Reclining Buddha, Massage And Cake

After lunch we head to Wat Pho – a much quieter set of temples and to the Wat Phra Chetuphon – that houses the immense reclining Buddha. I have never seen anything like this in my life and let out an audible gasp at his sheer gold leaf covered size. The rest of the grounds are lovely too, all restored recently to their original glory and looking amazing. Again, with the constant gawping, looking up, photo taking and walking in the heat we were getting a bit weary.

Time for a massage! Where else better to have a Thai massage than here, in Bangkok. The hotel spa was offering traditional massages for about 25000 Baht (£500), so that was out of the question. Around where we were (though actually very difficult to find) was the Thai massage school, which offers massages for a fraction of the price at the Mandarin, so we walk up and down these small lanes trying to find this place, and (with the help of a local) eventually we do.

Even though I have broken my ‘phobia’ of massages with the Balinese one I had in Langkawi, I am only game for a 30 minute Thai one – I have seem the various caricatures advertising massages on the streets, with legs behind heads etc. We are led into a large room with a load of beds and other people being pummelled and pulled about and are invited to lie down amongst them all (not quite the Mandarin, I expect).

Very soon my masseur expertly un-knots all my tension in my shoulders and back and pulls me about a bit on the bed. It was bliss – there were a couple of points where I wanted to punch him in the head as he dug his fingers into my legs, but overall it was great. As he moves his hands down my back to my arse I am trying not to giggle as I think I am going to fart. Mind over matter… and I avoid trumping, which would have totally upset the ambience in this extremely chilled out room.

Muscles all worked over, we head back to a café we’d spotted on the quest to find the school and have a coffee sitting on the river in the sun. We were about to leave for the hotel to freshen up for tonight when Kerrie mentions that the cafe does lovely cakes, so we stayed a bit longer and indulged ourselves in a calorific feast of caramel cake and blueberry cheesecake. Yum.