I am so behind on blogging it's not even funny. And this week has been so packed its going to take me ages to catch up. I might just do some speed typing. :)

First, to comment on Bangkok. Its big. We saw all manner of Wats and famous sites as well as just hanging out by the pool and getting massages and eating wonderful (spicy) Thai foods and had a great time. But I have to say, getting from one end of the city to the other was an adventure no matter what manner of transportation we used. I am just so thankful that we had Courtney to guide us through, as well as use her growing Thai language skills to make the cab driver go the right direction.

Also, this country is just so cheap! I love it! We each got hour long Thai massages for 200 Baht each, which ended up being just over 5 bucks. Can you imagine!? But anyways, we are now out of the capital, so i shall move on.

We grabbed a train, which was 40 minutes late but only cost us a dollar each, an hour out to Ayutthaya, the old capital of Thailand. It is now a city full of glorious ruins of old crumbling Wats. Courtney chose a cool guesthouse which actually had a five person room, so we threw our bags down, grabbed some lunch, then hired a driver for 200 baht per hour to drive us around to the best sites. He got less and less jolly as we refused to ride elephants at a couple of places, where we're sure he would have gotten a commision, but we are all mostly against the idea of riding elephants who may not be well treated. That was the first stop too. So we didn't ride them, but we bought bananas and fed a 5 year old baby elephant and pet his spikey head. Becky observed how usefull and talented their trunks are and decided she wanted one. We have not stopped teasing her about that yet....

The other wat ruins we visited that day were awesome. We just wandered around the falling down buildings and occasionally just sat down to absorb the ambiance in the less touristed ones. I would have loved to spend the night in one, with all the headless and armless buddhas wrapped in their orange and yellow sashes and the strange bird calls in the trees. One Wat that we spent a ton of time in was the one withe the famous buddha head grown into the roots. That was very cool, but i couldn't take the picture I wanted because of the fence around it, guard to the side and the sign that said "do not stand over the buddha." Hmm. Ah well.

The next day we caught another train an hour north (again, 13 baht per person, about 30 cents) to the little city of Lop Buri. This town is hardly even a stop on the tourist trail, and yet it is still my favorite stop so far out of my entire trip. The cause of my jubilation here is that half of the town is overrun by monkeys! YES!! They seem to be almost a pest, like an infestation of mice. They hang from the power lines, climb the walls and sit on cars, but their main gathering place is the ruins of a small wat on the far side of town. Here they climb about the bricks in a reverse zoo type of setting, where tourist climb inside the wat to look through the bars at the monkeys outside. OR, if you are adventurous like the 5 of us, you remove all jewelry, glasses, bags and anything you value, buy a bag of sunflower seeds and sally forth to feed the primates. At first we were taking pictures from slightly afar, but as soon as you start feeding them, they come right up to you and will take seeds right from your hands with their leathery, opposable thumbed hands. And if you think you are somewhat safe at 5 or 6 feet away from the walls, just you wait, they will take flying leaps to land on your backpack, your arms, your shoulders, your heads.... They were so cute! I would go back in a second. But it was surprisingly exhausting. After a half hour or so, it's kind of a chore to get them off your back and stop them from eating your hair. Still though, my favorite stopover so far.

Because the monkeys are pretty much the only thing to see in Lop Buri, we cleaned the monkey grime off ourselves as best we could with Purell Anti-Bac then hopped on the train again for a 5 hour journey up to Phitsanulok, the jumping off point for Sukothai. We arrived late and crashed pretty immediately.

Our first day in Phitsanulok, we ditched the city pretty quick and went looking for the bus station to take us to Sukothai. There, we hired a driver to take us out to a national park 30k away. And actually, I would have paid him just to drive us around for a couple of hours, it was SO cool just to see the countryside away from the big cities and tourist attractions. At the park, I thought we were going on a sort of rambly nature trail, but it turned out to be a trek to the summit of a mountain. Needless to say we didn't make it all the way up, but we did climb through some cool jungle and saw some cool little animals, the best being Becky's sighting of a giant red centipede about 8 inches long.

We got back to the truck slightly earlier than expected, so our driver took us to the Walled City in Old Town Sukothai, which turned out to be a lot of cool ruined wats in a park-like setting. There were paths all around and murky pools full of fish and snails. We decided to come back again the next day, rent bikes and bring food and make a nice afternoon of it.

And that's exactly what we did. When we got off the bus the next day, our same driver was there and he was very excited to see us, rightly assuming that he would take care of us again for the day. He first took us to a wat outside the walled city which wasn't exceptional considering all of the wats we'd been to by that time, but the cool bit for me was right outside the gates where there was a group of the so-called Thai "lady-boy's" selling beautiful paintings. I was thrilled, with the paintings, not the lady-boys, though they were beautiful too, and bought one of a traditional Thai character on the back of a turtle. I just hope i can get it home in one piece, that will be the trick.

Our last morning in Phitsanulok we ran around THAT city for a bit. We checked out a foundry where brass buddhas are made, then right next door was a little exhibit/zoo thing of rare birds in Thailand which was VERY cool. Birds are so colorful here! Each bird had a description of their habitat, their calls and their colors. My favorite mis-translation there was when one of them was described as having "blue underpants." Yes, I have always enjoyed the blue - underpanted birds of Thailand. Then one last stop at a folk museum before catching our 7 hour train trip up to Chiang Mai.

Well. I am now in Chiang Mai, but I haven't done anything but eat breakfast and I will not describe it to you as it was only eggs and bacon. Well apparently I did describe it. And i am sure you have been much enlightened by my breakfast. But right now i would prefer some good noodles or rice. Ok, on to the Sunday Market.

Happy New Year Everyone!