The text and WhatsApp messages start to come just after I open my promised boxed brekker. (“We will give you a packed breakfast to take to the airport seeing you have to leave so early,” the receptionist at the Nai Yang Beach Resort had breezily offered me on check-in.)

First thing, the customs guys open the box and confiscate the two little (but too large) fruit drinks. (Surely the breakfast crew should have been aware not to pack these for airport clients?)

They (the texts) come after I conclude that this dry whiter-than-white unbuttered bread with a couple of withered brown tears of lettuce and about eight minute slices of what I presume is chicken and a dry small roll and a wizened small citrus fruit of indistinguishable nature must be the worst brekker ever served in Thailand. Thanks Nai Yang Beach Resort.

Am I OK? — asks the first sms. Of course. Why? I ask back.

Bombs have gone off in Phuket and near Bangkok. Some people have been killed. Internal politics, my Thai friends tell me.

So much at such odds with the spirit of Thailand. The people. I feel hurt for them. For their country.

And yes, I am fine. Safer here than where I’m headed for, whatever the circumstances. Except if the fickle finger of fate is pointing. (Random. And unlikely.)

© Wanda Hennig 2016, story and photos.

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