Temple Trotting and Some R&R

Tuesday, February 9th

Sadly our trip is winding down, we've got 2 days left, and although my heart was happy, the rest of my body was starting to feel the affects of constant traveling (both walking as well as my lovely fall down the mountain!) and Tina and I dubbed our last 2 days in Thailand as ones of relaxation and taking it slow...perfect! {PS - if you need to catch up any or missed yesterday's post, you can check out Cambodian posts HERE and Thailand HERE!}

We slept in Tuesday morning for a bit and by this time we had hit all the must haves in Bangkok so it was a little easier to relax a bit and just pick up smaller adventures here and there as the opportunity presented itself. With that being said, our first stop of the morning was walking to a smaller temple called Wat Indra Viharn. The temple is believed to be almost 600 years old and one of it's main attractions (sadly not 600 years old!) is a Buddha statue that stands 105 feet tall and shadows many of the surrounding temple buildings at the site. This temple was a little odd, and sadly since it is not such a "big name temple" there were no English descriptions for anything. Off to the back was a green Buddha looking much like a giant gummy bear, near him was an area set up for people to receive hair cuts, and off to the side in another building was a deceased monk in what looked to be a glass coffin case. Again, like I said, I was really hoping for some descriptions to some of the things I saw here!

Leaving the temple we hopped on a river boat taxi for one last ride down the canals and headed back to our hotel...we had relaxation in mind! The night before Tina and I had decided that for our last night in Thailand we would splurge on a hotel room (splurging after spending no more than $10 a night on a room for the previous 2 weeks still doesn't equal a very expensive room though!). We had 2 must haves for our room and when we looked online for a room that was all we were concerned about; Tina wanted a comfy bed and I wanted an outdoor pool. Done and done, we booked our room and we couldn't be happier. Fast forward to Tuesday afternoon after leaving the temple, we went back to our hostels, ate a quick lunch, grabbed our luggage, checked out and headed for Dang Derm Hotel.

I would like to say check in was a breeze, but of course what fun is travel if you don’t have a couple hiccups in the way. We go to check in and have everything ready and the guy asks us to pay. I hand him my credit card and he says the hotel doesn’t take cards {how they accept an online booking fee is then beyond me!} Tina and I regroup, we start looking for another hotel in the area (it’s our last day and physical cash is running low) meanwhile, the guy is persistent that we have to pay in cash. After 10 minutes or so we tell him we’d like to cancel our reservation…suddenly everything changes “well, umm, I can try the credit card machine I guess but it doesn’t always work…” (funny how moments earlier he was claiming they had NO way of taking a card!) Well long story short they took the card and we got our room. We got to our room and in less than 15 minutes we had both assumed our positions; Tina in bed and me pool side…and life was good!

This was like a castle after 2 weeks of staying on bunkbeds in rooms with up to 10 other people!

After getting thoroughly pruney in the pool and sun kissed on the lounge chairs we headed out for dinner and stumbled upon a small shop that had an amazing green curry dish that I quickly scarfed down. After dinner we spent the evening getting Thai massages, eating scorpions (hey when the opportunity presents itself!) going for yet another swim around midnight and then as Tina called it a night I went for one last stroll through Kaosan Road before heading to bed relaxed, happy, and with a scorpion dancing in my belly!