Today we headed to Ayutthaya from Kanchanaburi on the 4.50am bus where we had to get a connecting bus from Supanburi to Ayutthaya. It wasnt so bad as we were on the back seat of both buses where the leg room is plentiful and the doors on the bus were left open so you get lots of cool air rushing onto the bus. We found it funny that at 6.30am one of our bus's that dropped the thai children of to school was smashing out tunes on this bus really loud, like in a club. The speakers were so loud that at this time in the morning we didnt know what was going on, however it was quite amusing and a little strange as the kids get on and dont make any noise whatsoever - they are so well behaved. I think its one of those things you have to be there for but we found it hilarious!

Anyway we arrived to Ayutthaya, which is the old capital of Thailand at around 10.30am, and walked to our chosen guesthouse, the Upp Inn, which was run by a small family. The main woman who owns it is very nice but a little full on. We hadnt even agreed to a room and she was banging on about all the protests and problems going on in Bangkok. Eventually we agreed to take one of the rooms which was very nice, except for the ants nest, although they did stay near the bathroom so it wasnt to bad.

Our main reason for visiting Ayutthaya was to view its many historical temples throughout the city and along the encircling river around Ayutthaya. The ruins are divided into two geographical areas, with ruins on the island (visited by bycycle) and those of the island (best visited by boat). Apparently getting a handle on the religious and historical importance of the temples is difficult without preliminary tutoring and they were right haha!! We have come to the conclusion that it is too difficult to understand all about these temples unless you have a guide which is expensive, but to us just looking at them, the detail and the work that once went into them is really interesting. In our lonely planet book it gives a description of each temple and what it resembles which was more than enough info to deal with. I think that if we did hire a guide it would have only gone in one ear and out the other as there were so many temples.

Before we tackled these temples we headed for the Elephant Kraal on a tuk tuk, which was amazing considering it was free. There was a family of elephants here with about 4 or 5 babies that you could play with, Kate loved them!! As you can see on the pics, she was very nervous, however not as nervous as the tigers in Kanchanaburi hahaha! We also saw this huge elephant with large tusks, which was working to move bamboo out of a big truck. It was a shame that some of these elephants were chained but to us it seemed quite clear that they were all looked after. Once Kate had really mollycoddled all the baby elephants our tuk tuk took us back to town where we rented some bycycles to tackle the inner island temples.

We only had 1 day here as thats all you really need so we decided to only do the main ruins and temples on the inner island. Wat Ratburana was the first stop which was very beautiful and consisted of a big tower with lots of engraved artwork on it with alot of ruins surrounding it. Wat Phra Mahathat was the next, which was one of the first Khmer style Praang built in the capital, which is where the famous Buddha head is engulfed by tentacle like tree roots, which was pretty cool, taking alot of years to look like that! However, Kate kept getting told of trying to take photos of it as you have to kneel when taking a picture as it is highly sacred and it is a sign of respect. Three times she was told off haha - it was hilarious! The final main temple we visited was Wat Phra Si Sanphet which had three bell shaped Chedis (towers), which back in the 14th - mid 15th century served as the Royal Palace. This was a really impressive temple and as you can see from the pictures very beautiful. Our last stop on the island was to visit the original reclining Buddha, like that of the one in Wat Po in Bangkok, the size of it was quite incredible all made of stone with a huge orange robe over its body for protection.

After a long afternoon it was time for an ice lolly and some relaxation so we dropped the bikes of and took it easy for an hour before setting of on our boat trip to visit the outer island temples. The boat trip soon came around but we were quite disappointed with it. We actually enjoyed the boat trip more than the temples. We thought that paying for the boat would have been the whole price but then we had to pay to get into the temples as well, which in the end was quite pricey all together. Wat Phanan Choeng contained a 19m high Buddha however it was covered in scaffolding having restorations, which they forgot to mention as we paid to get in, but thats the way it works over here! Everything is a money scam or someone trying to get as much out of the toursits as possible, but we are learning fast though!!

At one of the other temples there were loads of people feeding the fish in the river and there were thousands of catfish all along the bank which was very fishy! We also met a nice bunch of Belgium people who we had a good laugh with. We were meant to go out with them for some drinks that night but Kate was feeling quite ill so we gave it a miss. We ended up going to get some food at this local jazz bar instead, whcih was really fun. It was haloween so the live band dressed up in Haloween gear and face paint and played away all night. It was only two of them, one on the keyboard and singing and the other playing the drums, but they were really good. The drumming was amazing though and wasnt like any drumming I had seen before. He was just so chilled out and was making up all these cool beats and rhythms, really complicated! We couldn't believe how good he was. I think we were the only English people in this bar and lots of Thai families came to the bar with their kids all dressed up, the atmosphere was great, and we had a great laugh!! After a couple of Chang lagers later, Kate was still feeling quiute ill so we called it a night, filled her up with paracetomol and got a good nights sleep.

The next day we were up bright and early for a train to Lopburi - the BIGGEST mistake but a great Thai experience. I dont think Thai's consider health and safety much.. this was apparent in this particular journey! Each carriage was jam packed, Kate and I were seperated from eachother; Kate at one end of the carriage, and I was at the other end of the carriage, hanging out of the door- literally!!!I didnt even have room to take my bag off and put it down - so I had to keep it on through the whole painful duration! God I was so glad to get out, but it was funny. Apparently the Government have issued a free month on trains to all destinations for Thai's (poorer Thai's I think) so it was quite clearly being abused...

Anyway the main reason for going to Lopburi was to visit the Monkey Temple and then at night to Catch the sleeper train to Chaing Mai. Little did we know the temple was a quick 5 minutes walk from the trainstation.. and the actual temple would only entertain you for a good 1.5 hours!! So basically we had to wait until 9.00pm to get our sleeper train (Whoops!) The monley temple itself was quite fun though. It was surrounded by urbanisation but nevertheless the monkeys kept it entertaining. A young Thai del boy gave us some seeds for them which they loved.. but one particular lady brought a packet of chew sweets in wrappers, and literally the monkeys all swarmed to her, took the chew sweets (wrappers and all) opened the sweets like humans do and sat there chewing them! So funny!

The monkeys are so protective of their young.. much so that if you go anywhere near the babies the mothers will just go for you! The only problem is they come near you anyway! At one point Chris had 3 or 4 monkeys climb up him. One of them unzipped his bag but luckily they didnt take anything, the other two just sat on his head and shoulders.. but after seeing their behinds I dont think he was OK with that either. We werent actually allowed to let the monkeys climb up us but as they were quite playful we didnt really see it that much a problem... I decided I wanted a go of 'holding' the monkeys too.. so I put the daybag on my back and sat on the floor.. so many monkeys jumped on me it was pretty scary!!One of them stole my cap and started to chew on it! I found it impossible to get them off me.. Chris's way of getting them off would be to swing round really fast and they automatically jumped off him.. I did it- and it didnt work! So I curled up and screamed "get them off me!!" Chris came to the rescue and saw a monkey in full flight jump straight for his face.. luckily he fliched and it landed on his shoulder instead.. but this little tinker bit him! ouch!Only through his t-shirt so it could have been alot worse! After seeing the monkeys get into a serious fight where there was salivaflying everywhere and tails being bitten we thought that it was enough for one day and left the monkey temple. The only problem was that it was about 12 and our train left at 9pm!!

So, we decided to take a look around and found another place with lots of monkeys. These ones were even funnier as they were being fed bananas, eggs and milkshakes!! They started dunking eachother in a small pond, dangling from the tree and doing 'bombs' into the water. It was so funny watching them swimming in the pond with all their hair wet and flat to their faces!!! But again this only kept us amused for another hour.

For the rest of the day there was nothing else to do in Lopburi, so we got some rice and duck for lunch and then literally spent the whole afternoon sorting our journals and pics out. Not exactly exciting but it needed to be done. Eventually night time came and after filling our faces at the local vendor with Chicken and noodle soup and more duck and rice it was time to board our train.

We weren't sure what to expect seeing as it was a sleeper train. It was very simple but really cosy. We had a bunk bed, one up one down, with curtains across. Feeling very tired we sat on the bottom bunk chilling out and ended up falling asleep within an hour - we didn't wake until the morning!We didn't even use the top bunk, but still got a really good nights sleep! Definately a good way to travel and to feel well rested!

On to Chiang Mai, our next destination...