Part XVI - Ayutthaya

Well peoples. I finally got out of the rut that was keeping me in Bangkok. I kept sleeping in past checkout time so would end up in town for another day. Theres only so much inspiration one can get from sitting on the pavement with a beer. Some people make a life of it, I'm not sure how they manage it, maybe I didn't drink enough beer. I did however get some good work done. Scary sight, a few days ago I went to reception and grandma was sitting there with no top on.

I am now in Ayutthaya, which was once the Thai capital until the Burmese laid waste to it. Which was a good thing from my perspective cos now theres lots of cool ruins there! I could easily imagine the sounds of the Burmese as they rampaged throught the place. Most people do Ayutthaya as as 500 baht day trip from Bangkok so you get to turn up with a whole lot of other tourists. I chose the more adventurous option. Catch a local bus and stay in town for a couple of days. Was easy as. I hired a decrepit old bike to get around on. The locations of the ruins are reasonably compact but it beats walking.














My guest house is quite nice lots of greenery about (see below). Luxury compared to my Bangkok digs. It is damn hot here, don't know how they could be arsed to actually wage war. Then again, setting elephants loose in the enemies capital would no doubt be quite entertaining. Better than a day in the rice paddies...















The net cafe is pretty sweet. Dirt cheap and has comfy armchairs. It full of kids playing games though, the only problem being is I can hear someone playing Red Alert and now I want to!

The bicycle is a highly underated mode of transport in this day and age me thinks. I it great fun to cycle drunkenly about town in the middle of the night. I managed to get some really tasty pad thai. Quite different ot the Khaosan Road variety, much tastier... then again, I'd had a couple of beers. I was in charge of the condiments at Khaosan too, come to think of it.

Hmm... the internet went down so its now 2 days later...

I know it was nawdy but... I snuck into the ruins cos they're heaps better at night.

I set off, beer in hand for the whole 5 minute walk to the nearest ruins. They look choice with the spot lights on them. I was walking along the outsite of Wat Carmina Burana and there was an old security fulla waking along there too. He new what was on my mind but I guestured that I was going to stay outside and walked all the way around which was worthy anyway.

Then I walked down the street to Wat Daphukisdat and it looked really inviting. I kept on wandering around the wall but when I got to the back the wall was low and I was up on it taking a pic anyway, so I climbed on in for a look around. There was an awesome atmosphere, intense, sneaking about from shadow to shadow. Security are lazy, they sit at their lit up little both near the gate and stay there. They're probably there mainly to stop the local kids from loitering about sniffing glue like at the first ruins I visited in town. Rubber cement seems to be the solvent of choice for the asian youth, I saw the little cans in Georgetown too. Any way, I spent about 2 hours wandering about the place. Found a really cool buddhas head crushed by tree roots and was lying down taking a photo when I got narked out by an astute dog. So I had to escape pronto and discretely scale the wall back to the street.

There are 6 internet cafes all in a row here and they seem to be full of kids and youths at any time of the day. Thought I'd avoid them by arriving in the morning, but no.

Hmm.. seem to have reached the photo limit. Time for another post.