I Went East 2

Continuing on from my last posts about a month ago about my travels..

Ayutthaya and back to Bangkok


Ended up only staying one night in Bangkok and a good night it was. Decided I was going to chill out and just watch everything go by and soak it all in when i was joined by 3 guys from Hungary. We got talking and the drinks started flowing. Although I only actually paid for one! Ended up in this weird Irish bar, it was air conditioned so I wasn't complaining. They had a live band on which was 5 Thai men doing indie/rock tributes. They were actually quite good and the 4 of us had a great laugh dancing around. We were joined by these Thai girls...and no it wasn't what you are thinking. They were students on a night out in Bangkok. Had a really good night but come 2am I was flagging and the music went crap (chavy city centre bar crap) and the travels were catching up on me. So off to bed I went. Considering I didn't have air conditioning I slept really well, it was probably a mixture of alcohol and being exhausted though.

So I catch the train to Ayutthaya, it is a UNESCO hertiage site. Loads of ancient Khemer ruins that were quite interesting. Basically I rented a bike and biked round the different temples. It was quite nice. Being as though I had an air conditioned room for the same as I was paying for fan room in Bangkok I decided that I would stay there for 3 nights. Ayutthaya is quite a quiet place. Well quite is an understatement. The first night I was there I decided to go to the night markets and have dinner. Cheaper than chips! Although, I did draw quite abit of a crowd as I had my dinner. I ordered something that was described as hot and spicy...and it was!. I had people looking at me and I could tell they were thinking stupid pasty white girl.But it was yummy and was about 70p with rice and a water. My lips were burning an hour later though.

After a day of sight seeing I decided I was going to go to an area that they call little Khao San Road. I was thinking that there may be a few people around. I sat my self in a restaurant...I was the only person in the place. I had looked in other places and they were also empty so I had to break my usual rule of going where is busy and went for going where is cheap and I like the look of the menu. It was quite early though but I was quite tired so I thought I would go back to the guesthouse and read for a bit...I have started reading Twilight and unfortunately I am loving it so means I am going to be having to track down the others while I am out here!

On my third day I didn't really do anything. Just went for a wander and got some supplies. Oh and I went to Tesco! Yep...they have Tesco's here also. You know how I love a good tesco shopping trip. I was thinking I would grab myself a few cold beers and some water but when I went to pay she said I couldn't have the beer until 5pm...it was about 11am. SO came out with just a bottle of water. So that evening I decided I would go back to little KSR a little later and see what it was like. It was even worse. There was hardly anyone around. I grabbed some dinner and went back to the guest house with a couple of cans and sat on the balcony and read.

I quite liked the guest house I was staying in although I had some confusion over the name of it. On my first evening there I went out and got a tad lost. I had lost the map the guesthouse guy had wrote on and found another one but I was guessing where the road I was on was. So asking people how I got back to it. Asking them if they knew where SaunBaun guesthouse was and I was getting loads of blank looks and people wondering what on earth I was on about. After about asking the 6th person he said do you mean Baun Su-an. I was like yeah that's the one. So I was asking people for directions to a place that didn't even exist. Even after this I was still struggling. I had the name although the pronunciation had nto be spot on for people to understand. In the end a moto taxi driver said I could follow him for 20BHT after he had told me the same directions over and over again. I am thinking I have biked down there about 4 times already surly he is not right! Well Yup, he was right. I was looking on the wrong side of the road. What a waste of 40p but it got me back. It was just around the corner. The only problem with the guest house was that I was woken each morning at sunrise by dogs howling. They made such a weird noise and was quite eery. Everyplace seems to have a dog that barked at me as walked past. I had one dog chase me when I was on the bike. I don't like animals over here...they may have rabies. Actually I am not keen on animals full stop never mind possible rabid ones!

So now I am back in Bangkok for the night and I am going to sort out onward travel for tomorrow. My plan was to head on down to Ko Samui on the overnight train tonight. Forgetting it is Thai new year from the 11th April so everyone is trying to get away. I was at the station in ticket office and the guy said I could get on the train at 5pm tonight. I said ok. So out I run to get a Tuk tuk and haggle with the price and said for him to step on it. And he did. So I made it back to visa place hoping my passport would be back. No it wasn't due back til 6. So another mad rush back to the train station so I can postpone my ticket rather than losing 690BHT (about 14quid). Made it with minutes to spare. I have postponed it until the 14th April to go to Ko Samui and in the interim I am going to try and arrange to get a bus to Ko Chang or Ko Samet tomorrow so I can get some beach time. They heat is just making me want to laze on the beach or by a pool and relax a little before going mad moving everywhere. So I plan to do the north when Raq leaves me on June 19th - July 1st.

So that has been my first few days...not done a lot but it has been quite interesting also. I will blog again after where I decide to go.
xxx