The next couple days in Ayutthaya:

Feeling the necessity to get out of the room I stayed the first couple nights in, I relocated to a more homey-feeling place called the P.U. Inn. To Save some money and get myself off of western comforts, I declined the room with A/C. As a result, it was 85 degrees in my room when I was trying to sleep. Luckily, they give you 2 fans--I would have died without!

The other day I purchased a boat tour through my guesthouse which circles the island and stops at various Wat's along the water. Here's a few pictures:



Holy cow lots of fishes in the river!




Wat Chaiwattanaram. The boat stopped here for about 15 minutes (not nearly long enough to actually see the whole thing, clearly, but i still got some cool pics)




If you didn't know, Buddha is BIG here. There are temples ALL over the place, and they are all quite impressive. This is one of the. It's hard to see, but the King of Thailand is sitting in the middle of the 3 statues.




I have no idea why there is an army of roosters...




St. Joseph's Catholic Church. The first Christian church I've seen yet!



The night market where I ate after the boat ride.

Funny story, as I was eating a guy comes up to the table and tells me how much I owe for the meal. I don't understand him, so I take out a couple bills and hand them to him. Not sure if that was enough, I pull out another as he starts to walk away. He stops and takes it too. Alarms go off... I turn around to see him leaving the scene and a group of about 4-5 Thai guys (who work there I think) laughing. I grab my stuff and pursue the guy. He stops and turns around when I get to him and he is surprisingly submissive (like an "aww I got caught" attitude... maybe because I'm about 1.5 feet taller than him? haha), but he doesn't want to give the money back. The guy I bought food from saw what happened I guess and came over and helped coerce the guy into giving my money back. He tried at first to give part, but that naturally didn't fly.

That was the highlight of that day :)




This was taken on the way into Bangkok from Ayutthaya. People will set up these little shacks anywhere! I don't know I they have to pay anything for the land or what...




Checkers is big here. I chilled for awhile with these guys waiting for my train.




Inner city Bangkok.




More Bangkok!




Siam Square Shopping Center... one of many in the area that I visited.


Well, that's it for now. As always, there are more pictures than these located within the links found on the right of this screen.

1st day in Ayutthaya

I woke up at 3am with a lot on my mind. It's really wierd being over here not knowing anyone, knowing that I'll be alone for the next 5 months.

I do some daily planning and get my things ready for the day. I was ready at about 7am, but didn't leave until about 8:00... I had to get mentally prepared for the challenge that is daily life as a newbie farang.

The first stop I wanted to make was an internet cafe that my brother had mentioned to me (a good cheap one geared toward Thais.) The one near my hotel was 30b per 30 minutes, but I had no idea of how to judge it.

Naresuan Road

After walking around for awhile telling tout after tout,

"No thanks I'm walking"

"No I like to walk"

"No, can't you tell I need to lose weight?? I'll walk, thanks."

I turned up empty handed. Simply couldn't find it. So, I decided that I'd just walk the entirety of Naresuan Road. I was walking behind these two Thai ladies for awhile in the same direction when one of them turned around and asked, "Where you going?"

This one I for some reason didn't ignore... and it turns out she just wanted to chat! These two ladies ended up being students from Korea heading to a few temples that I also was planning on seeing that day. Thus, I gave up my hunt for the internet cafe and headed toward Wat Ratburana with them.

Wat Ratburana from a Distance

They were very nice company and ended up sharing their lunch with me!

Kim, ???(can't remember her name), and I sharing lunch outside Wat Phra Mahathat

After we saw a couple Wats, we proceeded to walk through the park for awhile and eventually parted ways. On the way home I clearly found the internet cafe I was looking for (which ended up being 15b per hour!). I was planning on doing a lot more this day, but went home and decided to take a nap at about 3 or 4 pm.......

I'm suprisingly alive and in Ayutthaya

Getting off the plane and through customs was a breeze (although I did have several people in the airport touting their cab service to me). The challenges started the second I stepped foot outside into a hot cloud of steam Thai people must call air.

I was told that to avoid certain schemes based on ripping you off on getting a taxi or tuk tuk to Bangkok that I should head up to the Departures drop-off and get a taxi that had just dropped someone off... but that the cops hate you doing it, so watch out!

To my luck there were no cops in sight! A guy approached me... "500 Bangkok. Deal?" He held out his hand... "Deal?"

No deal. I tell him "Meter." and he blabs something that isn't "Meter. Deal." so I turn my back and walk to the next guy. "Hualamphong. Meter." I say to him. He starts giving me this "400 (something something) meter" nonsense and so I write him off as well.

The third guy was the charm and I got my metered taxi to Houlamphong for 240 Baht... at least it should have been!

It you're not aware, people don't tip in Thailand. This guy got about a 60b tip because he said he had no change for my 500b bill... maybe he was being honest, but I doubted it. However, I was simply too flustered to bother with him and needed to get my train ticket. So I told him to enjoy his tip and headed inside.

I've been here for about 24 hours and I've already developed the mentality that if anyone talks to me, ignore them. Maybe that's bad... but, whatever. As a result, I feel bad for ignoring people that actually want to help me. I ignore this chick who is saying the typical, "Sir? Where are you going?" nonsense that I had heard was a premium "I want to sell you my service" line. I ignore her 3 times before turning to her and saying "Ayutthaya" to hopefully get rid of her. She quickly checks a scheduling card and says, "You in luck! Train leaves in 15 minutes. Go to that line and buy your ticket." Bless that lady. The place was a madhouse, and I was confused as hell.

I even ignored another man trying to help me get on the right train... but I eventually listened and got on the right one. Of course it didn't leave until about an hour later ("Mai ben rai" eh?), but the ride was awesome. I unfortunately didn't get my camera out for it, but next time i take the train i will.

Man... I guess I'm rambling now. Long story short: Got into town, took a wrong road and the hour was growing late... so I took a tuk tuk to my destination. They were booked, but i found a place accross the way. Showered (man that felt good) and hit the hay.

Sorry for the lame post, no pics! I'll update it later.