Hello again viewers,

With this next blog you're in for a pretty big read coz there's loads we forgot to tell you about n the last blog too! :)

Firstly, when we were visiting the giant buddha on Thursday i also had a palm reading from an sweet old guy in the park who used astrology too. He said we were being very well protected on this trip (which im very aware of!) and that nothing bad will happen because of that, and that, that i will have three children if i so choose (not a surprise to me) but i think he said all boys! eek. or 2 boys and 1 girl. His English was not very good. He also said that i would leave to 85 and that after Nov 16th (Dans birthday) i would be very lucky and that would be the time to start new things. He also gave me a 7 day planner of things to do,e.g. Wednesdays is a good time to meditate and saturdays are for planning new things. He recommended i start yoga which i have been thinking of doing, and said that my brain would be fine all my life and i wont get alzeimers (sorry dont know how to spell it!), It was very good.

Now, after we wrote the last blog we still had a night trip to go on in Ayutthaya, which we did by tuk tuk for 2 hours to see all the ruins lit up after dark. It was pretty but as you can see the camera didnt cope well under those dark conditions. We went round in a group of various European people and the highlight was chatting to them really as we had seen most of the ruins that day already. A nice surprise at the end was a scattering of floating lanterns rising into the sky behind the ruin we were looking at. for some reason (morbid as it sounds) it made me think what a lovely symbol that would be at a funeral (funeral at night i guess!) of thelight floating up into the sky...Note that down for mine. Anyway...

Shortly after they had disappeared, fireworks shot up right over our heads in a massive display for around 2 minutes! That was a nice gift from luck. There must have been some sort of celebration going on. It also made hundreds of huge bats scatter into the sky above us which was amazing to see. Think they were fruit bats they were huge! It made me smile to see the local dogs didnt batter an eye lid at the bangs of the fireworks...the hardened souls that they are. Its interesting to see 'wild' dogs roaming the streets, which they most definitly are in the sense that you dont make eye contact with them coz it makes them nervous and there have been many reports of tourists being bitten by them. Nevertheless, its lovely to watch them going about their business, free to do what they want.

Before we went home, after seeing the temples, they took us to the night market to get some food. We had 20 minutes to find something...well we found loads but nothing deemed edible! We really wanted to get stuck in and try everything but we didnt know what the hell everything was! (apart from whole squid, and what looked like a brain). it was amazing though walking through the stalls, which were like mobile kitchens with coal burners underneath, and woks ready to cook up anything you wanted, or pots of colourful liquids bubbling away. i didnt even have the courage to have a freshly steamed corn on the cob which you seem to find on every street corner. We will pluck up the courage before we leave i'm sure.... (see the photos of the market in Lop buri for an idea of what they look like).

On saturday (yesterday) we got up and had breaky in the hotel as the only place we could find that did a ful Englih was closed. Gutted. We got the train to Lop buri which was about an hours ride away. It was packed with people and we stood most of the way, constantly trying to get out of the way of the never ending stream of food sellers with their wicker baskets full of packs of rice and meat snacks, fruit, drinks and peanuts and anything else you could possibly want. (again much better than the service on First Great Western!). They really do love their food here.

the thing about the trains is, its really difficult to know when to get off coz if you're not near a window you can't see what station your pulling into, and they'renot clearly signed anyway, plus they're gone again in a blink of an eye. We have been 'lucky' so far tho and someone will always strike up a convo with us just long enough to tell us how many stops left we have before our station. :)

So we managed to get off and got straight into a 'Saamlaw' (bicycle taxi), which obviosuly being quite small mant we had one each, and we 'raced' to the hotel! Well, i say 'raced', it was so hot and the poor guys seemed to be really struggling, and we both thought about swapping with them and peddling them there to give them a break! Bless them.

after dumping our bags in the room (see photo of Lop buri Asia Hotel) we went to see the museum and ruins. No cameras allowed but you're not missing anything really was more for information on the history of Hinduism and how Buddhism took over and the various artefacts that have found in the are to prove this. was really interesting.

We then went to another ruined temple which is home to a huge group of monkeys! woo! they were everywhere. We got there just after feeding time which was perfect to see them in action. We then understood why all the buildings in the area had wire mesh covering them! (We thought there was a high crime rate) and i guess we were right but the criminals are a bit more hairy than we realised! they were very cute and comical (see the photos).

We had lunch in the white house restaurant which had fans blowing out water mist at us which was heavenly! plus huge plates of vegetarian food and so cheap! The room we stayed in had the hardest bed ever and we had to keep rolling over to stop geting pins and needles! we had a full English breakfast this morning which was so nice. the egg yolkes over here are huge and really full of flavour.

Dont know where we are going today probably Sukhothai (about 3 hours North). Still on the look ou for custard apples which i think they call sugar apples over here, and the other fruits mentioned.

'Laa kawn' for now.

xxxx