Lopburi, Ayutthaya and Chiang Mai

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Hi all! My turn to give you a little update on what we've been up to since New Year - although not sure I can live up to the rave reviews that James' literary masterpiece received! It's taken a while to get round to it, as we've been moving around quite quickly, and to be honest we've been too busy having fun to sit down and write this up! Nevertheless thanks very much for all the comments, it's always lovely to hear from you all :D

So I'll try and sum up the rest of our time in Thailand! We left Bangkok on the 2nd of January and headed to Lopburi - we were debating on going to Kanchanaburi, which is a tourist fave and has a tiger temple where you can go and sit in with the tigers and touch them, but after hearing stories about how the tigers are sedated and chained up we decided it wasn't really for us and to go elsewhere, which led us to Lopburi, a little town which promised some ancient ruins and supposedly the chance to spot some monkeys. Needless to say, it didn't disappoint on the monkey front! After arriving it quickly became apparent that there are about as many monkeys as people in Lopburi; running around the streets, sitting on cars, climbing trees and telegraph poles... basically everywhere. In fact as we explored we seemed to be walking more and more towards the monkeys' favourite hangout spots - and after initially being told to "man up" by James we turned another corner to be greeted by a street so full of monkeys that we couldn't pick our way through them - at which point James promptly lost all his previous confidence and suggested we take another route.

The ruins weren't quite as good as Lonely Planet may have suggested, although I will put some photos up. In fact the highlight of (James') day came as we were walking down a street and I was happily munching on a bag of crisps - yes you can see what's coming here - and I spied a monkey eyeing up my cheetos, big time. Of course when I mentioned this James assured me I was being paranoid... at which point the monkey bounded over, jumped on me, and swiped my crisps clean out of my hand and ran off to sit on a car bonnet and eat them. James all the while coming to my rescue by wetting himself laughing. Which pretty much sums up Lopburi!

The next day we moved on to Ayutthaya, taking the local bus as it was only a couple of hours away. Tourist buses are as expected, more expensive but equally more comfortable for long rides, and we now know that although I am the right size for an south-east asian bus seat, James is not! I think the rule of thumb is, if you're over 5'4 and 9 stone, you're not going to fit! Particularly when every passenger brings along their enormous bag of rice/ten chickens in a bag/other wordly possessions. So leg room was a slight issue - but I think the leg crushing was karma considering how much he enjoyed my monkey mugging... We stayed in Ayutthaya for three nights in a lovely hostel called Tony's place - definitely one for the girls, complete with pretty outdoor garden, fairy lights etc (pics to follow). Ayutthaya itself is on a little island and there are lots of ruins to explore, including the remains of a royal palace (it was a former capital) on and off the island, for which we hired bicycles for the first day on the island and got a tuk tuk off the island the next.

Our next destination was Chiangmai, up in the north of Thailand. We caught the nine hour overnight bus, which would have been a very comfy ride if the air con hadn't been pumping out at a continuous 10 degrees all night (I think if Thai people have the luxury of air con then they like to use it to it's full advantage) with us in our shorts and t-shirts. But we made it in one piece and had booked a hostel ready for arrival. Our hostel was nice and cheap at 100 baht a night (around 2 quid) and good fun, lots of hammocks to laze about in and lots of people to meet and socialise with. We spent four really good days in Chiangmai, which is a laid back town set around the hills and forests of the north. We took an evening cooking class where we went to a local market to learn about the spices and local ingredients used and then cooked five Thai dishes (and ate them all in the space of four hours!) including the well known and much loved Pad Thai, green curry and spring rolls. I have to say all our efforts were pretty successful but whether we can reproduce them in six months time at home remains to be seen... We met a good group of people on the course and went out with them that night, and also went on a trek with two German guys we met there the next day.

The trek was a one day trip and included elephant riding, white water rafting and bamboo rafting as well as a trek to a waterfall. It was a lot to pack into one day but definitely worth it. No photos of the rafting unfortunately as I didn't fancy testing out how waterproof my camera was! But there are a few elephant and scenic ones to come. The rest of our time in Chiangmai was spent wandering the streets and night markets - which sell everything from silks to lanterns to jewellery to clothes to... well, everything really. It probably goes without saying which of us loves the night markets and which of us doesn't :D

The last thing we did before leaving Chiangmai was to visit Doi Suthep temple, which is perched high up in the hills over Chiangmai with a fantastic view over the town - I have to say after this one we did agree that we are a little "templed out" now and may give them a break for a little while. I admit that they are always beautiful but they are not unlike Starbucks; there's one on every corner and they're essentially all the same!

So here ends our Thailand adventure for now. We will be coming back to visit the south and the islands later as we're travelling in a big loop (Thailand - Laos - Vietnam - Cambodia - Thailand - Malaysia - Singapore). I will try and publish our Laos adventure as soon as I can - the internet connection was mostly rubbish there so I didn't get the chance before and I still have to try and upload the photos for Thailand; I cannot even explain how painstaking this exercise often is in internet cafes! But we will catch you up and be in touch soon - we're in Vietnam now and we don't even have facebook (I am having withdrawl symptoms already!). Love Nic xx

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Photos

Ayutthaya
Starting the day with a nutritious breakfast

Comments

[Linda Maslen]

Hi Nic & James, You look like you are having a really wonderful trip - visiting places other people can only dream about. I would have loved to have seen that monkey pinch Nicole's crisps! I don't suppose she put up much of a fight with the monkey, but then I don't think I would have. The photos are really good and I think the ruins at Lopburi look impressive, but I only have Royston High Street to compare them with at the moment! If I don't manage to speak to you before, have a lovely Birthday Nic. Lots of love mum & dad (Maslen) xxx

[Matt & Claire]

Looks like you 2 are having a brilliant time, we are both very jealous! hope u had a good birthday Nic. We are looking forward to the next update already. Stay safe, have fun. Love from Matt and Claire. xx