April 2–6, 2023 / Bangkok, Thailand

I’m a freelance web designer based in Japan.
To be honest, working while constantly moving from one place to another isn’t easy for me.

Still, there’s always a quiet part of me that wonders —
what would it be like to work abroad,
to bring my everyday routines into a completely different place?

So once again, I decided to try.
This time, I went to Bangkok, Thailand.
But this time, it turned out to be less about “working”
and more about simply staying in bed.

Arrival

I arrived smoothly at Don Mueang Airport from Kuala Lumpur
and headed straight to my hotel — iCheck inn Sukhumvit 19.

I had booked the “Deluxe Room” because it had a big window and a wide desk,
thinking it would be perfect for work.
But when I stepped inside, something didn’t feel right.
The atmosphere was just… off.


I told myself I’d move to another hotel tomorrow, and went to sleep.

The Next Morning

When I woke up, my body felt unusually heavy.
Lying down was fine, but standing up was exhausting.

“Maybe it’s from that mosquito bite in Kuala Lumpur,” I thought,
half joking, half worried.

I went out anyway to look for a thermometer.


At Robinson (maybe the same “Robinson” from that Spitz song?),
I picked up some drinks and fruit,
but couldn’t find a thermometer.
So I walked to Terminal 21 and finally got one.

Back in my room, it showed 38.4°C.
There wasn’t much else to do but rest,
so I spent the rest of the day in bed.

Quiet Days Indoors

The room was still and cool.
Outside, I could faintly hear the chaos of Sukhumvit,
but it felt distant — almost like another world.

It reminded me of Kuala Lumpur’s “loud calm,”
except this time, the calm had moved inside me.

I stayed in bed,
watching the light shift slowly across the curtain.

The next day, my fever dropped to around 37°C.
I still felt hazy, but somehow I believed I’d be fine
by the time I left for Ho Chi Minh.

Fevered Confusion

At one point, I tried to go out again.
At the subway station, I looked up at a sign above the escalator.
In my feverish haze, I read it as “No Train.”

For a moment I panicked —
no train? seriously? —
and turned back to the hotel.

Later, when I passed by the same place,
I finally saw it clearly.

It made me laugh — a little embarrassed, a little uneasy.

To Trains.

Reflection

I spent nearly the entire stay inside my room.
No sightseeing, no cafes, no real work.

It wasn’t “nomad work.”
Not even “hotel work.”
It was, if anything, bed work.

But maybe that’s part of the journey too —
the moments when you have to stop,
when your body tells you to pause.

Even then,
somewhere deep down,
I still felt like I was moving.
The journey wasn’t over yet.

Next stop: Ho Chi Minh City.

Nomad Life series — small experiments in working abroad, one quiet step at a time.