(Written by Luke, with comments from Nicola)
Summary
Thursday 8th September - day 7
First train - Bangkok to Ayutthaya
Stay at Nakara Hostel
Banging croissant
Wat Mahathat
Nicola caught in the rain without a paddle
Night market
Friday 9th September - Day 8
Luke's birthday
Pokémon Wat - cycle tour of the city
Saturday 10th September - day 9
Low energy day - coffee shops and travel planning / writing
Chronicle
Onwards from Bangkok to Ayutthaya and our first train of the trip. Turns out Thailand trains are pretty easy and the second class AC coach makes it pretty comfortable. Train was a little late but not dramatically so. We had purchased our tickets the day before (believe foreigners can only do this the day before?) so as to not have any panic the day of. Only 1.5hrs there.
At the station we easily managed to hail a Tuk Tuk and took us to Nakara Hostel (again booking.com sorting us out). The room was much bigger than the Kanchanaburi box (21m^2 vs 9m^2) with a requirement to take shoes off which was a new one. Lovely staff at the hostel and they suggested a route for the temples and bikes for the day after.
A further suggestion from the hostel guys was a coffee shop. We had an absolute banging cheese/ham/bacon croissant, which it turns out was much needed after all the rice.
Across the road from the coffee shop was the main tourist attraction in the city being Wat Mahathat. Ayutthaya is an old ruined city that was the old capital of Siam until the early 1800’s when the Burmese invaded and levelled the city. What is left is pretty incredible, and consists of quite beaten red stone brick monuments called Wats (temples) throughout the city. We wondered over to Wat Mahathat (costs 100THB / £2.50 for entry) with a famous Buddha head that a tree had grown around.
In typical rainy season fashion the heavens opened up mid to late afternoon. Unfortunately for Nicola she was lacking a rain coat so we had to try camp out to let it pass. After waiting 20 minutes there was absolutely no sign of that happening, and Luke wanting to carry on with the day somewhat, panic shopped for an umbrella. We continued our afternoon in the torrential rain and essentially waded through a flooded park nearby. Pretty terrible idea, so hailed an emergency Tuk Tuk home.
With the heavens dying down somewhat we decided on a quick walk round the park again & an early night market expedition. In recurring fashion, Nicola continued her panic browsing of the street food and desire to eat some of the curries but quickly u-turning for fear of consuming some weird and wonderful part of an animal or flossing with a chicken foot- vegetarian options are few and far between. Luke’s a simpler being and will happily settle for what he thinks won’t kill him. So once again Nicola eventually settles on rice and chicken.
Not one of the most romantic dinners we have ever eaten - we ended up sitting in the hostel in the dark as we for for love nor money could not turn the lights on. In addition to this Nicola managed to get bitten about 7 times in the process (and they were swellers) so we ran away fearing for our limbs.
Happy birthday to me. As Nicola likes to remind me, I'm travelling at 31 but likely to be slogging it round with those over a decade younger. I had a card from my dad to open and Nicola quickly wrote a stick figure one when I was in the shower but was enough to make me remember it was some sort of day to celebrate. Personally, I completely forgot about it till a couple days before.
The days plan however was a good one. Big fan of cycling and this was a ‘good’ city to be doing it in by Thailands standards)… the place is still terrifying with weird junctions, big multi lane carriageways but as I’ve found you basically just need balls of absolute steel. My bike was a piece of shit without a rear brake and a barely functioning front one so it was a good thing we weren’t planning to tear it round the city. Fortunately Nicola’s worked fine.
The plan was to cycle around the many Wats (temples) in the ruin city by bike all before it was supposed to downpour in the lateish afternoon. Therefore I decided to create a game out of it called ‘Pokémon Wat’. Essentially try and catch them all either by walking around, taking pictures or generally flying by on the bike. We failed quite miserably in this.
We stopped off in a local restaurant for some food later in the Wat trip which involved Nicola trying a Thai green curry that both made her sweat and snivel from heat and spice. Quite amusing to watch.
Asses feeling numb and Luke looking like a drumstick lollipop from lack of sun cream (he will be hideous by the time we get to a place where he can even out that horrific lighthouse body contrast), we decided on a fancier coffee place for a chill before getting ready to go out for dinner.
Sadly Luke’s stomach started doing bad things. Fortunately there was a level of control still in place unlike his unfortunate time with Delhi belly while commuting across a large part of India a few years back, so still he managed to make it out for dinner. Food was aite but both weren’t feeling like a party (doesn’t really seem like the place) so decided to defer the wavy celebrations for the islands.
On the next day Nicola's energy levels were not there. Usually she rallies post breakfast but after the cycling yesterday (with remnants of a chaffed ass lingering) she wasn’t feeling energised. After the breakfast meal we tried cycling to the Japanese Village about 6km away but were hit with an 8 lane dual carriageway and no footpath, which we had to merge in the middle of. Luke is a moron and would happily cycle through that, whereas this was too far for Nicola and we sensibly decided ‘fuck that’. The city was much busier as it was Saturday and Nicola found the whole cycling experience pretty stressful.
The rest of the day we decided to just relax and take it easy. No more Wats (will see plenty in Sukhothai), chill in air coned coffee shops / bars and eat food. Lastly pack for our early start and long bus travel tomorrow.
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