We came - we saw - we got vaccinated - and now we're back.
What did we come back to? Well, to be honest, a bit of a shite show. For instance, today alone there were over 8,000 new cases of Covid-19 that were found via tests. I can only imagine what the actual number is.
The norm for over a year now has been that arrivals into Thailand must quarantine for 2 weeks. You can either go to a government center (Thais only) or to an alternative quarantine (Thais and Foreigners).
Is it expensive? Yes.
Was it mandatory to get back to our jobs? Yes.
So for the next two weeks, Amanda and I are sequestered in a hotel room in downtown Bangkok.
Honestly, it's as far from "slumming it" as possible. We decided, for once, to shell out and treat ourselves.
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But I'm getting ahead of myself.
To get back into Thailand to begin with, we needed a slew of paperwork. Anyone who spent any time with us back home knew that I was in a near constant state of doing some weird form to submit to the Thai government.
We needed a negative Covid-19 test, verified flights, all our visas verified, our quarantine needed to be booked and paid, a T.8 form filled out, and honestly a slew more information I don't even remember at this point.
And then we needed to print it in triplicate.
Thankfully both Amanda and I are ridiculously organized. We bought a folder and used the living daylights out of it throughout our trip back.
Luckily for us, our papers were perfectly in order and this made the process of getting back into the country super easy! We were asked slews of questions at every airport we touched (MSP/O'Hare/NRT Japan/BKK) but we had all the answers we needed in our handy folder.
So by the time we were getting off our last flight in Bangkok to be escorted away by Thais in hazmat suits, the last step was easy.
We were taken from the airport to our hotel quarantine in a party van that had been converted into a Covid taxi. Re: a lot of plexiglass.
From there, we were checked in, had our temps taken one last time, and were delivered to our room around 1am (our flight landed around 10).
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The room is twice the size of our apartment and as of day 2, we're loving it.
There's space to work out.
There's space to work for each of us without having to hear the other person in our headsets.
There's TWO bathrooms!
I can't tell if my standards are really this low or if I'm just blown away by the fact that we've got a bathtub where we can fit our whole bodies underwater!
We will have Covid-19 tests on Day 2 (already completed), Day 6, and Day 12 of our 14 day quarantine. They're our only chance to go outside, albeit briefly, but I'm kind of looking forward to someone shoving a q-tip into my brain ...
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It looked cleaner when we moved in, but we were so exhausted that we hit the pillows and passed out.
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