when life hands you a luxurious hotel

If this ever happens to you, you find yourself booking and paying for a luxurious hotel, then please please please take advantage of it, much as we did this past Monday.

This may well be the most we have paid for a hotel room in our lives, and it is so worth it.  But couple with my fatigue with sightseeing, I persuaded Conrad that we really should enjoy the hotel fully this past Monday.  So, for the 25th anniversary of our first date, that’s what we did.  No leaving the hotel grounds.  Just staying here.  Ahhhhh.

So what did we do?  Breakfast in the lounge.  Pool time.  Spa (massage for Conrad, mani and pedi for me), reading in the room, a nap, drinks and bites at happy hour in the lounge, room service dinner, a movie in our living room.  A full day of so little done and so much relaxation gained.  We loved it.

I know it will seem a strange thing to travel halfway around the world and not go see and do stuff beyond the hotel.  And I have spent a lot of time justifying to myself why it was fine not to explore Chiang Mai when we were there and not to explore Bangkok while here.  Nice hotels, relaxation - these seem answers enough.

Photos, as always.  Enjoy!

this place, just… wow!

We had breakfast in Chiang Mai, saying goodbye to our lovely hotel, and headed to the airport mid-morning yesterday.  A quick flight to Bangkok, nice and easy.  A car to the hotel, greeted, taken to the club level lounge.  Check in.  To our room.  Minds blown.

This place!  Huge.  Gorgeous.  Bananas.  A luxurious way to finish our trip.  The Sukhothai Bangkok Hotel.  I just want to stay in the room and enjoy it for every our we have.  Wow.

cooking class!

Folks go to Chiang Mai to see the temples and the elephants or travel into the nearby mountains.  Conrad and Peter go there to do nothing by and in the pool.  But also, apparently, to take a cooking class.

What a fun morning for us.  We went light on breakfast because of the four-hour session to come.  Before 9:00 we were picked up and driven all of a block and a half away.  Too funny, and yes, we did walk home afterward.  We were joined by a young couple from Italy, and the four of us set to work under the fun and patient instruction of Olive.  In the kitchen to taste some things and start prep.  To the garden behind the school for some show and tell with smelling and tasting.  A market visit.  Back to the school to really get cooking.

We had a lot of fun, truly.  And I felt pretty proud of what we made.  Am I a pad Thai expert?  Nope.  But what I made wasn’t nearly as sweet as what I have in the US.  We cooked our own portions and ate our own food, and we could choose options that were different from each other as well as make it as spicy (or not) as we liked.  I was the bravest with the chiles, and I was far from brave!  I made green papaya salad, tom kha soup, khao soi curry, and contributed to the sticky rice dessert.  Conrad did a nice job.  I was the teacher’s pet.  The other couple were friendly.  Olive was great!  Asia Scenic was the name of the school, and I recommend them.

That left us rather full and thinking it would be a good idea to cancel a big dinner reservation later that evening.  We waddled home, napped, then joined one of the hotel staff in the courtyard by the lobby to make colourful paper decorations called tung.  

A nice little activity, and kudos to the hotel for offering such things daily.

Pool time after that,

then we showered and made ourselves pretty to head back across the street to North Gate Spirits when its bar opened.  A couple of rounds of drinks including their attempt at a Last Word (not bad at all, but they really didn’t trust the recipe we told them), chat with the staff.  Once again we were the only ones there.  A nice little evening of it.  

We finished with dinner at the hotel restaurant for a third time,

then to the room to unwind.  Packing could wait until morning.