Ayutthaya; the new Sukhothai.

3rd November 2012 

As I write this Blog I'm sitting on a sleeper train to Bangkok, which wasn't in the itinerary but it's pretty cool so I thought I'd mention it – but more on that later. Today we had to be up and at the Stray office for 8am, so once again I reluctantly dragged myself out of bed. Once up and ready we met our guide and fellow travellers – basically Stray is a hop-on-hop-off bus. They have their own mini buses but they also use local transport to get you from A to B. They also have their own stops which are off the beaten track so you can see more of the country you're actually visiting. The concept is the same as Stray New Zealand and the Kiwi Experience which I took while on my Gap Yah but it's only just began in Asia so everything is new and exciting. At the office we got a taxi to the local train station and after getting some traditional Thai breakfast, a KFC (which was excellent and a bargain at just under £2 for a Zinger meal), we boarded our first train to Ayutthaya. 

The journey was an hour and a half and even though most people were sleeping Rory and I couldn't help but look out the windows, which mainly showed how huge Bangkok is and how poor people can be. I did take a short video but Blogger isn't co-operating tonight. 

We eventually arrived in Ayutthaya and made our way to a local guest house for a light snack (fried rice this time, so we're getting more exotic) and to rent our bicycles for the day. We were meant to go to Sukhothai today but the route has changed and Ayutthaya offers the same thing, ruined temples, but perhaps with fewer people. It was actually the second capital of Thailand after taking over Sukhothai, only to be replaced by Bangkok but it was definitely worth the trip. I got off to a rocky start and while I initially thought I was super unfit, I soon realised that my bike had a punctured tyre and the gears didn't work. I promptly swapped with Rory who then fobbed the bike off on the tour guide and began having a much better time. It was ridiculously warm and we completely forgot to put suncream on but that was the least of our safety related worries. In an attempt to save a few Bhat (literally 6Bhat which is less than 10p) we decided to forgo the easy route to the temple and instead took the main road. No joke. I was cycling along on my little broken bicycle while traffic sped past on all sides. This might seem dramatic but it really was a motorway, well, there were four lanes of traffic so I'm counting that as a motorway. At one point we had to negotiate a roundabout and I was not a happy bunny to say the least.

One of the few quiet roads.

Despite the transport disaster the temples were very impressive. I've taken a lot of pictures and a few videos so I'll let you see for yourself! I doubt my amateur “point and shoot” photography does the ruined city/temples justice but you get the idea...

(These stray dogs hang around the temples, eating the food  people leave for the Monks as the Monks can't eat it themselves.)

The temples were spread across a relatively small area and we cycled to each complex and by complete chance, we passed these little rascals! After taking lots of pictures, I began to cycle off keeping an eye on a massive, fully tusked elephant who should have been turning right but instead decided to have a good look at me, whipping his big head, long trunk and pointy tusks right in front of me. The mahout riding the elephant gave a good shout but I had no option but to speed up, suck in and hope I survived my close encounter with Mr Elephant. Thankfully I did but I was less than a foot from this elephant who, if he had of moved just a few inches, could have impaled me!

In an attempt to avoid the long cycle back we all splashed out the 6Bhat and got the boat across the river to the guesthouse where we showered and had dinner.

I'm not sure what I was happier about, the noodle soup or the shower. Probably the shower. It was basic but cold and after a day of cycling about in the heat, it was amazing. When we were all reasonably well cleaned and groomed we made our way back to the train station where we boarded this, a sleeper train to our next destination, Chang Mai! The train is actually really nice. We're in second class and everyone has their own top bunk with a curtain, light and fresh, clean bedding – we actually saw the train man take our sheets and pillow cover out of the packet and put them on our bed. While we were waiting for this to happen we began chatting to our Stray guide who is really nice and super friendly – so much so that we ended up chatting to a bunch of Thai people and by chatting I mean she was chatting and Rory and I were smiling stupidly at them. It's only about 10pm but I think I'm going to try get some sleep, the train gets in at around 8am and we have a busy day ahead of us! All in all this has been a pretty great day – fingers crossed Stray can keep it up and earn the money I forked out on this bus pass!