Bangkok - 21st June 2009

I woke up quite early today; around 5.30am, although not on purpose. I think I'd been quite consciously dreaming about monks so was in a very light sleep. I lay in bed for a few more minutes before going into the shower at 5.50am! (Am I insane?!) Lucy and Robbie were meeting me downstairs for breakfast at 7am, and so I thought it was a good opportunity to crack on with some more blog! (This seems to be quite a trend!) We sat down for breakfast, and my friend the cat (who I from this moment will name Banoffee, just to make things easier), sat on my lap! She is sooo adorable. I really want to take her home. She has such a lovely temperant, and her cry is so sweet! She's a lovely white and ginger/toffee colour. I had two slices of toast, and some coffee; each time I lifted the food to my mouth Banoffee looked up to me, it was so adorable! The coffee was amazing too. We got a pink taxi to the train station, where we got 20 Baht tickets to the old capital of Ayutthaya. Lucy and Robbie both bought a waffle each which looked, and tasted, delicious. The train was absolutely packed and so we were forced to stand for the whole hour and 20 minute journey. I managed to find a box that I could sit on, which I was glad of as I was feeling a bit sick which made me worried about having bad effects from the malaria tablets, although thankfully I think it was just the heat. The journey was pretty exhausting as there was no air conditioning, and just a few fans on the ceiling. A few people were walking up and down the carridges with buckets full of ice and various drinks for sale, as well as various preprepared snacks.We past through a bit of countryside and there was nothing much of excitement on the way, a few train stops but that was all. We were unsure where to get off so asked a lady, to let us know, which was rather handy. At the station a man got into conversation with us about going on a tour and what there was to see in Ayutthaya; he turned out to be a tuk tuk driver, and offered us a 4 hour tour for 400 baht each which wasn't too bad. The day was a bit of a whirlwind as we saw so many things! The tuktuk was thankfully bigger than usual, so we had two rows of seating facing each other inwards from the traffic, rather than the usual facing the direction of the traffic which is a bit of a squish. I was sitting closest to the back of the tuktuk, and when we set off I nearly fell out! It was a bit more thrilling being able to see all the traffic behind us. When we went over a bump in the road, Robbie, the tallest of all of us, kept bumping his head; which I found strangely hilarious! (think it might have been an effect of the heat, making me a bit bonkers!)
One of the first stops was at Wat Yai Chai Mongkhon; costing us 10 Baht entrance fee. It was a really tall temple with Buddha's outside with orange saches on. We were able to climb up quite a few weirdly shaped dipping steps to where various Buddhists were visiting 9 Buddha's and sticking on gold-leaf to restore their colour. I'm not sure of the significance but it seems to be quite a common practice. The view was magnificant from the top. There were also a smaller temple nearby where we went inside and there were lots of Buddha's praying towards a golden Buddha. Outside was a river, and there seemed to be a slight theme of roosters. This was due to a King, who was historically significant, loving cock-fighting according to the tuktuk driver. There were quite a few dogs roaming around, unfortunatly one of which, had several growths growing on her body which looked a bit painful/uncomfortable.
We passed a monument dedicated to the King, which was surrounded by hundreds of roosters; some of which were in a mosaic tile style of gold or silver.
Next stop was Ayutthaya Historical Park where Wat Mahathat was; this entrance was 50 baht. This was very old delapidated; it must have been hundreds of years old. It was really quite beautiful although due to the heat we weren't in the best state to enjoy it. It was quite interesting seeing old temples though.
Next up was Wat Phu Khao Thang where we crossed a small river with some fish in. It was a very tall, white building which thankfully we weren't able to climb up; it would have been way too exhausting anyway!
We went to another temple where inside there was a Big Gold Buddha. On the way up to the temple there were various people trying to sell us things. They had various tactics including pretending to have lost their lower limbs, making incredibly noisy noises with their "frog immitation noise' toy; it was sooo annoying, I'm surprised the person selling them wasn't going insane!! I'm not sure how exciting we found this temple as it was a lot like many others we'd seen. We did however, happily walk around outside as there was a market. I bought a couple of things; a present for Anna and a painting (which today I realised was a very common item! I hate it when that happens, it's still pretty though). Lucy and I had a go at talking loudly in order to get the seller to put the price down a bit but it didn't work too well. On some of the other stalls all I had to do was stand there and they were going down in price at a quick pace; it wasn't even the price that was bothering me though! I just felt I couldn't safely carry the elephant-shaped-coconut lamp home. Entertaining the market visitors was a young girl playing a cello-like instrument; the sort I've seen before in Singapore. It wasn't awful but it wasn't that special either.
The tuktuk man had bought us some pineapple chunks in a bag, which Lucy and I ate; it was absolutely delicious; best ever I would say! We ate it as we drove along in the tuk tuk which was a bit of a heath and safety hazard; as when we came up to a bump we were at risk of stabbing ourselves with the skewer!! Lucy stabbed her hand and I almost ended up with it through the roof of my mouth; thankfully there was no major incident!
Next stop was to a Reclining Buddha which was gigantic! We'd seen a smaller one at one of the temples earlier in the day, but this one was massive in comparison. It was mainly stone-coloured but some of it had gold-leaf stuck on it. We were sold for 20 Baht a flower and incense sticks to give as an offering to Buddha. It was quite fun; nice to be able to join in with the offerings. We were also given a piece of gold leaf to stick on the Buddha. The lady who showed us to the Buddha exstortionatly (sp?) sold us a little charm at a bit of a rip off price. To be honest we hadn't really wanted it, and she didn't really pressure us that much; I'm not sure why we did get it!
At the last temple, the tuk tuk driver bought us each a huge bottle of cooled water which was really appreciated! We were drinking plenty throughout the day, but it's a real treat to have something ice cold!
It was almost the end of the trip, and so he said he'd drop us somewhere where we could have lunch. We gave him 500 Baht each, so a bit of a tip for him. The place he had taken us to for lunch was really nice; it was a floating platform on a river. I had rice and vegetables, with some lemonade which was all delicious. I felt a bit sea sick as whenever a boat passed, the whole platform rocked up and down!
There was a girl celebrating her birthday at another table. Her family sang Happy Birthday in English which was a bit random! They sung it in a much more jazzier way than the Brits do though!
A smallish boat passed, chugging away, which was tugged 4 huge carridges of cargo! It was a really peculiar sight! No idea how the poor boat managed it! There were also some locals on canoes, paddling using just a long stick, with no flat bits to it!
We then walked to the station where I was feeling a bit grumpy due to period pain. It didn't help that after paying 1.5pence for using the toilet it was an annoying crouch toilet!
The station was a bit crazy!; we had to walk across the tracks to get to our platform. On the train, yet again, we didn't get a seat, so decided to sit on the floor. We all got our books, notebooks etc out to kill a bit of time. People looked at us as if we were a bit random when I took a photo of the others!
We got back to the hostel and had a game of ludo; which I won; yay!! I had a shower, which was such a nice feeling after being extremely hot, sweaty and generally feeling disgusting. I was quite pleased that I managed to keep up to date with washing of clothes and washed a few more things.
I put on my dress and we headed out in search of a restaurant we'd read about in Lucy's guide. The tuk tuk driver dropped us off in a very touristy area! We weren't surprised we hadn't seen many tourists out and about; they were all living it up in this area!! There were lots of lively cafes and although we didn't manage to find the restaurant we'd planned on going to, we managed to find another nice one. I had a pizza which was absolutely delicious, and also a strawberry shake which was amazing too!! We then had a bit of a let down of a coffee which tasted rather disgusting, followed by a Sex on the Beach, which was quite nice, although I wasn't able to drink all of it. I came to a bit of a problem when paying the bill, as the lady was standing over me and so I couldn't delve into my bra, and when I did, I still needed to hoick my dress up to get to my money belt, which I definetly wouldn't have managed to do discretely! I had to escape to the toilet briefly! We then went upstairs to use the internet before heading back to the hostel.