Birthday Girl!
Wednesday 14th February 2007 (13th & 14th December 2006)
A day before my birthday, Janine and I checked out of the guesthouse we were staying in and made the short walk to my birthday present. My parents had bought me a couple of nights in The Landmark hotel in Bangkok for my birthday pressie. After beating off men trying to help us with our rucksacks, even though you cant actaully help anyone who is wearing a rucksack, we made it accross the bridge to the hotel where a man took our bags before we even reached the doors to the hotel. The doorman had white gloves on, a hat and a great smile. We were in room 2612, Christmas day to me, on the 26th floor. Our room had twin beds, air conditioning, a TV and one thing that i loved, curtains that block out all the light – i mean i dont even get that at home. It was so amazing to be in a quiet place after all the hustle and bustle. Pure pampering really. We have a bath!!! I havent had a bath the whole time i have been travelling, only showers. I dont even really have baths at home but when you dont have the option you dream of it. We, of course, had a mini bar and a safe and all sorts of things. We loved our room. We got changed, unpacked our rucksacks and i found that a tube of deep heat i had been unknowingly carrying around since New Zealand had burst in the back of my rucksack. All the white cream had gone hard and stank. Rucksacks have the strangest compartments which is why I hadnt noticed it before. I wore the slippers they provided and the dressing gown. So simple, so silly. By the time we had sorted ourselves out and watched a bit of James Bond on the TV we were ready to go down to the business lounge of our free cocktails and canapes. We get this each night between 5.30pm and 7.30pm. Well by the end of it we are well on the way to cocktail heaven and i’ve eaten so much we dont need to have dinner. The canapes are like small portions of dinner and they even have dessert canapes just to round off the evening. The canapes change every evening too so we dont get bored. This is where I fall in love with Mai Thai cocktails.
On the night before my birthday, after the cocktails and canapes, we head out on the skytrain (BTS) to PatPong. This is the renowned streets for girlie/pingpong shows…you can use your imagination as to what that means. PatPong market is small but one of the best for things like CDs and DVDs. We walked around the two streets and I bought some music. We headed to Radio City which is a bar and got a table where the girls and boys serve you drinks to your table. We watched a Thai Elvis and a Thai Tom Jones perform which was really funny. There is a live band that performs with Elvis and Tom and they are great performers, very entertaining to watch. After the entertainment had finished another live band came on who were excellent. They sang covers and were great . At one point Janine and I decided to take part in one of the songs. Janine played the bongos and I hit the cowbell – what a combination!!! I can pretty much be sure that around the time I was hitting the cowbells it became my birthday. Since I dont actually know what time I was born i just do a midnight thing so yet im hitting a cowbell at 25. After our little rendition we met some guys from England who were working in Thailand and we headed off to another bar with them. We didnt stay out much longer and headed back to our posh hotel.
As I got into bed last night it was like stepping into a little snippet of luxury. I felt like my bed was a big marshmallow and I was in it. Wonderful…I drifted off to sleep so peacefully.
14th December 2006 hits and I’m 25. I wake up to a bedroom full of multicoloured balloon, a cake with a number 2 candle in it (Janine couldn’t get a number 5 to go with it), pressies and even the bathroom is filled with balloons, including the bath and shower. Janine had somehow managed to trick me into thinking she was going to sleep but then stayed up overnight to blow up balloons and stuff – mad! I have to admit that I temporarily hold off from getting too excited about this as I’m feeling a bit under the weather and have to be sick down the toilet – nice! First day as a 25 year old and i’m throwing up. Just about prooves my adult status really. I’m really not feeling too good, getting hot and then cold within minutes and the pain in my stomache is unbearable. I am sick again and I can hear someone ringing our doorbell (yes our room has a doorbell – crazy!) so I’m thinking, that’s ok, Janine will get it – but no, the next thing i know I have my head halfway down the toilet bowl and an unknown woman coming into the bathroom. She notices me, apologises and says she’ll come back. I wouldnt come back if I was her. I’m sick again and then I feel fine. I brush my teeth about three times because I can’t seem to get that taste out of my mouth – NICE! Once I’m feeling vaguly human I return to our room and Janine is still sound asleep – having missed the excitement of my morning activities I wake her up and tell her all about it – I dance with my balloons.
Breakfast is included with our room and we can have anything. They will cook stuff right in front of you and you couldnt complain about something not being there. You could practically have dinner for breakfast if you really wanted to. We returned to our room and the dreaded bathroom woman returns, she asks if I am ok and i nod and we leave the room. We head out to a nearby massage place. We both had a head, neck and shoulder massage which was so so good. My neck felt great afterwards. I also had my first ever manicure and pedicure. I bit my nails but as we had been travelling I had grown them for the first time ever so I thought I could treat myself on my 25th to a manicure for them.
We then took the skytain to Siam and went into Pizza Hut for a birthday pizza. I know its not Thai but we’ve been in Thailand for over a month and rice and noodles are lovely but its my birthday and i want grease and carbs!! After lunch we go to MBK, the massive shopping centre in Bangkok and I go and get my hair done. All the pampering today!! It’s dirt cheap to get your hair done here – i have colour put through my hair, the first time I have ever dyed my hair – very exciting. At the end of it – I love it! I actually love my hair for the first time. We get back to the hotel, go for cocktails and canapes, dress up and go to the ‘Mambo Cabaret’. This runs for about an hour and consists of girls and probably mainly boys dressing up as girls and miming to famous songs. Lip syncing is hillarious and they dance too. They do this to songs like Gwen Stefani’s ‘What you waiting for?’. Funny as. They are really glam though. After the show Janine had a picture taken with one of them – I managed to avoid this – there is something a bit creepy about it. We dived into a pub on the corner after this and the wonderful staff and manager there decided to play a little trick on us, saying that we had to pay a bill for some drinks we had had – even though we hadnt had any…anyway, it turned out to be a joke (they thought it was hillarious!). We got free drinks, cocktails, shots and champagne all evening. What a birthday!
Tags: Bangkok, birthday, Thailand, Travel
georgiebees
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