Travelling Thai style...
Trip Start
Oct 01, 2006
1
34
75
Trip End
May 17, 2007
Ayuthaya,
Thailand
Friday, January 19, 2007
We ended up deciding to just go to the train station ourselves (even though we had blatantly paid extra for them to take us there). We got a taxi in rush hour and took ages to get to the station. Once there, things improved. We got our tickets for the 3rd class section of the train, mixing it with the Thais. After a couple of tasy donuts for brekkie we got on the train. The journey has pretty good, except we were talked at in Thai for about 75% of the journey by a Thai bloke who stunk of whiskey. Nice enough guy mind, and it is the kind of experience that shows you are travelling, not "flashpacking" on air con buses!
We got to ayuthaya about 11.30am and checked into our lace, which turned out to be a hotel. Not the kind of places I want to stay in most of the time. Ah well. We dropped our stuff off and went for a wander into the town. We didn't do much sightseeing (other than the river our room overlooks), opting instead to take the place in. I'm trying to eat Thai food only so we went to a small guesthouse on the river for a snack, then went to the street stalls for some bbq grilled chicken on a stick. Pretty nice, excet they attracted the stray dogs that blatantly have rabies (and I haven't had the injection).
Unsurprisingly, the evening was passed by sampling a range of Thai beers, concluding that Leo beer is our preferred weapon of choice. Tried a Thai Red Bull too, which we hear has a few extra ingredients in it to keep you awake, but I still felt tired from the early start!
Today we went and visited the Ancient ruins, museum, and temples that pretty much dominate the city. The ruins date back to about 13th Century but they are still very impressive. All this sightseeing was done by bicycle, after hiring 2 for the day. It was good fun. Even though there seem to be no laws on the road it felt safe as everyone just swerves out the way!!! My newly cut-up t-shirt made a good vest and helped keep me cool - as cool as you can be in 35 degrees. The Buddhas and ruins were impressive so I'll get some pics up soon. Oh yeah, and I saw elephants! My ever-improving Thai is also helping us get a good reception with the locals. We got stopped at one of the ruins by some girls who were learning English so we had a mini Q&A with them. They seemed to enjoy the experience!!!
We have another early start tomorrow so we'll prob get on the beers to help us get to sleep earlier. We're heading on to Sukothai via Phitsanulok tomorrow to another part of the Ancient Kingdom. I'll update on my days there before we move on to Chiang Mai.
