T and S hits the road!

Hey this wireless interwebs is just miraculous. You pays your little bit of money, gets the card, types in the funny numbers, and heres you are, sending peerless words of wisdom all the way from busy downtown Bangkok.

As you know, we got exhausted leaving, and it's taken about 48 hours of 'holiday' to start feeling like it IS a holiday. But today we found the tailor and ordered clothes lavishly. It's so cheap it's almost embarrassing. I say 'can you make me two of these?' and the tailor says 'yes I give you a special price for two the same' and then I realise it's only about $10 in the first place! Even M, the least sartorial person in the world, saw that it was easy and fun to look at fabrix, go 'hmm' a bit, and order an extra pair of daks. In the end we left an order for 12 garments, which will all be ready in 27 hours!! Amazing. I'd still be winding the bobbin...

After that bit of major fun we walked along to a nearby hotel for some air-conditioning, and found we were sitting in a VERY posh cafe overlooking the river, which was teeming with an assortment of boats, barges, crud and tourists. Note placement of the word 'tourist' lower in the word chain than 'crud'. Hefty lard-ass Amurricans infest everywhere, altho less so on the streets around our hotel (INTERESTING TRAVEL FACT: this hotel - the Baihoke Sky -is the tallest building in Thailand. It's as tall as 182 ppl standing on top of each other. Ow!). The streets are a mass of stalls - a standard chaotic Asian market - and the lard-asses don't seem to do bargaining, cruddy roads, or mingling with the locals (as far as I can see). I, otoh, plan to get amongst it!

I booked into the hotel beauty salon at 9pm (yes, it's a 24 hour place) and a very nice, strong, happy masseur got to grrrrrips with me. It was a very interesting massage - face down on a fairly hard mat on the floor, and the masseur used her forearms, elbows, knees and bum (yes!) to push, stretch, prod, dig, wiggle and squish me from the top of my head to nearly my knees. I found it a bit hard to get up afterwards, but now, 2 hours (and a very nice pedicure) later, I feel very loose and comfy. I'm glad I brought my trusty heat pad with me, tho. It was a life-saver after the long flight.

Tomorrow we'll take a river cruise to see three temples and maybe the grand palace. And I think I need to investigate a few silk shops, you know, just in case giant moths eat my workroom while no-one's looking and my stash gets munched down to critically low levels....and, as a friend reminded me, I need to stay in the moment. And when moments involve sorting through hundreds of rolls of silk and imagining an entire new travel wardrobe of fabulously flattering, lush and lovely garments, I can do that! Again and again and again, for as many silk shops - erm, I mean moments - as necessary. Commitment, fortitude and a healthy excess baggage allowance, that's all it takes...

I'd better go, M wants a turn at the webs. I won't bore you with details of the tropical fruit extravaganza breakfast special will I? or mention that the breakfast rom is in fact an entire floor of the hotel, with counters for 7 different cuisines, dozens of eager staff, and bottomless coffee? No, I wouldn't be that cruel.

Today purrfumed by eau de traffic, paw-paw, jasmine and orchid displays, and the exotic sandalwood-based scented oil massaged into my feeties. Yeah!