In my last installment, I wrote about finding solace at the 7-11 near our place in Phuket, Thailand. We grabbed dinner, ate, and conked out.
My daughter slept so hard it was almost as if she was in a coma. I woke up around midnight with a splitting headache. I groped around the darkness for Advils, chugged some water and somehow fell back asleep, waking up around 5 a.m. for good. She woke up about an hour later. We made toast and went to relax by the pool in our complex.
Our plan was to eat lunch in the restaurant there (the website promised a swim-up bar as well) and gather up our strength. By 1 p.m. we realized the restaurant wasn’t going to open so we set out on foot to find something to eat.
The main street here is narrow and busy, with lots of traffic. Unless you are closer to the beach and the main business area, sidewalks are practically non-existent. The streets are lined with shops and restaurants and there’s one right after another, crammed together, almost spilling right onto the road. It quickly became clear that staying focused and watching our step was a key point to our survival, but it was hard not to be distracted by the sights and sounds around us. Oh, and did I mention it was absolutely stinking hot?
Lunch was our goal but in truth, our appetites were put on hold and at the moment, I didn’t see when/if I’d ever be hungry again. But we had to eat, right? We found a restaurant nearby that had patio seating overlooking the street, sat down, and ordered. The youngest opted for a Coke (frankly, she needed it) and I chose hot tea. It was delicious. We both ordered Pad Thai.
She took two bites and I noticed she was almost swallowed up by the sheer exhaustion of it all so we took it to go. I wasn’t feeling great either.
On the bright side, at least we had dinner.
We trudged back home in the steaming heat of the day and dropped back into bed. Possibly we had taken on too much too soon.
Later we sat on our balcony and watched as evening fell and the sounds of life unfolded below us in soft layers. Baby cries, a ringtone, a shout, the buzz of a moped, punctuated the steady hum of the jungle behind our building. A whiff of smoke on the breeze drifted up towards us as the heat of the day slowly slipped away.
