Wednesday and Thursday

Waking up Wednesday, we all decided it was a good idea to have a relaxed pool day with some sorting out of accommodation for the next place we were visiting, and also booked a flight to south Thailand for around the same time as Nick was catching his flight home Sunday evening. Us girls managed to get our washing done with the facilities available at the hostel, and in the afternoon Nick and I went for a full body Thai oil massage. The massage was good, although we both said they weren't as strong as the ones we'd had in Bangkok, and it was comical with the funny little pants we both had to wear.

In the evening, we all went back to the night market to an area where they were selling international food stands all in a circle around a live music set. Everyone was sat on hay stacks and cool pieces of scrap metal had been made into seating areas. We sang along to the Christmas songs being played and drank sangria whilst we had different dishes of food. There was an LED Christmas tree behind us - but it was nothing compared to our lovely traditional type we'd get at home. Lauren and Lisa had wanted to do some shopping and Nick wanted to see some Thai boxing, so we separated and Nick and I bought tickets for the boxing and grabbed a couple of beers. The boxing was very entertaining to watch, I wasn't sure if I'd like it but it was different to what we see at home and most of the boxers were very slim and toned rather than with big bulky arms, and they had swift high leg kicks. We saw one women's fight as well which showed they were really athletic. We'd a txt from the others that said Lisa hadn't felt well so they'd gone back to the hostel, so we decided to stay until the end. Afterwards, we wandered to get some food and found a bar playing live music so sat and watched the last half hour of the band before getting some food and grabbing a tuk tuk back to the hostel.

Thursday morning we had to check out so it was a bit chaotic in our room trying to fit what we'd bought from the night market into hand luggage. Unfortunately, what we thought would be an easy operation of getting booked on the night train for that night wasn't so easy. The man explained it was some sort of public holiday so the train was fully booked, and also that generally you have to book the train 4 or 5 days in advance to get a seat. I found this strange as nobody we'd met on our travels so far had mentioned this! Lisa still didn't feel well so the decision was made to get a flight back from Chiang Mai down to Bangkok instead of the night train (or the option of the 12 hour night bus) and pay for an extra nights accommodation and then not have to travel on the Friday. There was a delay at the airport but we eventually landed at the other airport (DMK) and queued to get a taxi to Ayutthaya (the old capital of Thailand) which was to be our next place of visit.

Our hostel which was called, Somjai place hostel, and the rooms (with sadly plastic covered mattresses), were basic so we simply dropped all our stuff in the rooms and went out for a walk to find a bar. The area was really dodgy and had we been on the opposite side of the road at one point, we would have been knocked over by a car which came swerving around a corner, crashed into a lamppost and carried on driving crazily up the road and swerving again around a corner. Lisa had read reviews about stray dogs being non-friendly so we were also avoiding them and all on high-guard, especially Nick who we keep referring to as 'Dad' when he goes into full on safety mode. I told
Lauren the reason Ive been conscious with safety when travelling was habit of hearing him asking me to be safe all the time!

We finally found a nice bar which we thought we'd at least be welcomed in as all their cushions were of the Union Jack flag, there was a live band on and it was busy so we went to join in there. Nick and I had a Thai green curry which had a great kick to it, and we had an incident where we all attempted to play cards but our waiter, Kai, was trying to tell us not to. In being curious the girls asked him why and then it turned in to a full on Google translations conversation. We ended up in hysterics once realising what had happened. Kai had initially come over and tried to communicate with us, Nick had tried to get him to play with us and I thought he was asking us what we were playing so was shouting,
'Bullsh*t' to him, the game also know as Cheat. Anyway, once he'd google translated we realised it was illegal to play any form of cards in public in Ayutthaya and all felt a bit embarrassed over what had just happened. Kai was lovely though and took it light heartedly realising we meant no harm. The old town continued to show to be different to anywhere else we'd visited in Thailand over the next few days. After one beer we all headed off to bed in a plan for a cycling trip the following morning.

xxx