Blood and guts, but no elephants

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So I would much rather talk about trekking in the Himalaya, but I should really do a wrap up of my last few days in Thailand first. This will also give me a chance to further digest the experience and try to figure out a way of actually writing about it, which I've been doing over the last day and a half with the aid of coffee, cake and coca cola.
It was time for a few days break from the maddening streets of Bangkok and so I caught a bus north to Kao Yai National Park in search of great hornbills, elephants and some fresh air. Unfortunately getting there didn't prove that easy and I got stuck for a day walking around a boring town a half hour outside the park with a lovely Czech couple trying to find a way into the park, that didn't involve paying a cab driver an exorbitant sum of money. In the end I booked a guided tour for the next day and enjoyed a pleasant, but uneventful, trek through the park, a swim in the waterhole at the bottom of a waterfall (the one used in the movie "The Beach" - seeing a pattern here?) and a slow drive to the various saltlicks trying to spot a pachyderm. While the big mammals eluded us, we did spot a few hornbills, plenty of monkeys and deer and enough fresh air to get Bangkok out of my system for the time being.
The following morning I hopped on a train to Ayutthaya (insert another incredibly insightful story about travel on public transport in Thailand here), the ancient Thai capital, once upon a time one of the largest cities in Asia and the envy of neighbouring kingdoms. These days it is but a set of ruins after the Burmese trashed the joint in 1767. On a kid's bike (apparently normal size for Thai people) I zoomed around the city for several hours taking in most of the important temples and remaining piles of rocks and an unfortunate dog, walking around with either a massive tumour or half his guts hanging out. I bring this up only because earlier in the day while I was waiting for the train, an elderly woman had a fairly one-sided conversation with me in Thai, in between walking up to the train tracks and spitting blood, which was pouring out of a sore in her mouth, onto the sleepers. She didn't seem too phased by her predicament and neither did the dog. Hmmm, I was trying to make a point here about the standard of health care for both humans and animals in this country, but it's probably gotten lost in the imagery.
By the early evening I was fairly 'ruin-ed' myself (take that Kay) and after sharing a quick beer with a local guesthouse owner (who took a lot of pride in being able to name the capital cities of most countries) I was back in a wooden seat in the 3rd class compartment of the train heading to Bangkok. Did I mention that I paid all of about $3 Australian that day for a total of nearly four hours of train travel? Incredible. The day did provide a few more surprises in the form of a glimpse into life on the train tracks in Bangkok. Rolling into the city's central station, I spotted, in order, a group of men sitting at a table drinking beers, a man having a nap on a slab of concrete and finally, to top the lot, a man in underwear washing his clothes in a tub. "So what?" I hear you say, but this was all happening in between two sets of train tracks! No stranger to danger myself, upon arrival I climbed on the back of a motorbike, which took me at break-neck speed back to my guesthouse. The day was adequately concluded with a hamburger and "Die Hard 4" at a nearby restaurant.

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Photos

Sunset
It's been a long day