Fabulous Friends & Food (FFF)

We are very much looking forward to today as we have arranged to meet with our adopted Thai daughters (Drs K and P) for dinner this evening.

As we are going out later, we decide to have a fairly lazy day today in preparation, so a little bit of computer stuff, tidying up the apartment, reading our books, going for a swim, a trip to Custard Nakamara (R has almost fully completed his loyalty stamp card already which gives you an idea of just how awesome this place is!) and getting ready – aaah the life of a retiree… 😊

We don’t need to concern ourselves with S & Ms R as they are totally independent of us, and they normally plan out their day the night before. That said, we are all able to sort of keep track of where we are via the 360 app, which we are signed up to. Funnily enough, the girls came home the other day, and we were able to deduce from their movements that they had gone in the wrong direction with the BTS on their way home. I’m sure they would never have admitted to this faux pas if we hadn’t seen their erroneous location on the 360 app.

We deliberately had not informed our Thai friends that we were coming to Bangkok as we wanted to surprise them (and have a chance to get over our jet lag!).

We had planned to take them to Sri Trat Restaurant and Bar, which we had been to previously and really enjoyed (and it was very close to our apartment). The restaurant is lovely, the food is delicious, and it gets great reviews. Sadly, we could not get a booking for the when we were looking for, so we had to find an alternative restaurant. The plan was that the girls would park the car in the car park at the apartment, and we could have a quick chat before walking to the nearby restaurant. However, the traffic is quite horrendous in Bangkok (especially if travelling by car), so the girls had quite a journey to get to us and were coming straight from their work (so it was a very long day for them). We did feel quite bad about this as we hadn’t realised that the day after was a holiday (Father’s Day) in Thailand and that a lot of government-type places would be closed for a long holiday weekend. Dr K was heading back to her hometown on Friday, so it was a slightly rushed meet-up, but one that we very much appreciated.

Due to traffic and timings, we ended up meeting the girls at the At-Ta Rote restaurant. Of course, the girls slagged us off a little about taking them to a Thai restaurant, but R countered that he couldn’t find any suitable haggis-inspired restaurants in Bangkok for them 😊. We had a variety of dishes (which Drs K & P helped to order – ensuring we didn’t order anything too spicy to handle!) and we really enjoyed it all.

It was so, so lovely to see and talk to these amazing ladies again. They are just delightful (and so funny too!)  I just love the cartoon photo that they created whilst we were with them - it is so, so cool and even down to the design of my top - so, so creative and funny! We had a fabulous evening with them – It is easy to see that R is very proud of them. So, if you are reading this, “thank you, ladies – we adore you both very much!”

We exchanged some small gifts (yes, the girls were very naughty again!) and have made a tentative date for a future catch-up in January before we leave Bangkok. They insisted on dropping us back at the apartment, even though the traffic was still terrible, and then they had a long drive home – hopefully they will get a bit of a longer lie-in tomorrow…

What a great end to the day. Yet another reason to embrace travel, early retirement, and the connections you make along the way.

Day 10, 4 December 2025

Bangkok, Thailand