It took us around 2.5 hours to get to ayuthaya from kanchanaburi, we took a mini bus directly to our guesthouse- morodok thai guest house. On arrival the place looked beautiful. A neat house nestled between palm trees and other exotic plants. At reception we were greeted by a petite woman with around 3 teeth in her whole mouth, her name is somesee and she's proven to be a lover of chang beer, bourbon, rum (or lum as she pronounces it) amongst other alcoholic beverages i'm sure. She directed us to our room, number 7. We were pleasantly surprised as we made our way up the small spiral staircase, it didn't really feel like a guesthouse but more like someone personal home. The hall way was decorated with various ornaments and finished with a fine deep wooden floor. We opened our room to find in total three beds! A double bed made from two singles pushed together to make a queen (or even bigger) sized bed. And another single.

Once putting our bags down and showering in a hot (thank god!) shower we set off to explore the local town around our guesthouse. We wandered down the main road and passed the roundabout and found ourselves strolling through a park situated near an ancient temple. The wildlife was remarkable, we passed a turtle hidden in the overgrown grass and heard unfamiliar bird song coming from above us. We then found our way to an ancient temple Wat Samphet (i THINK was the name). It was dusk when we arrived at the temple.

There was a slightly eery atmosphere around us, the dogs began barking at other enemy packs which scared me a little as i'm not the biggest fan of barking wild dogs. We were lucky enough to witness something that in our opinion was extraordinary. As the sun was setting behind the pillars of the temple, hundreds of bats began to filter out of one of the locked off doors at the top of the steps. It wasn't great to catch on camera but it was truly remarkable to witness. Seeing the bats descending out of their safe haven inside the temple and circling the sky around. There was a peculiar looking bird that had striped of bright blue on it's wings that was flying about the same time as the bats, it was so eye catching to see he flickers of blue as it flew from tree top to tree top.

As the sun was almost fully set and it was feasting time for the mosquitos we began to make our way back to the guesthouse where we joined a small group of travellers who were also staying at our hotel around a table in he front yard. We sat there drinking beer, smoking and chatting. Somsee was floating around entertaining us all with her drunken, mad antics. Encouraging us all to drink more beer, i know my limits! At the table were a young couple who's itinerary was very similar to mine and dans, they hailed from manchester and will be travelling for 6 months. We discussed travel plans and tattoos until the topic of conspiracy came up, the conversation got deeper from then on until we snapped out of it as none of us really wanted to discuss such pressing matters while on an amazing trip like this! Ignorance really can be bliss. We retired to bed around 23:00 ready for a full day of exploring tomorrow. Felt good to have so much room to stretch out!

The next morning was welcomed with pancakes, honey, banana and chocolate with a coffee. This wasn't cheap; costed us 260TB for the both of us which is more than we had been paying previously, nonetheless it was the only option near us for breakfast, and it's always hard to turn down pancakes! With a full stomach we proceeded to start our day visiting the various ancient temples that surrounded us, most of these were in walking distance from our guesthouse which made a nice walk in the sun.

The first temple we visited was the one that is home to the famous buddha head set in-between the roots of a tree. We walked around taking lots of photos and videos of our surroundings, imagining how it would have been all those hundreds of years ago when ayutayah functioned as an empire. We then treated ourselves to a calypo type ice cream while browsing the souvenir stalls around. It's such a shame we have to carry everything around with us. There are so many things i would love to buy for family and myself to remember the place! I may make a special exception of a small elephant ornament as this was a tradition me and my grandfather kept ever since he gave me a small elephant of his with real ivory. I would buy him a small ornament after every school trip to add to his collection. We then made our way to a functioning temple that was heaving, absolutely HEAVING with school kids. Surrounding thr temple was another market where we managed to buy some key rings for family and walk through the food stalls where we saw the traditional dish of roti and candy floss being made; great to watch! The weather is slowly getting hotter and hotter by the day, the breeze not as common as when we first landed in Bangkok so we are sure to keep hydrated at all times.

After the temple we began to stroll over to where the train station is in order to book our train ticket to chiang mai. En route, we walked through china town, there was so much to look at here! Stalls soley selling eye contacts, as the girls in Thailand are keen to have light brown or hazel eyes. We passed a few pet stalls too. There were cute, fluffy baby rabbits, hamsters and puppies trapped in the cages available to buy. The bunnies could be yours for only 200TB, thats around £4! I only hope these animals were on sale as pets and not food! Horror!

We soon found the pier where we could catch a ferry across the river to the train station, the trip across cost us 4TB, bloody bargain mate. We decided to take an overnight train to chiang mai so we could save money on another night of accommodation. We booked the 19:44 train to chiang mai, in the sleeper shuttle, bunk beds provided so we can get some sleep on the 12 hour journey!
The tickets for the both of us cost 1,650TB which works out at around £16 each, not too bad for a journey and a bed! We hopped over the road from the station for a bite to eat. I opted for pad thai and dan had pork and rice. The pad thai was delicious as always, although i had to fish out the tiny shrimp with chopsticks as i don't want to take any risks with shellfish!

After the food we took a tuktuk back to near our guesthouse with the quest to find a temple that the couple from manchester recommended we visit; it isn't in the tour book so it really was just a guessing game! After walking around through a school and residential area we decided to give up as we were sweating like pigs. We decided to hit up 7/11 for some snacks. Just outside we spied a school girl with a brevel like toastie in her hand, from that moment we knew we wanted one! And surprise, surprise, she had bought it in 7/11 where they toast it then and there. We also discovered school kids crowding round an iced drink machine so we got closer to investigate. What we found was something exciting, slurpees for only 18TB! We both opted for strawberry flavour as well as a toasty, i got sausage and cheese and dan got chicken pizza and cheese. We were so happy with this discovery that we went back for round 2! We took our second toasties back to our room with us while we began to write our blogs and diaries.

28th Jan:
Our last morning here in ayutayah, we had breakfast again, dan went for the pancakes again while i opted for an omlette, french toast and banana. After breakfast we planned to see the art museum just a short walk down the road from us however, when we arrjved we were annoyed to see it is closed on mondays and tuesdays! Bummer! So we continued up the road to the history/art gallery. I wad delighted to feel air conditioning in the museum as i have been a very sweaty betty! After reading about the history of ayutayah we were able to locate the temple that we had been searching for the previous day. It isn't situated conveniently nonetheless, with the help of a friendly tukuk driver who pointed us in the right direction we found it!

It was virtually empty, but this added to the serenity of the experience. The walls inside the temple were painted with scenes of battle and the buddha. We sat for a while underneath the trees reading our books before we got a tuktuk back to 7/11 for yes, more slurpee and toasties. Here i am now, sitting as far away from the stereo at the bar of our guesthouse as the sound blarring is Eva cassidy-fields of gold. I can never listen to this song without remembering family holidays to devon in the summer as children when my grandfather was still with us. It's just one of those songs you know. As of now we are killing time writing our journals before we set off again to catch our night sleeper train to chiang mai.