Ayutthaya and Bangkok without photos.

Unfortunately I do not have any photos from Ayutthaya or Bangkok to upload... yet. This is for two hilarious reasons.

Firstly, just after we had been in Vang Vieng, an internet cafe computer screwed over my memory stick with all our holiday photos by turning all the jpgs into exes. Frustration ensued when we realised that we could not scroll through our photos but only open them one by one, so we didn't want to use the compromised memory stick for more photos. Although our computer back at home thought these files were viruses and started deleting them, Boyfriend managed to rectify the situation and all of our holiday pictures were safe again. (This is a better story when I don't mention the back-up memory sticks that were most likely safe all the time.)

Secondly, Boyfriend forgot his camera in a toilet of Bangkok airport. We didn't realise this until we had boarded our plane and the doors were about to close. Luckily I managed to get hold of a very friendly member of the ground crew who promised to check the mentioned toilets herself and let us know if the camera was found. And lo and behold, just after the take-off we received a message via cockpit and the cabin crew that our camera was indeed found and we could pick it up from our destination airport a few days later. I would like to thank Lufthansa once again for their amazingly good service, as the camera arrived safely four days after us free of charge!

As me and Boyfriend have been in slightly different countries since our return, I ended up not having copies of the photos from the final four days of our trip. I hope the situation will rectified soon, but until then...

Ayutthaya - the largest city in the world back in the year 1700

Ayutthaya wasn't just yet another World Heritage Site under our belt, but an amazingly interesting city to explore. It used to be the capital of the Siamese Ayutthaya kingdom from 1350 to 1767, and it had over a million people in its heyday. The city is located on a holy island in the confluence of three rivers, and only Siamese people were allowed to live on the island. Crossing the river, there were colonies of immigrants from other countries - Chinese, Portugese, Indian. What remains of the great city of the powerful kingdom to date is the ruins of numerous Buddhist temples, side by side with an active Thai city.

Trying to describe the ruins and the temples of Ayutthaya in words is quite impossible. There was a lot of them. Not quite as much as in Angkor temple area, but still a lot. The loyal readers of this blog probably can already guess how we explored the surprisingly large area - by moto of course. For two days we looked at Siamese temples, Chinese temples, rows of small Buddhas, huge sitting Buddhas, Buddhas buried in a holy bodhi tree, stupas in the Ceylon style, stupas in the Siamese style, stupas in the roundabout, temples in the Khmer style (to honor the victory over the Khmer), temples in the Burmese style (to mark the victory by the Burmese and fall of Ayutthaya)... and elephants!

Now, month and a half later, I find it difficult to remember which of the temples I liked the most without seeing the photos. They all were beautiful in their own ways. However, what I remember the best from Ayutthaya is the elephants. Some kilometres to north of the city is an ancient elephant kraal - or an elephant trap - that was used to catch wild elephant for work and war purposes. Now at the kraal there is an elephant village with over 90 elephants, and an NGO trying their best to conserve the species as the numbers in the wild are rapidly declining. Additionally, there is also a tourist trap called the Elephant Village in Ayutthaya, which we didn't visit, but we ran into their elephants wandering around the nearby Wat Yai Chai Mongkhon temple area without a leash.

Bangkok - back to the beginning.

After two days in Ayutthaya we had two days in Bangkok before flying home. It was weird coming back to the beginning, and I think Boyfriend felt it stronger. As he hadn't travelled in SE Asia before, his first contact had been Bangkok four months earlier and now he saw it with more travelling experience. First time around Bangkok felt like the city of squalor, and the backpacker area of Khaosan Road area worn and dirty. Returning back after four months, it felt amazingly clean and civilized. The reverse culture shock hit us - were there really places with so many cars, advertisements and busy people?

To honour the way we started our trip in Bangkok - drinking beer in the bars of Khaosan Road - we repeated the experience. This time we felt more relaxed about the place, laughed about how obvious it was who had just arrived to Asia and who was already going home. Eventually we lapsed into reminiscing about the whole trip, and started ranking the best and worst things we'd experienced. The best island, the best meal(s), the stupidest person, the worst weather, the best bus journey, the best hotel room, and so on. We were obviously getting ready to go home.

Also, it was a time to do the stuff that we still wanted to do before going home. Boyfriend had been complaining that he hadn't had any food that was truly spicy during the whole four months - so I promptly ordered a spicy papaya salad for dinner, and that goal was fulfilled too. We spent two days shopping for souvenirs, presents and our own wardrobes, and decided to miss out on the Royal Palace as I had seen it already and Boyfriend is planning to return to Bangkok soon.

And all too soon it was time to go home. What an amazing trip it was!