The Good, The Bad, & The Ugly

Bangkok, Day 41

Now I didn't mention this in my 29th Dec blog post (as I didn't think much of it), but yesterday I had a few sneezes. Today I had more sneezes and a very, very runny left nostril (apologies for the graphic description, but it's sort of important).

Now I do have several allergies, including to dust, pollen and various rodent-type animals and dogs. Long story short is that I got sensitised to some of these things a long time ago because there were little (or no) safety controls in place to prevent (or monitor) occupation exposures when I first started working - The Control of Substances Hazardous to Health (COSHH) Regulations were just starting to come in at this time, but you 'don't know what you don't know' as they say when you are young and just starting in the big wide world.

Anyway, I have bouts of rhinitis and sniffles every so often. I seem to be fine with cats (as our neighbourhood cat at home and Neko can attest to). However, on Saturday, I was cleaning out Neko's litter tray, and I wasn't sure if the dust and dander from that initiated an allergic response in me.

So fast forward to this morning - I slept fine (no sneezing or wet nose syndrome) that is until I got up and my runny nose and sneezing appears to be much worse today (I should have taken an antihistamine last night but I didn't - as I wasn't that bad, but I took one this morning).

Now, the last time I had a bout of sneezing and a runny nose (June 2024?), I thought it was due to an allergic response to my lovely colleague's little dog that I had played with the day before (apologies, Skye!). However, it turned out to be a covid infection, and can you guess who I then passed this onto? Yes, dear readers, R has never let me forget that I infected him covid and now he suspects I've got it again and that I'll either have already passed it onto him or he'll get it too.

So after our trip out today (which I shall detail below shortly), I did a covid test when we got back to the apartment (I'd brought some with us). It's negative, but I know that there are now different strains of covid and the tests may not pick up the latest strains, but it did pick them up the last time for both of us (because I passed it onto R if you didn't already know this -rolling eyes!).

I was sure it was allergy-related (and possibly due to the cat litter) as we don't tend to go out in very crowded places and we're generally quite careful. That said R reckons I got it due to my 'window licking' tendencies (for the record, I don't lick windows - he just likes to make aspersions about my family genetics and to be fair, he might have a point but I think A and I managed to escape the moronic gene!). I didn't have any other symptoms similar to a cold or flu (no headache, no fever and no aches or pains) - just this constant, thin, watery drip from my left nostril.

A quick google search comes up with: "A runny nose and sneezing can be caused by a number of things, including colds, the flu, allergies, or other irritants.

[Fast forward to NYE (when I started to draft up this post) and I'm feeling a bit rubbish - just tired and lethargic, so I spent most of the day in bed apart from a little walk over to the grocery shop to get something for our dinner - so much for enjoying Bangkok to bring in the New Year! Something else I'm probably never going to be allowed to forget....]

Strangely enough, it turns out that the principles of radiation protection i.e. time, distance and shielding are equally as good as safety control measures for trying to avoid catching a bug from another person in a shared household.

Time

We are minimising the time we are in the same areas and ensuring we both have our facemasks on at all times.

Distance

We are fortunate to be in a fairly large 2 bedroom apartment, so R has relocated to the 2nd bedroom to sleep. We are also keeping a healthy 3m distance between us at all times. I think we might even watch the TV using Teams from our separate rooms tonight for the big countdown (though this was not what I had in mind when I said I fancied the idea of being a digital nomad!).

Shielding

So as soon as we got home yesterday, R quickly affixed his FFP3 face mask - yes, we brought some of these too. I was already wearing a surgical-type facemask when we were out, but that was also so that I could 'plug' my left nostril with tissue paper to help soak up the dripping snot and avoid people seeing this or my big, tender red nose!

So now that I have hopefully made you all feel sorry for me, I shall tell you about our day today (30th Dec).

As I said above, I was feeling a lot more snotty today, but I was convinced it was allergy-related. So we had already decided to go to another shopping mall, this time it was the Terminal 21 at Rama 3. R had identified a bus that could get to get us there, so we headed to the bus stop at Saint Louis Hospital. Well, we waited and we waited and we waited and the bus we were expecting did not show, so we then ordered a Grab taxi and in hindsight, we should have done this from the start!

Terminal 21 at Rama 3

Now this shopping mall is very similar to the Terminal 21 at Asoke but it was a lot quieter and had less tourists and more locals. It's located south on the riverfront area but it is a bit of a pain to get to by public transport, so it is probably easier to just go there by taxi.

The mall itself is beautifully designed with each of the levels based on country themes (similar to the Asoke Terminal 21). There is a Harry Potter train station theme, Waikiki beach theme, Paris street themes, Venice themes etc. So there is loads of photo opportunities throughout the mall, but the creativity is what I found amazing.

The toilets on each of the floors are pretty amazing with the various decorative themes, and you absolutely must pop into as many as you can - they also have 'smart' toilets which are a whole experience in themselves!

Food Court

The Pier 21 food court is on Level 5 and as we have discovered, it is best to try and get here before the lunchtime crowd descends. Again, you do need to purchase a food card, but you can get any unspent money back later again. We managed to get a great wee spot overlooking the river, and it was fab.

The food was much better in terms of quantity and price at this food court than the one in Asoke. I got a spicy chicken spaghetti dish which was really good and very, very filling. I can't remember what R got as I was starting flag at this point (and I had run out of hankies, so I was stealing as many food napkins that I could until I could get more proper hankies from the shops!).

We also popped outside a few times to try and get some photos of the riverside, but it was roasting, so we didn't stay there very long!

We also managed to pick up a few vanilla custard buns, which have become a firm favourite with us, as well as some general groceries.

I really liked Terminal 21 at Rama 3, and I think it's definitely worth a visit if you have time.

We ordered a Grab taxi back to the apartment, and we were home by about 3 pm and I just changed and went to bed at this point and slept most of the afternoon and evening. Hopefully, the drippy snot will have dried up by NYE ....[SPOILER ALERT: I was still under the weather....]

So in conclusion:

The Good - Terminal 21 at Rama 3

The Bad - Difficulty in getting there

The Ugly - my poor red nose

Bangkok, Thailand

30 December 2024