head underwater for two weeks. I'm on day ten. Bummer, bummer, bummer. View Gallery »
"It's not "100% beef", but I think they mean "100% beef, 0% cat"