Thailand Arrival

After 22+ hours of travel from Seattle to Bangkok, we landed just before midnight and went to a hotel near the airport. It was a lovely hotel with Amaranth flowers and pictures everywhere. I had no idea that this lovely flower existed. We got to sleep at about 1AM.

The next morning, we ate breakfast, got ready, packed and got to the airport in plenty of time for a 2:30pm flight. The Bangkok airport is run very efficiently. We only had to be at the airport 1 hour before our domestic flight. That made us nervous when we heard about it, but we trusted the locals and it worked out fine.

The flight to Samui was 1 hour. We had to control ourselves to not giggle at the dancing airline employee safety video, followed by video of a Thai airline captain dubbed in not-fitting English voice. Paul struck up a conversation with his seat-mate regarding smart watch technology. The seat-mate flies once a year from Abu Dhabi to Bangkok to get a health check-up. Maybe this is something to look into.

We landed in Samui at a small airport similar to the Kona airport, if you have been to Hawaii’s Big Island. The driver from our hotel, Code, met at the airport with refreshing ice-cold washcloths and cool water. The driver was a maniac, following cars so close that we almost had an accident. But it is really no different than taxis in the states.

We were welcomed at the hotel and given a cell phone to use to contact the reception, spa and front desk. There are no other phones in building. The room is beautiful and the view amazing. Accuweather says it is 90 degrees but feels 105. It takes 1 second out of A/C for skin to get sticky!

I decided a massage was in order to get the flight out of my system. I told the woman at the spa that I wanted a Swedish massage rather than Thai massage. With a quizzical look on her face, she asked me if I want hard and pointed to her elbow. Since I love a deep massage, I said “yes” not knowing what I was in for, from a 4’ 9” Thai lady.

There was a weird tension of modesty vs. exhibition in my massage experience. They gave me spa underwear and robe, but asked me to take off my robe and climb topless onto the massage bed, in a room with 6 beds and no curtains. Since there was no one else in the room, I went for it. One second later, this tiny lady climbed on top of me, knees on the back of my thighs and started abusing my back with her elbows. It was painful, awkward and great all at the same time. I thought to myself: next time, I am going with the Thai massage!