As usual we knew little about what to expect at Ayuthaya except that there were a number of ruined temples there. Ayuthaya was the capital of Thailand from 1350 until 1767 when the Burmese invaded. It turned out that the ruined temples were much more impressive than we expected and, much like Rome, were scattered amongst a modern city. We spent the day cycling from temple to temple, and enjoying the quite different architectural style to that we had seen throughout the rest of SE Asia.
After a hard day's sightseeing, we found a nice restaurant and were reminded of just how many chillies the Thais put in their food. We were also serenaded by the acoustic musical talents of "Mr Noi" on stage singing a randon assortment of songs.
The next day we decided to head to Pak Chong to visit Khao Yai national park. Before we left town we had some shopping to do and John wanted to get his hair cut (JH - after being turned away from 2 hairdressers, unwilling to accept the challenge, I found a third who was willing to work with such limited resources. For three quid I got a cool haircut, the best head massage ever and was told I was "very handsome man"...money well spend I think!).
The lonely planet handbook/bible reliably informed us there were many trains throughout the day to Pak Chong so we rocked up at the station at lunchtime, only to be told "no train til 5 o'clock and no seats on train". We bought standing tickets anyway as we had been told this before only to find lots of seats on the train. After a leisurely three hour lunch we returned to the station to find the train was a further 20mins late.When it did arrive it was totally rammed and we had to force our way on with our packs. However, as usual, the Thais were most friendly and even made space in the luggage area for Sarah to sit down!
We were surrounded by a group of young Thai guys (plus one long-suffering girlfriend) who bought bottle after bottle of cheap Thai whiskey from the train food and drink vendors as they pushed their way through the throngs of people in the aisle. One of the group (the ringleader perhaps) looked just like a Thai Lenny Kravitz, complete with dark glasses worn into the night, an afro and a guitar. After much gesturing and laughing John was offered slugs of the whiskey (girls are not allowed to partake in this it seemed) and were given delicious pieces of BBQ'ed chicken on sticks (with feet still attached!). Not wanting to appear rude, we bought a bottle of the whiskey ourselves, and proceeded to pass that round. The three hour train journey turned out to be great fun and when we finally got off the train we waved goodbye to our newfound friends who were drunkenly wishing us happy new year out of the train window!
On exiting the train we were accosted by a guy and girl offering a hotel and tours to the park. We are usually a bit wary of this kind of thing but they were not very pushy and in our tired state we accepted and were taken to a really lovely hotel a little way outside the town. After chatting with the guy we agreed to go on a tour of the park tomorrow after which they will drop us at the park campground where we will hopefully spend a few nights, including new year's eve. So tomorrow we look forward to some trekking, visiting the waterfall claimed to be the one in the film "The Beach" and hopefully seeing some more wild elephants and other wildlife. Who knows, we may even use our tent for the first time!
