Thai me kangaroo down, sport

Dates of travel: 08 February 2015 - 01 March 2015

Another week, another trip! Actually, that's not quite true. I was home for a good solid 2 weeks between the Philippines and this adventure. And 2 weeks is a long time to be at home on my calendar!

On February 8th, a week after "celebrating" my 31st birthday (seriously, 31?? When did that happen?!), I headed off to Thailand for a job. This one involved getting two new pieces of equipment up and running, so that meant an extended time in the one place. I was based in the town of Saraburi for 2.5 weeks, and booked into the Saraburi Inn.

I have stayed at this same hotel in the past, but that was before my days of blogging. Saraburi is not the most interesting of places to visit, because it is mainly an industrial area (hence why I was here). But for a non-tourist area, the Saraburi Inn is a more than adequate place to spend the night (or, in my case, the best part of a month). The main downside is that there isn't really a lot within walking distance to see or do, which made weekends a bit slow and my meal times a bit repetitive. There is an in-house restaurant which has a nice array of Thai, Chinese and Western dishes, but a lot of them, during my stay, were covered with "out of order" stickers. This meant that in 2.5 weeks, I had little trouble trying almost everything on offer.

My room for the stay was basic, but comfortable. I can't exactly complain when it cost the princely sum of about AU$40 a night. The bed was comfortable, the A/C worked (sometimes a little too well *brr*) and there was Wi-Fi available in the room for free. The quality and strength of the Wi-Fi did depend on your location in the room, though, as the routers are spaced along the hallway. Nevertheless, it certainly did the job well enough! Also offered in-room is a basic room service menu. At the time of writing this part of the post, I hadn't tried it, but let's see how I go further down the page!

At the ground level, below and amongst the guest rooms, there is a modest fitness centre for guest use. I try not to be complacent about my fitness (because, frankly, my fitness level is nothing to be complacent about!). As I mentioned, I have stayed here before, so I knew the gym was here and brought some appropriate clothes to make good use of it. I got off to a slow start: I had planned to get up and go for a run every morning before work, but on the first day, I got there about 6am to find all the power was off. I did end up going in the afternoon, but then the rest of the week, I got enough exercise on the job to drain me of energy! It wasn't until the first weekend (when everything was still off at 11am) that I found the power switch. If you're staying here and want to know where it is, it's the light switch/outlet on the divider wall (to the left of screen in this photo)!

Adjacent to the fitness centre, there is a Spa & Massage parlour, offering various treatments daily from 11am - midnight. I have been to (or transited through) Thailand 11 times now, but have never had the guts to go for a massage. I think it was mostly because I was concerned about what optional extras might be offered at the end... Thailand does have a reputation for that sort of thing, after all! But anyway, I gathered the courage to give it a go, as this hotel's facility did seem to be quite above board! For 300 Baht (a little more than AU$10), I was treated to a "normal room" full body (okay.. 95% body) massage that lasted about 90 minutes. It was indeed relaxing, but probably not quite as relaxing as I had expected. It was more-or-less like going to the physiotherapist and telling them that everything hurts. Legs, arms, shoulders, back, head and neck... she massaged the lot! It was a good experience, but did leave my calves a little stiff and sore the next day, along with a bruise on my knee; she didn't go easy!

The reception area of the hotel is set out very nicely, with a fountain and garden right in front of you as you enter. On first visit, it does make it a bit confusing as to where the check-in desk is, but just go around it and you'll get there! The pool in the middle is home to some gracious koi carp that swim around, oblivious to the world around them (as goldfish tend to be). Once you do get to the front desk, you will find a very warm welcome from the staff. Most of them speak rudimentary (or better) English, and are always willing to help as best they can.

This photo is me trying to be artistic! On the flight to Bangkok, I read a book called "Read This If You Want To Take Great Photographs." by Henry Carroll. One of the things it teaches you about is seeing the beauty of the world around you and identifying the leading lines that make for great photography. Do your eyes follow the staircase from the bottom left around the spiral to the right? Apparently, that's what a well composed photograph with leading lines will do: control your vision throughout the picture. So if I have done my job right... haha! Obviously, I still have a lot of practice to do, having never actually taken an art or photography class to date!

As I mentioned earlier, there is an in-house restaurant at the Saraburi Inn with a reasonably extensive menu. It's also the location for breakfast daily. The breakfast consists of a range of Thai/Asian and Western hot dishes, cereals, juices, fresh fruit, tea and coffee. All up, I have to say, it's been an enjoyable way to start my mornings. When it comes to dinners (and lunch on weekends, since I was here so long), I already mentioned a wide array of dishes. Obviously, I'm not going to put a photo of everything I ate, but here's a few to whet your appetite.

Spicy Egg Salad with Minced Pork

Fried Chicken with Cashews

Spicy Chinese Noodle Soup

One thing I have noticed with Thai food is that when they say "spicy", this is very much a blanket term and covers anything from a mild tingle all the way through to "my mouth is literally on fire". But drink enough Singha, and you can usually get through it okay!

Also a draw at the in-house restaurant (at least during my visit) was their giant prawns. As you can see from my hand (the only thing I had to put them in perspective), they are rather big. Possibly pumped full of hormones or who knows what... maybe they are natural. Whatever the case, they are absolutely massive. I'm not sure how many ways they get served up, but the overly-friendly-and-effeminate head waiter (seriously, if you stay here, you will know exactly who I mean!!!) offered them to me in a Tom Yum Goong soup. The soup itself is sweet and tasty, and quite spicy, and the prawn had a nice soak in the flavours.

As you can see, it takes up most of the bowl! I had this dish on my first night at the hotel, as the aforementioned waiter strongly recommended it. I then had it again a couple of nights later... and had, what I can only assume, was an allergic reaction to shellfish. I have never had any problem in the past with crab, prawns, etc; never tried lobster as you often need a second mortgage to buy lobster in Australia. But I had never had any kind of reaction. This time, however, the roof of my mouth swelled up, my gums itched and the insides of my cheeks felt like that were covered in some sort of acidic sand. These symptoms lasted until about halfway through the following day, and needless to say, it wasn't a pleasant experience! I opted to part ways with the giant prawn from that point onwards!

There's really only one other aspect of this hotel I haven't mentioned, and that would be the pool area. Just outside the gym and adjacent the carpark is the pool. I opted to spend about 1.5 hours relaxing on my Saturday afternoon in a reclined chair beneath the umbrella. The air was hot and thick, but a couple of quick dips in the water took care of that. The temperature was perfect; not cold, just cool and took the edge right off. It has a sloping floor - the end at the foreground of the photo would be about a metre deep while the other end was around shoulder-height on me, so that would be roughly 1.7 metres. I had the whole complex to myself on this occasion, which was nice. I kicked back with a book and enjoyed the warm Thailand afternoon.

Well, that's probably about all I have to say about this trip to Thailand. I have a week to go at the time of writing this. Next weekend, I will have one night in Bangkok before jetting off to South Africa. Hopefully I will see some stuff worth writing about in my short stay in BKK; if so, I will add it here!