World Thailand Ayuthaya

Andrew & Meaghans S.E.A. Travel Adventures 2008

March 14-15 : Bangkok to Ayuthaya Mar 15, 2008

On the move from the south towards the North! After packing up in Ko Lanta, we got breakfast at a little restaurant behind our guesthouse (really a bamboo hut). At breakfast Andrew challenged the little boy behind the counter to a game of connect four which happened to be sitting on the table, and he obliged. After getting whooped in the first game, the competitive side came and and he made a comeback to beat the kid six times in a row (nice guy!), but both sides were having fun so it didn't matter who won or lost! The minibus picked us up and took us to Trang, where we caught a night bus to Bangkok. We grabbed a bite to eat at the bus terminal and loaded up for the long 12 hour bus ride. Andrew definitely got the short end of the stick for this ride though, as there was a mother with a young baby sitting right behind him (Meaghan got the seat across the aisle). Feeling sick from the smell of baby vomit hanging on the back of his seat and constantly getting poked in the back of the head everytime the lady grabbed his seat to readjust, sleep only came in bouts of 1-2 minute intervals! After pulling into Bangkok for the first time at about 5:30am we decided to wait until it was light out to go find the Myanmar embassy. After find and getting on the bus we needed, our Bangkok journey began. Two buses later our bus hit a guy on a scooter, so on to the third bus (traffic is CRAZY) where we were met a young guy around 19 who started helping us get to our destination (now into a cab for 40baht and a 2 block ride) we were roughly where we wanted to go and the guy left us but not before asking for our email. Meaghan gave him not her own, but Andrews and we have since recieved an email from him sayaing he misses us and can't wait to see us again...little strange but whatever! Back to the journey...After walking a couple of blocks we were there, but poor planning and a lack of ability to tell one day from the other, we realized it was Saturday and the embassy was closed until Monday. Without a second thought we made our way to the train station to head toward Chiang Mai up north. So will try again for a visa when we come back to Bangkok. On the way to Chiang Mai we stopped off at a city called Ayuthaya for a day trip. It was one of the old Thai capitals until it got taken over. So we dropped off our gear at a bike shop and rented some sweet 10 speeders to tour around the city/ruins. The were old and actually only had one speed but did the job! We biked around for about 6-7 hours seeing most of the sites. The first spot we stopped had a buddah head that had been engolfed by a tree, a pretty cool site to see and a neat picture! Along the way we passed various other modes of transportation used to get around the city including elephants with people on their backs (glad we didn't get stepped on!) At one ruin an old lady came up to us with a lotus flower, three incense sticks, a candle, and a piece of gold leaf (apparently a prayer kit) and wanted us to pray. We didn't really want to but, she basically insisted, so we gave it a go. Potentially a money grab as we had to pay her for the stuff, but she did all the praying so we just went along for the ride, a unique experience none the less...it must have affected Andrew as at the next site Andrew took the praying position but the camera caught him looking at it smiling instead of praying (nice try though!). After returning our bikes we proceeded to the train station to wait for our sleeper train and a well deserved rest before arriving in the Northern capital of Chiang Mai.