ayutthaya

sarah inside ruins beside guesthouse
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dan0

we took a two hour train from bangkok to ayutthaya, which was, in itself quite interesting. In bangkok its immediately apparent the differences between the haves and the have nots. small shacks beside ferrari dealerships, tiny family resturants beside skyscrapers, street vendors everywhere selling EVERYTHING. we'll talk more about bangkok later, as we are going back for a little while before the trip. the train ride to ayutthaya was quite serine. we saw a lot of poverty along hte way, huge gatherings of what could only be called the slums, small family dwelings, shacks along the railroads.  Many thai people seem very happy though, no matter what class. It definately is the country of smiles.  we saw many rice patties etc, was quite neat. when we arrived to our stop,  a TUKTUK said our guest house was only a 5 or so minute walk, so we walked it. ended up really sucking aha. walking alongside busy highways etc, over bridge overpasses, was prolly close to 2 km with all the gear, really hot etc, but we arrived and all was well.  we only dropped our back off at the guest house, took some photos of a small wat ruin right beside the guesthouse, then went to veg tarian diner. was  a cosy open walled shack, where they didnt speak a word of english. we pointed at vegetables, they cooked, and it was great. yumyum. stir FRY. we then walked around ayyuthaya, seeing the town, some of the many beautiful wats (wat means temple) the beautiful parks, and then back to the guest house. the owners there were really cool, although the one lady was 70s, and both spoke very little enlgish they made us feel very comfortable and we chilledo ut with some beer and laughs under a hut style bar hangout place. we chatted up with some travelers too, one ghuy frank and his thai girlfriend, was very interesting. we had some really good times, but hten it was time to head to bus station for sukothai. the owners drove us there, playing blackolisious on the way there! was really kewl! they said goodbye with hugs and said to come see them again. the peopel at the bus station were quite friendly as well. bus kind of sucked to sleep on, but was coachesk.

veg tarian