As you know we took a taxi from Bangkok to our hotel in Ayutthaya. I do not recommend it, if you want to save money. I only recommend it if you need to be fast. We paid 1250 Bhat (33 Euro). And we made the driver a little bit nervous, because we both fell asleep during the drive.
The city is the former capital of Thailand before they made Bangkok to their new capital. As we drove into the city we saw so many parts of the old town. The people are living inside the ruins. They have huge parks with walled parts, that are parts of old palaces or temples or sacred districts.
The hotel turned out as hard to find. It was located a little bit outside of the old town, surrounded by jungle and only one sign at the entry. There were little huts and a bigger building with more rooms. The owner, a nice middle-aged lady, gave us a choice which room we wanted to take. We took upstairs the last room and it was the perfect decision. The room was not as spacious as the room in Pattaya, but we had two huge windows and a roof top terrace right out of the door. Unfortunately, the lady couldn’t speak English, but the Wi-Fi was strong in the hotel and we worked with Google translator to communicate with her. She has two dogs and a cat. One dog was sleeping at the stairs as we arrived. We asked her if we could pet the dogs, but sadly no. The hotel had an amenity, that we booked right away: laundry service! (No underwear, though.)
We were exhausted after another stressing day and I ordered food with an app. That food turned to be extremely spicy. We couldn’t eat it at all. We should have thought about that, since we are in Thailand and they seem to love spicy food. In the end we had to go to a nearby 7-eleven to grab some other food and get some breakfast.
At the first day we took it easy and went outside in the late afternoon. Before that we tried to settle in our new room, calm down and relax. Rob did some research on what we could visit. In the afternoon we went to grab some food and then went into a huge park. I guess, it was a park. There were a bunch of old temples and pagodas. One pagoda Rob climbed up to looked inside and startled some bats. As we walked further into the park we entered a small village-like quarter where we couldn’t go further. As we headed back in the direction of our hotel we found another temple. Unfortunately, we couldn’t go inside, because they were closing for the day. Those temples and Pagodas all belonged to the complex of old Ayutthaya.
The following day we went to the second temple again. It consisted of an area, where you could buy incense sticks and other stuff for the monks and pray at little statues of monks. Behind that was a huge, old temple. The outer walls and columns were still there, but the roof missing. In the back it had tress on the platform and gave a very jungle-like vibe. The entrance of this temple was blocked. However, there were some more pagodas and statues. The statues were a very interesting detail and I would see it throughout the whole archaeological park over and over again.
The statues are not built like we are used to it form other ancient societies like Rome, Greece or Egypt. In those cultures, statues are made from one – more or less – huge block of stone. Sometimes they are made of several huge blocks. But never have I seen statues with a core of bricks and outer layers of plaster that are shaped in the form of the statue. They did this with small statues and the statues of Buddha. Basically, they used the same technique as in building and decorating their architecture. While this technique is known from other cultures as well.
We went through the temple area to the huge park right next to it. The entrances were blocked, we entered anyways since we saw some people walking through the park. Also, there were no fences, only gates at the entrances. The first few minutes we kept our eyes open for guards, but there were none. We went on and found some pagodas and a big complex of buildings surrounded by a wall. Due to Covid-19 this complex was closed. Since the walls weren’t that high we could see what was going on inside. It was a temple complex.
Next to the complex was a little “mall” (some shops in a row) and a café. At the café we sat down, ordered some drinks and a piece of coconut cake. I am not a fan of coconut, but Rob is. Surprisingly, it was one of the best cakes I ever had. And I had a lot! As we sat there, talking, enjoying life, Rob pointed in the grass and said, that there was moving something. I turned my head and froze. It was a huge lizard. Not just any lizard, but it seemed to me like something of Komodo lizard. Nothing to joke around with. Later I learned, that there a several kinds of Monitor lizards (name of the family) all over Asia. This one was not a Komodo lizards, just a huge lizard. Though, it makes a cool story.
After our break and some rain, we went on to get back to our hotel. I must admit, if Rob is with me I don’t mind just walk with him and not care about how to get anywhere. Rob loves to do this planning. On our way back, we met a stray dog. As Rob tried to take a picture of him he barked and Rob put the camera down immediately. The poor dog had very bad experiences and we made our way carefully around him. While walking back a thunderstorm was coming up and after a quick visit at 7-eleven we needed to be fast. I must admit, I was a little bit afraid of the lightnings.
In the evening Rob felt nauseous again. But the next morning was the bigger problem, he couldn’t talk anymore, had a light fever and was coughing hard. He was sick. Again. And this time it was not just his stomach acting up a little bit, no he would be sick for at least a week. I didn’t want to leave him all by himself and concentrated on caring for him and working on some of my stuff. One thing was to pack a package to send to Germany. I read another Agatha Christie. I typed my notebook into my laptop. I had stuff to do. Then I hadn’t anymore. Rob was feeling bad that day and I felt frustrated and desperate, because I wanted to go out with him. I shed some tears and Rob and I had a serious talk about me being able to go out and see stuff. In the end I did it.
I walked around the park again, but went some other ways as before. I took a good bunch of pictures. I was fascinated by some trees that had scarfs rapped around the stems and little figures between their roots. The figures were horses, elephants and Buddhas in various shapes.
Then we had to leave Ayutthaya. Rob had searched for our options to get to our next destination – Chiang Mai. I underestimated how far away this city would be. Rob found an over-night-sleep-train. We booked tickets for the first class, which gave us privacy, whereas second class was one waggon full of beds. The price of the tickets was circa 3500 Bhat (93 Euro). At the day we would leave Rob was feeling very bad. Again. We could stay until 12 in our room and stayed for another few hours at the hotel. Then we got ourselves a taxi to get to the train station, where we waited several hours more, until our train arrived. Our tickets were at the train station, we just got the receipt from 12go.asia, that we had to show to get the tickets. Our train was due at 21:06, it arrived maybe half an hour later. The beds in the train were very comfortable, but we were missing blankets. If you are going by a train like this, prepare yourself with some clothes. They love the AC and Rob felt very bad after that night. Apart from the AC the train is very comfortable.
We should have arrived in Chiang Mai at 8:40, we left the train station around 11.30 the next day. While we were sitting in our compartment we watched outside and enjoyed the landscape. The train was passing through nature, a national park, small, rural villages and – cliché – rice fields with a lot of cows. I loved it. And if you are every going from Bangkok to Chiang Mai, take the train, over-night or not, you will have beautiful views.
I hope you are having a fantastic day!
-Toni
TAKE YOUR SHOES OFF 