Central Thailand: Bangkok and Ayutthaya
From the modern and very crowded City of Bangkok, to the calm, ancient City of Ayutthaya, one factor remained true for both: we weren’t short of temples to visit!
The eleventh night of the eleventh month marks the day of the inevitable overnight bus journey that Tor had been dying to do ever since we got to Asia, much to my dismay. All things considered, though, like the planet dying from pollution and all, I decided to embrace the 10 hour land trek to Bangkok rather than a 1 hour flight. All in all, I must admit that it wasn’t all that bad. We got the bus around 8pm and arrived in Bangkok at 6am. To my shock, I slept for the majority of the ride and they provided us with snacks and water - which Tor spewed up about 5 minutes before we arrived as they suddenly developed travel sickness…
Smiling through gritted teeth
We thought the place would be dead at 6am but boy were we wrong! It was absolutely buzzing. Music and karaoke blasting from every bar, strangers snogging outside of nightclubs, a crying 20-something year old American girl with mascara all down her face trying to get a boy to go home with her, annnnnd an alligator on a spit (obviously). Talk about sensory overload. Thankfully the hotel was only a 10 minute walk from the bus, so we hot-footed it out of the madness and checked in.
The hotel was in an alleyway which absolutely stunk. It was so pungent that I was physically sick one day (turns out there’s been a lot of vomiting so far in this blog! Apologies). There was also a grave misunderstanding about the room… They’d put us in a family room and were trying to tell us that the next day, we’d need to change rooms to the double that we’d booked. However, as language barriers would have it, we failed to grasp that, and went to the market the next day instead. I remember one member of staff being particularly outraged at the fact we hadn’t moved, and told me that if we slept in any beds other than the double bed, we would be charged! Note to self: don’t fall out with Tora tonight because the twin beds in the room are out of bounds. I did offer to move there and then but she said no, she’d already given our room to someone else. Somehow, I feel like this wasn’t a ‘me’ problem!
Anyway, prior to that interaction, and blissfully unaware of the fury back at the hotel, we hopped on a bus to Chatuchak Weekend Market; the largest market in Thailand. Upon arrival at Chatuchak Market, we couldn’t believe the size of the place! It has over 15,000 stalls! Most of it was indoors, and the whole place was divided up into sections you’re meant to be able to refer to on the map (we couldn’t work it out). There were walkways in between each of the sections, and just thousands of people taking in all the items for sale. We walked for hours and I still think we only saw maybe a quarter of the whole thing. The sections were all themed, too. So, there was a whole homeware section, loads of clothes sections, bags, hats, tea and coffee, cookery, hardware, the list goes on. We bought some clothes and gifts for people back home, then sat down to some spring rolls from a food vendor and finished off with a beer.
We decided to get the train back into town, and Tora thought it’d be good to get off a few stops early so we could have a look around Chinatown and have dinner. I know I’ve mentioned the smells already in this blog, but Christ, it stunk. I don’t know if I was just tired, hot and feeling a bit sickly anyway, but I was literally gagging every two - three minutes. Needless to say, our appetites had gone and we skipped merrily back to the area of our hotel. I say merrily, I spent most of that journey gagging too, because every river/canal we walked over was so smelly as well. There was no hope. We decided a couple of pot noodle things from the local 7/11 would be the safest option, and we’d just have them in our room back at the hotel.
Well, that would be if we had a kettle. But no. So, I popped down to reception to see if there was any way of boiling some water for our noodles and this is where I felt the wrath of the receptionist regarding room-gate. After that pleasant chat, I had to stand waiting for the water to boil while I felt her eyes burning into the back of my skull. Honestly, a kettle has never taken so long to boil!
The reason we were so desperate to line our stomachs was that we were meeting up with an old friend of mine, Alex, from back home. Me and him have known each other since we were literally born because our parents were best friends from school! It was so lucky that we were going to be in the same place at the same time, and Bangkok of all places! He was staying in the well-known hostel chain ‘Mad Monkey’ and they were putting on a bar crawl that night. Given Alex’s Instagram stories, I knew it wasn’t going to be a tame night! We went to the hostel and immediately were given some shots then we had some beers while I introduced Tora and Alex, and caught up with him about his life in Australia and his recent travels. It was so so good to see him again and know he was doing well for himself. He introduced us to a few people he’d met in the hostel and we were joined by more people. All 80 (yes, 80) of us were gathered up by our rep for the evening, had more shots poured down our necks (literally… from a man standing on a chair… pouring sambuca out of the bottle… down our necks) then headed out for the night to the infamous Khao San Road..
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First picture, left to right: Me, my mam (Lesley), Alex’s mam (Juliet), my Uncle Billy, Alex
We were absolutely hanging the next day, and with the stench of the alleyway awaiting our hotel exit, we didn’t want to leave. Lucky for Tora, I had an appointment to get my dreadlocks tidied up, so I had to leave while they lounged around in their pit. I have to say, the pain I felt during that dreadlock session was some of the worst pain I’ve ever felt. It does usually hurt, but with a hangover as well… It was pure torture. The poor man doing my hair kept apologising as my face couldn’t hide the pain and my body was squirming all over the seat. The only saving grace was a Korean rom-com series I’d chosen to watch on Netflix. It was terrible, but soothing and distracting nonetheless.
The next day, we were feeling a lot more fresh and decided to have a wholesome day and go and do some cultural activities. This meant starting with a nutritious breakfast at a lovely little vegan cafe close to the hotel, then sauntering around town and visiting the temples. Well, it was boiling. We did one temple and simply had to stare at the other one from a rooftop bar across the river. We did try though! The temple we did actually make it to was Wat Pho, or commonly just called The Reclining Buddha Temple. Guess why. The Buddha, that is reclining, is 15m high and 46m long! It was absolutely massive, and very hard to photograph! Wat Pho isn’t just about the reclining Buddha, though. It is in fact a huge complex with many buildings and structures there. It houses over 1000 Buddha statues and covers an area of 80,000 square metres! One interesting building is the medicine pavilion, which is considered the first public university in Thailand. It’s taught subjects like science, religion and literature since it was built, but in the 1950s, it also started teaching traditional Thai medicine and massage. According to Wikipedia, Wat Pho has trained more than 200,000 massage therapists who practise in 145 countries.
In the blistering heat, and having walked to and around the temple grounds, we absolutely could not be bothered with visiting any more. We slipped off to a rooftop bar where we could see Wat Arun standing proud in all its glory. It was spectacular, to be fair, but we certainly appreciated it more from where we were than if we’d made the pilgrimage over the river to see it up close. We also had in our minds that we were going to Ayutthaya the next day, which is full of temples and we didn’t want to sicken ourselves.
With that, we checked out of the hotel the next morning leaving the ever-smiling staff behind and jumped in a taxi to Ayutthaya - a city just 50 miles north of Bangkok.
Our hotel was so pleasantly surprising! The room was nice, clean and basic, but the outdoor area was absolutely beautiful. They had swings, hammocks, seating areas with little tables, relaxing music playing, water features, trees and all sorts of other things that scream tranquillity. Coming from where we’d just been, it was pure heaven.
The Historic City of Ayutthaya is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and UNESCO has written this about it:
“The Historic City of Ayutthaya, founded in 1350, was the second capital of the Siamese Kingdom. It flourished from the 14th to the 18th centuries, during which time it grew to be one of the world’s largest and most cosmopolitan urban areas and a centre of global diplomacy and commerce. Ayutthaya was strategically located on an island surrounded by three rivers connecting the city to the sea. This site was chosen because it was located above the tidal bore of the Gulf of Siam as it existed at that time, thus preventing attack of the city by the sea-going warships of other nations. The location also helped to protect the city from seasonal flooding.
The city was attacked and razed by the Burmese army in 1767 who burned the city to the ground and forced the inhabitants to abandon the city. The city was never rebuilt in the same location and remains known today as an extensive archaeological site.
At present, it is located in Phra Nakhon Si Ayutthaya District, Phra Nakhon Si Ayutthaya Province. The total area of the World Heritage property is 289 ha.”
History lesson over with, we spent the next few days cycling and walking around the city. It was amazing to be able to cycle past these historic buildings, and really enjoy the juxtaposition between the really old and the new architecture.
One day, we thought it would be a great idea to cycle to Wat Yai Chai Mongkhon, the most famous temple in Ayutthaya. It was not a great idea. Out of the 30 minute cycle, I think I blinked about 4 times and breathed once. We were on an actual four-lane motorway-type road at one point and we had to cross from the lane furthest left, to the lane furthest right, so we could go around a huge roundabout and get to the temple! It was also boiling hot on this day, too, so I really loathed having to put on extra layers to cover up and go into the temple. I’m all for respecting cultures and all, hence why I did cover up, but it doesn’t make for a great image when you’re walking around bright red with beads of sweat dripping down your face.
Despite my appearance, a whole class of local kids on a school trip took quite a liking to my hair and they all started shouting “hello” at me and pointing at my head. Thus making me even more red. However, it was all very cute and I didn’t care how I looked by this point. I just needed an ice bath ASAP.
Needless to say, neither of us were up for the cycle back to the hotel, and we paid as much as it would take for a TukTuk driver to squash the two of us, and our bikes in the back of his TukTuk and get us back safe(ish)ly. It turns out, he only wanted 6 quid, so we were delighted to hand it over when we arrived.
We got back to the hotel and discovered that just outside the garden, was an entire bar/cafe area that had been set up to look like a campsite with camping chairs, camping tables, gazebos and a band playing. What a perfect way to end a terrifying, but amazing trip.
