Valentine's Day in Thailand.

Once I realized that we would be in Thailand for Valentine's Day I knew we had to do something special. We were already staying at a beautiful place that just screamed romance but we managed to make the day even better, believe it or not. To start I actually woke up as the sun was rising, naturally! To anyone that knows me, you know I'm no morning person, but this was so beautiful, it could wake even me... Miss "5 more minutes". Once I got outside I realized that our breakfast table had already been set with glasses, linens and cutlery. Now THIS is how to wake me up!!! Take notice world!

We lounged around for an hour or two until breakfast arrived right out front of our room. It was delish! Afterwards we were off to the spa for a two hour "Earth Herbal Detox" couples treatment that consisted of a coffee body scrub, herbal body wrap and hot herbal ball massage.

Our treatments were lovely and took place on the 3rd floor above the restaurant, overlooking the sea. To start off we were scrubbed head to toe in coffee grinds which felt soooo good on my itchy bug bites. We looked like we had just bathed in a coffee pot when we went to the shower, it took quite a bit of work to get it all off! Then we were covered in an herbal cream and wrapped up for 30 minutes while we enjoyed a nice scalp massage off and on. Just about as powerful as the first herbal body wrap I had, Byrd really enjoyed it too. So relaxing. We washed that off as well and after our third change of disposable underwear (which was see-through mesh, why bother?) we went back to the table to have steamed herbal ball massages. I was really looking forward to experiencing this since it was one of the few Thai treatments I hadn't yet experienced professionally. Since I do this treatment at home and had learned in Chiang Mai how to make them, I wanted to see first hand how it was done. I loved it. The therapist was very skilled and used the steam and herbs to warm up my muscles before pressing in deeper and really working out all the tension. One nice touch I may add to my treatments was as she was waiting for the ball to cool a bit to be able to work on my skin, she would place her palm on the ball to absorb the heat and then quickly replace her warm hand on my skin. She did this in a fast pattern as a nice opening sequence. She also worked very deeply with the balls which felt great and combined it with palming over the sheets and deep elbow presses. Even my husband who isn't a big fan of Thai massages loved it!

After our treatments we headed back to our room to chill out for a bit and then enjoyed a nice lunch in the restaurant looking out over the resort and ocean. We had some fancy cocktails and I tried out their version of a club sandwich that also included pineapple and an egg. It was actually really tasty and a nice change! We went back to our villa and they were already getting set up on the beach for our fancy dinner. I collected a bunch of jasmine flowers that had fallen from the jasmine tree next to our place and arranged them in our initials and then in a heart. I had watched the couple next to us doing the same thing the day before and thought it was really adorable. I didn't realize until later that jasmine flowers symbolize fertility! Uh oh! I rearranged the heart on the beach where we were all set up for our romantic beach dinner and we waited until it was time to dine, relaxing on our lounge chairs, talking about life and enjoying the day.

The wind was really picking up and the staff had a hard time keeping the candles lit but they kept trying anyways. No matter, as long as we could see what we were eating we were good. We had picked our dishes the night before, with ingredients being the only clue. A menu designed for love, served on the beach, how special is that? (the rosewater jelly was to die for btw...)

As the sun went down, it was time for dinner. And we weren't the only ones romancing at the resort, just before we headed to the beach Ryan Gosseling and Eva Mendez were walking up heading to their room. Apparently they were staying at the same place for a couple of days while he was filming a new movie in Bangkok. Geez - they let anyone in here! ;) A huge bouquet of flowers was taken to our table which was a nice surprise, until I realized a few days later that I had actually paid for them! They had sent us an email a week before we arrived asking us if there was anything they could set up for us before our arrival and I had mentioned that "flowers would be a nice touch". I didn't realize they would come out at dinner and cost me $40 though! Ah well... they were beautiful. I even pulled out a bunch and made a new smaller bouquet for the nice lady who served us who we lovingly nicknamed "Buffalo" after her reaction to our conversation about buffalo meat. She was adorable and worked so hard all night, I thought she deserved some flowers of her own. Dinner was excellent, we savoured every bite and talked long into the night about our future, our dreams and our relationship. Then after one dance on the sand, headed back to our porch to relax on the loungers, looking up at the stars. It was a Valentines we won't soon forget.