A Day on Own in Bangkok (Thursday, November 5th, 2015)

We got up early and enjoyed our usual complimentary breakfast on the first floor, and then took a few minutes to look around at the hotel.  As we expected, the pool and fitness areas were both quite beautiful.  They were both located on the 4th floor of the hotel so were very nice and quiet.

After looking around a bit, we finally had time to Facetime with our youngest daughter and catch up on her life, then we also had a chance to Facetime with our oldest daughter and Steve's parents. We had texted them a little bit over the last few days, but it had been fairly brief since everyone was busy.

The time in Bangkok is 14 hours ahead of Denver, but we have found it very easy to communicate with everyone.  We do our Facetime or texting in the morning (when it is still the evening before in Denver), or in the evening, when it is the morning of the same day.  

When we were in Europe in the past, we felt that the time difference was much more difficult to deal with for talking to everyone, but maybe that's because we were on a cruise ship. We're not really sure.

Steve and I had decided that we would get a Thai massage at least once while we were in Bangkok, so while I was doing a little blogging this morning, Steve got on TripAdvisor and started looking for a good Thai massage near our hotel. He loves that sight as when we have used it in the past it has been right on.  

He found place called Bua Sabai Massage that was less than 1/2 mile away that got great reviews. We were both sort of nervous about getting a Thai massage since we had no idea what to expect, but we weren't going to let that stop us!  So we headed off toward the message place.  On our way we walked through the local park.

This is a gorgeous park just a block away from our hotel

Exercise equipment for everyone to use.  What a great idea!

Under the green canopy is an orchid garden

Orchids growing on a tree trunk under the canopy

More beautiful tropical plants under the green canopy

Another gorgeous orchid!

We walked through the park near our hotel, and up about 3 blocks, to Bua Sabai Massage. As we neared the location I continued to get more nervous!

As we approached the front porch, we were greeted by a very nice woman who offered us indoor shoes to put on. We sat down on chairs on the porch and switched from our street shoes to their indoor shoes. We left our street shoes on a small shoe rack on the front porch and went inside. 

The price list in English

The shoe rack with indoor and outdoor shoes

They immediately took us to two small curtained rooms (they were adjoined since we were going as a couple), and gave us loose fitting shirts and pants to put on. The clothes sort of resembled a large pair of hospital scrubs.  Once we were dressed our Thai massage therapists came in. One for Steve and one for me. They started by washing our feet with a wonderful foot scrub and a basin of warm water. We were then invited to lay down on our backs on very comfortable mats with pillows. They started with our feet and legs and worked up to our arms. They use their body weight and manipulated our bodies into positions where we could get a deeper massage. They were small women, but with their technique they were able to give a very deep massage. They use not only their hands, but their feet, forearms and legs to apply just the right pressure. Since we were fully clothed, it was never uncomfortable in any way. 

They could tell where each of us needed the most work and spent more time on those areas. Toward the end of the massage they had us sit up so they could work more on our neck and back. It was the most painful and relaxing experience we have ever had. Steve commented after we left that there were several times that he was just about ready to yell uncle, when they somehow knew and moved on to a different area. I felt the same way. When our massages were over, they closed our curtains and allowed us to get dressed. 

When we came out from our little rooms they had some delicious hot tea waiting for us to enjoy. We had two one hour massages which were 200 baht each, or about $5.75 per person. We left a great tip, and still felt that it was quite a bargain. It was an incredible experience that we can't wait to do again. As we left we stopped on the front porch and replaced our indoor shoes with our street shoes which were waiting for us on the shoe rack.

One of the things that intreagues us about Thailand is how you can just leave things sitting out (like our shoes on a very busy street), and when you come back for them they are waiting for you, untouched.  

After our massages, we stumbled back to hotel because we were so relaxed. We took a little more time to looked around the hotel.

On the parking garage level of the hotel there was a beautiful koi pond.

The  snack bar on the main floor

A beautiful staircase provides access to the first three floors in addition to the elevators

When we were at the mall two days ago, we noticed two rather popular restaurants that sold noodle bowls for 12 baht, or about 34 cents each.  They looked really good, and it looked like fun, so today for lunch, it was back to the mall for noodle bowls. 

Some people order many bowls all at one time, but we chose to order one each at a time because we didn't know how much we would need, and we didn't know which ones we would like the best.  We ended up eating 7 bowls in total.  Steve had four and I had three.  

The bowls aren't big, so you can get a nice variety

All done! And you can see the little coconut milk custard bowl in the foreground.  They stack two custard bowls top to bottom, and that counts as one dessert.

When you are through eating, they just count your bowls and charge you for how many you ate.  There are also very small bowls sitting on your table when you sit down.  They contain a coconut milk custard.  You just take as many as you want, and they will keep bringing more.  They are 10 baht for two, or about 14 cents each.  We split one of the double bowls for dessert.  They were very tasty.  

The young couple next to us ate a total of 17 bowls.  Which we thought was a crazy amount because we were full with our seven bowls, but then we figured out that the price of all theirs bowls came to a total of $5.82 at today's baht to $$ conversion rate.  Our entire lunch was less then $3!  Not a bad deal for a fun lunch.

When we paid our bill, we realized that they charged us for both our water and our ice, which we thought was interesting, but you can't drink the water in Thailand, so it is all bottled, and they have to make their ice out of bottled water, so it all makes sense.

As we came out of the mall we realized that the traffic had really picked up while we were in eating.  We were glad that we were walking and not dealing with the traffic.  

These cars weren't moving at all

So many people ride motorcycles in Thailand, they are everywhere!  Steve looked at the odometer on one of these bikes that showed 89,000 kilometers.  Amazing!

Then we grabbed another coffee at 7-11 on our way back to the hotel. For an iced mocha it is 30 baht which is about 85 cents, and we think they are better than Starbucks. 7-11 uses a true automated expresso machine to make the coffee!

As we headed out with our coffees, we noticed a bunch of school kids in Boy Scout and Girl Scout uniforms being worn by the kids walking around the neighborhood.  Thursday must be their meeting day. 

We walked back through the park on our way back to the hotel.  It is such a peaceful walk!

A Buddhist shrine in the park

The fountains were running this time as we walked through

They take such great care of this park.  There are always people cleaning.

You can see the exercise equipment on the other side of the pond

You can see how close our hotel is to the park

A Monitor lizard by the pond

When we got back to the hotel we were able to exchange some of our large baht bills for smaller bills, which was very handy.  The bank gave us such large bills that very few places can provide change for them.

We were sitting in our room, preparing for dinner when we looked out the window and noticed a huge line of police cars going down the highway with one large black vehicle in the middle. We think it may have been some sort of Thai dignitary going by.  We have seen something similar several times since we have been here.  It doesn't seem to be anything out of the ordinary.

You can see all of the police cars in the furthest right lane

We decided that it would be nice to have a sit down meal tonight, somewhere other than the food court for dinner, so we decided to try a place that we had seen on our daily walks. 

B Resto offers both a Thai and a Western Menu

It is called B Resto.  They serve both Thai and western food.  We ordered two Thai dishes, one was asparagus with crispy pork and the other was garlic, chili and basil chicken.  There were two types of chilis in the second dish.  You couldn't tell them apart by looking at them, but one was mild and one was REALLY spicy.  We liked them, but they were so spicy that we were afraid that they might upset our stomaches, so we finally gave up and started picking out the chilis.  This wasn't our favorite food of the trip.  It was pretty westernized and quite expensive by comparison to other local restaurants but it was a nice atmosphere.  

Walking home, we were amazed at how this city really comes to life at night.  The malls and streets are jammed with people and the park even gets much busier too. 

We sat in our hotel room and enjoyed a beautiful Bangkok sunset before we called it a night.