The last few days in Bangkok were nice and relaxing but I dis have a few good last couple days. The main reason I wanted to stat until Jan. 26 was because I wanted to celebrate Chinese New Year in Asia. Because of problems with the ATM machines, I spent new year's eve in my hostel because I couldn't take any money out. As for new year's day, I went to Chinatown with a couple from Austria. The steers were filled with red and dragon as it was the year of the dragon. It was a lot of fun just walking up and down the crowded streets. We were told there was going to be a parade so we were a little early and waited about two hours in a crowd simply for a chance to see the queen ride by on her "queenmobile". It was a little bit of a disappointment. The rest of our time in Chinatown was listening to some local music, some local dancing, playing with robots, drinking a couple beer and taking pictures with the Chinese dancers with masks. All in all, chinatown was fun to bring in the new year.
Then off to Kho San for one last time. Nothing too exciting to report other than I met a really cool Canadian from Calgary who joined us for a few beers and I ate some cockroaches with some Oiler fans. What a night!

The last day was spent in the old capital city of Ayutthaya. It was the capital city during the 14th century. It reminded me of pictures of Angkor Wat that I've seen. We saw many of the ruins from the old temples. The main temple area in the middle was unique for anything I had seen yet. When the Burmese had invaded Thailand (one of the many times they had in history), they knew the Buddha statues were very important to the Thai people so they removed nearly every head of the statues. It was sad but as a tourist really cool to see. One of the heads had been left on the ground (supposedly by the king) and the roots of a nearby tree had actually grown around it. It is a famous picture you see around Thailand. This was the place that was hit worse by the flood. In fact, the Buddha head in the roots was completely submerged by water.
Lots of Wats/temples seen during my experiences in Thailand and Asia but it was worth it because who knows the next time I'll see Buddhas. Off to Africa!