Today we caught a train up to Ayutthaya (pronounced Ay - uth - ia). This town is slightly bigger than kanchanaburi with 80,000 people (kanchanaburi only had about 60,000). This town used to be the thai capital from the mid 1300's to the 1700's, before being sacked by the burmese. When the sacking occured the royal family fled to what is now a part of Bangkok. Our train ride was about 2hrs from Bangkok and was rather good. They even served us food. When we got in we got a tuk-tuk into our guest house. The tuk-tuks were slightly different to [View Full Entry]

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Ayuthaya, Phitsanulok and Sukhothai Our journey north began with us buying train tickets from Bangkok to Ayuthaya, a city famous for being the former capital (previous to Bangkok). We were surprised to find that the tickets were only 15 baht each - about 25 pence for a 2hr journey which is almost Indian prices! The train however was more comfortable with enough room on a '2 seater' for 2 people, as well as the smell from the toilets being much more bearable. As we progressed through the suburbs and countryside the train became more crowded, but never to an extreme level. [View Full Entry]

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As planned, the day was spent in Ayutthaya. It is interesting to observe how this small city combing its historic heritage with sleepy half-modern urbanization. There are about 500 (!) ancient temples/stupas/palaces spread over the old part of the town. In fact, most of them are nicely presented Khmer style ruins that leave a lot of space for imagination. Although, after Angkor Wat these ruins are not breath-taking, Ayutthaya is still a worth to visit. At the end of the tour we visited Bang Pa-In palace which is (still occasionally) used as a Royal summer palace. Most of the palace, [View Full Entry]

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Onward Here it is, my usual 3:30 wake-up time. I think I'll try to keep this schedule, as it allows me to write this blog after a good night's sleep and with nothing else to do. It will also hold me in good stead for the anticipated rooster early wake-up calls, the witnessing of the giving of alms to the monks at dawn and the sunrises at Angkor. Since the sun sets around 6 PM in this part of the world and since night life is not a part of OUR life, we can feel free to go to bed by [View Full Entry]

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Day 12 - 27th Oct More night train antics to Ayutthaya, arrived at 04:48, which is far too early by anyones standard! The platform there is about 30yards long, i.e not as long as a 9 coach night train, so we got out straight onto the railway line. It is things like this that really make a mockery of the "Danger of Death $2000 fine for trespass onto tracks" signs littering England. I've done about 20 things here that I'm not legally allowed to do in the UK, none of which have been a problem! Thankfully there were still a few [View Full Entry]

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Hi All! Please see blog here! ------------ Due to some unbearable faults with travelblog, I have decided to post my blog on facebook! Do not worry, you DO NOT have to be a member to see my photos. Do enjoy! :) [View Full Entry]

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Helllo! 10 days of Thailand have passed by, we figured it is time for an update! Since last time we wrote, some time has actually past by while we were still in indonesia. We can't remember what we did excactly anymore so we will just say that we loved Indonesia, the people are incredibly friendly and we were very sad to see lots of bad happend to them... Ohw.. Em just says I should write that we went to Yogjakarta and visited a big budhist temple called Bogorbudor and we had loads and loads of Indonesian people taking pictures of us [View Full Entry]

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After leaving Kanchanaburi behind, we decided that Ayuttaya (Thailands old capital) would be our next destination. We have been staying at a really lovely hotsel called HI AYUTTAYA, which is located on the quieter side of town. It is really peaceful here and we are lovin getting to play around with the owners X4 8-10 week old kittens who are definalty not shy, and think its a game to follow you around and play with your feet... The rooms here are AWESOME... not only do we get air-con, we also get warm showers (which is a first) and wait for it [View Full Entry]

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We had two options to get to Ayutthaya from Kanchanaburi. One was €20 for the two of us directly to it and the other was €4 and not so direct! We decided to take the €4 option. The first bus we got on was cramped and busy and had five seats in a row (2 & 3) where most buses have four (2 & 2). We sat in the three seater part and hoped no one would want to sit beside us. We were wrong there! The journey was funny and Thai transport amuses me as much as it annoys me. [View Full Entry]

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We have now been for few days in Thailand. Home is starting to really mean home...and this is great. Lelsie has plenty of friends at school, and we are all settling pretty well. So week-end are in for discoveries. This time, it's a day trip to Ayutthaya. It's the second capital of Thailand. Ayutthaya lays some 90km outside of Bangkok. There are many ways to visit it...we chose the "easy" way by booking a tour through the Shangri-La. You leave the hotel early morning by bus, visit Ayuthaya, and than board a 3 hours cruise on the Chao Phraya on the [View Full Entry]

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