Advertisement
Published: April 13th 2010
Although Melissa and I have never been big fans of the package tour, we chose the easy route and booked a day trip to Ayuthaya with our hotel for 850 baht each. The day began pretty early with a minibus pickup, then to a meeting point to meet up with the other passengers. Our van was full of a younger Japanese couple and their friend, a Japanese family of 4, 2 girls from Malaysia, and another couple from somewhere in Europe. No details required, but we once again found that some Japanese people really can be quite rude.
Ayutthaya was the capital city of Thailand from 1350 to 1767, when it was basically destroyed by the invading Burmese army. The remaining Ayutthaya historical park was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1976 and contains some amazing old temples and complexes.
We spent the day going from site to site, where the guide would give us a 5 or 10 minute introduction, then we had time to wander around on our own. Overall it was a much better organized tour than some of the other's we've done, as there was enough time at the sites, and no side trips to tourist
shops.
At one of the ruins, we were approached by a group of younger Thai tourists, where one of the girls wanted to have her picture taken with us. Finally being an overweight, pasty white Canadian has brought me some fame...
Maybe the most interesting part of the day was when we stopped at another new type of bathroom for Melissa. Its the western style toilet (no squat), but there's nowhere to actually press a button to flush, just a bucket of water and scoop beside you. I thought it was pretty entertaining when she came out of the bathroom and quietly asked me what was supposed to happen. So for those that don't know, you take the bucket, scoop some water and dump into into the toilet bowl.
After the tour finished, we headed back into Bangkok and were supposed to get dropped off at the hotel. Well we couldn't quite convey to the driver that we were staying at the Lamphu Tree House, and not the Lamphu Tree hotel, which is located right by Khao San road. We gave up trying, and just got off on Khao San road and walked back to the hotel for a little
rest and quick beer up on the roof. For supper, we headed back to our favorite restaurant on Khao San, and Melissa had some time to fit in a little last minute shopping before we left in the morning.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.099s; Tpl: 0.019s; cc: 12; qc: 55; dbt: 0.0518s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb
Wat Phu Khao Thong
