Max and Paul's Excellent Adventure

The two months in Thailand gave mainly me the opportunity to see how the locals are. I tended to stay away from tourist areas as we have been here many times. Here's  a pic from a locals' market.                                        And a mainly tourist market in old Phuket town.                  Beautiful effigies made from banana leaves made for a festival celebrating water. Locals wearing masks would have been at about 99%. Thais are a lovely people and to the liking of authorities, very compliant. This photo says it all. No helmet but mask intact!  You'll often see a family of Mum, Dad and two or three kids occy strapped to the adults 🤣. But the masks are on!

We spent the next 2 months at the HOMA hotel while Max recuperated. The streets in Phuket are not designed to move wheelchairs around and Max found herself room-bound most days. Also, Phuket was experiencing monsoonal weather with no respite. So many areas were flooded and with many areas tiled, this was a minefield for slipping and sliding. Crutches weren't possible. She was a trooper though and coped with it better than most.  The staff were very kind to us so the extra two months we had to stay on was as pleasant as could be. This is Kuado. He was a Thai/Italian blend, lovely and the perfect manager for the Italian restaurant atop the Homa residences.  View from the infinity pool on the rooftop. The best facility of the hotel was that it accommodated pets and we all know who likes dogs... This little furball was owned by an Asian girl, of course.  It didn't look real. 

Unfortunately, Max had slipped on a sloped path near our room and did serious damage to her lower leg. She broke the fibula bone and scraped all skin off the inside ankle bone and damaged ligaments. The hotel called an ambulance and I insisted they take her to the best hospital on the island, which happened to be The Bangkok Hospital.  Staff there were brilliant and got her comfortable within no time. We took out insurance which of course would cover this situation, however, being a Friday afternoon in Australia, I found it just about impossible to get in touch with anyone.  Once I did talk to someone, they said they'd get back to me soon.  The hospital had booked an operating theatre and was insisting Max needed surgery that day.  We did not hear back from the insurance so we gave the go-ahead to the hospital, having to pay for the operation ourselves. The insurance company did pay up eventually, but there is a chance that even though insurance is taken out, you mig...