July 27th, 2016
Wednesday
Hahaha, I am sitting outside on a bench at our new hotel and there are wispiness of smoke curling up from underneath me. I’m starting to get annoyed as I’m thinking there is some European sitting on the third floor underneath me smoking, and it is wafting up into my peaceful Space. Upon further investigation (i.e. Hanging over the rail) I see it’s a beautiful pot holding a mosquito coil. So it’s here for my protection….which is nice as I am currently suffering through the WORST insect bite I’ve had to date. I actually don’t think it’s from a mosquito as it is clearly very different. It (whatever it was) bit me yesterday morning and it was certainly hot and itchy all day, but I was reasonably distracted with the ride we were on. I applied my anti-itch ointment several times and was just toughing it out. It was hard with several little bumps when I went to sleep. This morning I woke up to it being a set of multiple little blisters, within an hour, those blisters had joined into one big nasty blister that was very painful. Without grossing you all out, let’s just suffice to say I’ve tried to get rid of the blister and it kept returning. I visited the pharmacy and she told me to apply antibiotic ointment and cortisone cream as my body is really reacting to the bite. I’ll give it another day, and if it doesn’t improve, I’m sure you’ll hear about it 😉
Anyway, we did move hotels today as the Baan Ratchiangsaen was unavailable for us tonight and tomorrow night. So we are at the DeNaga. I booked this hotel as part of a knee jerk reaction to being stressed about losing my iPad and just being tired of thinking about where to stay. It’s well outside my usual price point as it is just over $100/night. But I was interested to see what 3x the rate would get me (us). It is a lovely place but definitely not nicer than the Baan Ratchiangsaen (even a little bit). So lesson learned…..maybe I’ll be blown away by breakfast?? But it is not as big or bright of a room as we just came from and we don’t have a private balcony or anything, the pool is being serviced, so no swimming….it is however inside the Old City, so a little closer to the cafe (not a tonne closer-but a little) it’s a good location, but from what I can see not worth 3x the price. I had to leave my bakery behind and we are a very long walk from the Purple Haze where we get our spectacular massages from Et.
Speaking of which, after hiring the driver that hangs around Baan Ratchiangsaen to drive us over to the De Naga (for 100b) at noon, and getting settled in, we walked to Ginny cafe for lunch. Two Khao Soi gai later, we walked over to the Purple Haze for a massage. We know the bakery closes at 4pm and it was 2:40pm, so we popped in to acquire our pastries that we would eat after massage. Well they might as well have been closed, their shelves were bare….so lesson learned! With our sad faces out, we signed up for a couple massages at the Purple Haze. Troy got Thai massage and I asked for head, neck, shoulder massage. Now, past experience tells me that if  ask for this, I’ll still get everything massaged, so I am very clear that they are to avoid my right leg  (the scene of the bite). This was very clear to them, it looks really pretty gross, so I don’t think they wanted to touch it anyway. 😩
Now my big mission of the last few days has been to purchase another bag so I can get all the goodies I’ve bought back home. I’ve successfully avoided heading out to do this, but it is an imminent problem to say the least as we are T-minus 40 hours now. So off I go. My travels take me down past the Tapae Gate and coincidentally past the fried chicken lady that I have fallen in love with. She’s barely over 4 feet tall and Troy assures me almost 100. But her fried chicken is exceptionally good, so for 70 baht I procure 4 pieces of fried chicken for back in the room. I also stopped and picked up 2 spring rolls for 10baht each to round out the meal. The sign said chicken with potato and carrot. Interesting combination. Troy said he thought they tasted like a cross between a spring roll and a samosa. I agree…
oh yes, I did get a bag, one of the striped shipping bags that I already have two of at home (I just keep forgetting to slip into my backpack when I come). So I am set…..
