It is not like I had grand plans for these couple of nights in downtown Bangkok. The whole reason I had come down here was to get some paperwork taken care of so I could move to Jordan next year. I also did not plan for it to be my last hurrah in Thailand as the rest of the year looks like it will be online and in my home. Like the rest of the world, it will be looking at the simple life and staying safe, and I just have to accept that this is the way of the end, not an a grand epic image, but a quiet fizzle sitting in my hotel room after getting some business taken care of.
Granted, things could open up again and I might have the possibility to have a quick trip to a nearby national park I haven’t been able to see yet, but the new cases in Thailand have stayed at a steady 1,500 a day, and the holiday of Songkron had sent people all over the country creating what will likely be a super-spreader event. Thailand has still not rolled out the vaccine yet waiting until the fall before they set their plans into motion, so it does not look like relief will happen soon. People will just have to hunker down and hope for the best.
Even my school is starting to dig into the trenches. There were a couple of close calls over the last couple of weeks, but finally a person has come down with the disease and nobody is allowed on campus anymore. Luckily, most people have not been on campus for a couple of weeks because of Songkron break, and the fact that we had gone to online learning right before the break, but it is still disconcerting to know that Covid is creeping ever closer.
But for a lot of other places in the world, this has been the norm, and nothing new. I have been lucky that most of the time I have spent in Thailand was Covid free and I was still able to get to know this country I had just moved to. But there is really no way to keep this pandemic from reaching the borders of all the countries in the world. Even though North Korea claims that they have never had a case, I’m pretty sure that it has visited there as well.
With all of this in mind, it just means that my time goes out in a fizzle. Rain kept me inside most of yesterday after I got my chores done, and even if I wanted to go out and explore, a lot of the businesses are starting to get ready for the oncoming onslaught as well and it just meant that things would be hit or miss to begin with. But with each ending, there is a new beginning. Things may be looking down right now in Thailand, but they are starting to improve in many places in the world. I have a new adventure to look forward to soon by moving to a new place in the world, and in a couple of months I will be back in the United States and get to see my family again. So even though this is not the ending I was hoping for, the beginning is looking good.
John Collings 