What a difference a day makes...

Yesterday we were in quarantine, wondering how we were going to survive the hotel menu without severe vitamin deficiency.

Today we're in hospital, having tested positive for covid...

Let's start at the very beginning:

On Sunday we were covid-tested again, by guys wearing masks, visors, and floor-to-ceiling hazmat suits.

Every time it's administered, this test hurts more. I'm not brave (ask my dentist). I wriggle, I squirm, I say things like, "You're hurting me." Afterwards I feel embarrassed about my lack of staunchness. But then I think, hell no, if someone's hurting me, for whatever reason, that person needs to know.

Anyway, our next challenge was food. We'd really prepared for quarantine. We downloaded books; we got together a great set of dance tunes for exercise; we stocked up on medicines; we packed nuts and Vitamin D. I thought we might have issues with carb-heavy food, but I was optimistic we could solve those with a couple of requests at the beginning.

Having gone through an entire day's menu, however, we were depressed by the paucity of vegetables. We're used to eating tons of the things, and Sunday brought us about four spoonfuls each. How do we keep well, we wondered, without vitamins and fibre and all that other good stuff? It's strange, because Kuching does some of the best "mixed rice" selections in the country. We often eat at these places, skipping the rice, and choosing from all sorts of delicious veggies.



Quarantined guests had already received a little note telling us that family could drop things off at the front desk, to be brought up to us. There were strict criteria (no sharp items, no smokes, no alcohol, no drinks in tins or cartons, and no "wet food" -- shucks, no sneaking in a good Sarawak laksa, then). But they could bring us clothes, personal necessities, electronic bits and pieces -- and stuff from four named fast-food joints.


I called the front desk to ask whether this permission extended to asking a friend to bring us some apples. Yes, it did. And could we get Grab to deliver things that you can't get from fast-food outlets, like vegetable dishes, from other sources? She didn't know, but gave me the phone number of the person in charge.

He sounded a bit surprised to be hearing from someone concerned about vegetables. But he said yes, you can order food via Grab, if you send me the order to approve first (not sure why -- maybe to make sure we weren't ordering those bugbears of Southeast Asian hotels, durian and mangosteen).

So, from the menu of the Hong Kong Noodle House, where we'd eaten our Christmas lunch, back when times were happy, we picked out the bitter gourd with salted egg, and the four vegetables with belacan. We sent this off to the manager, who instantly approved it.

Grab is super-efficient in these parts, and the food arrived promptly. In the meantime, I'd forewarned the front desk person, who said she'd inform security (which does, very visibly, guard the premises -- they're are not going to allow any of the shenanigans that became notorious in New Zealand and Australia).

At this point, things get a little farcical. Our normal lunch arrives, only to be mysteriously taken away again. What doesn't arrive, even after quite an interval, is the takeaway. I phone downstairs again (how popular we must have made ourselves yesterday...), and am told the package is being sanitized. (Just the outside -- we're not talking chlorinated chicken here.)

Eventually the veggies rock up, and they're delicious, despite their peregrinations. But whereas we'd been hoping to eat them with the normal lunch, this was still conspicuous by its absence. We'd planned to make our greens stretch over two days, but ended up eating the lot. An hour later (about 90 minutes behind its usual schedule), normal lunch arrives... It was actually the nicest meal we'd had so far (fried noodles with chili, prawns -- and vegetables), but by this time we had room only to pick out the star items, and had to leave the rest.

All in all, we decided, this has been nice, but way too hassly an experience to repeat.


I started figuring out other health strategies (like getting a friend to bring vitamins, as well as apples, and asking the hotel to supply extra veggies at extra cost). But it turned out those strategies would be redundant, because yesterday evening we were told we had covid, and, as per the protocol here in Sarawak, would be shipped off to hospital by ambulance that very evening...

That was a bad, bad moment, I can tell you...

Aaaaaaargh, how has this happened? We were so, so, so careful all the way. But something got to us, regardless. And you can't help but speculate about precisely when it happened. We tested negative on Tuesday and Friday last week. But it turns out that if you're in the early stages of the illness there's a high probability the test will return a negative...

Wow, so we could, in all innocence, have been flying infected... I'm glad we were scrupulous about wearing our masks and shields.

But at the end of the day, folks, don't fly right now unless your life depends on it -- because your life might depend on it.

And I have to eat my words about all those covid tests... If they'd relied on the Friday one, we wouldn't have known...

Anyway, we were finally collected by the ambulance, along with two others from our quarantine batch, and bluelighted to Sarawak General Hospital, which is where all the covid patients go in Kuching at the moment.



We'd been thinking how miserable it would be to be split up, so we were relieved to be given a nice big room to share.


We've been treated fabulously. Really, there's no way a symptomless covid case would get all this care and attention in the UK... We feel absolutely fine at the moment, with no symptoms at all. But if things start to turn to custard, I feel we're in good hands.

And the food is better than it was in the quarantine hotel...

Having done a battery of checks, they decided this afternoon that we could be moved to a "step-down" facility. This is good. It means they're not worried about us at the moment. But of course, if we start to develop symptoms, we'll be "stepped up" again quick smart. So let's hope we don't...



It's embarrassing to see yourself reflected in Sarawak's detailed daily statistics. They don't name you, but they give quite a detailed travel profile (so detailed that one friend, knowing our plans, contacted me to ask how we were, and a couple of others messaged us to point out our new-found fame).

Jeez, was ever such a year?

But all we can do is take it a day at a time, and hope for the best.