Day 9 - 6th December
We awake late in the morning and only just get to the table in time for breakfast which was free... A 7 inch omelette made without breaking the yokes with bacon and sliced tomato.
From here we hire some of the heaviest push bikes in the world and set off round Ayutthaya for a self guided tour with a free map..... What could possibly go wrong.....
Due to the river network Ayutthaya is in essence a three mile by two mile island with most of the old capital buildings within the island area so we just peddled.. Knowing that if we didn't cross water, we were not going to get to lost. It was really nice just exploring wherever we wished before pedalling on....
Its hot, and ones bum is not used to saddles... Combined with leaving a mosquito candle lit in our room made the decision easy to head back to base and get some lunch and relax in the hammocks... Listening to others regale there extensive traveling tails...
We read a little about Ayutthaya.... It was founded in 1350 and was Thailand's capital for 400 years and was immensely powerful even conquering Angkor Wat in Cambodia until it was eventually overthrown in 1760 by the Burmese. Thailand's capital then moved to the wet lands of Bangkok, then to its current position in Bangkok. With a population of 1 million people it was twice as populated as London's at that time.
We still had the bikes in loan so once the sun began to set we jumped back on them in search of the night markets....
It turns out the night markets have not been running for the last year and a half so all we found wash an empty warehouse / hanger type building... Open on all sides with one corner being the entrance onto the road... We'd passed this earlier in the day whilst out on your and its was full of people.. But not now.... Just us , a rat and about 15 dogs..
The dogs in Thailand all seem pretty friendly and most try to stick the nose into whatever your doing in the hope of a little food... All whilst living alongside cats doing the same thing... The dogs wonder everywhere, and are clearly pretty good at avoiding the wheels of cars and lorries as most spend plenty of time on the roads and there are some old one knocking around....
We had passed a small market area earlier in our journey to the deserted night market and return here for a look around and to get some food....
This market is located within a carpark that's next to one of the rivers that circle Ayutthaya and directly opposite on the other side of the river as one of the old temples that's flood lit so as the lights fades away the view improves as we sit down to eat...
The street food set up here is really very good... There's a full menu available all served on proper plates with metal knives and forks... The kitchen is open so you can see everything happening which makes the wait for your food fly by... Each and every cooked meal is created by one man behind a gas cooker that's part of a motorbike one at a time and that's how there served... The flames regularly setting fire to the oil in the wok which irrupt six or seven foot into the air in a very impressive fireball which I'm sure is done only to attract people's attention, but the heat can be felt from where we are sat around 25 foot away so the guy cooking must be melting.....
We ordered a couple of dishes which were very nice, but mine was only ordered because it contained bright pink eggs that otherwise look the same as a normal chickens egg. As it turns out these eggs instead of being white are dark inside and almost see through with a jelly like look and feel to them with a normal yellow yoke. They tasted pretty similar to normal which is good as they don't really look appetising at all.... I find out later that this eggs are called century eggs
After we head back in the dark on our borrowed bikes dodging the dogs who refuse to give up the piece of Tarmac they have chosen as there place to sleep that night.

Below is a link to some info on the eggs....
It was dark and I didn't notice the yoke colour was different from the norm, but mine certainly looked like the egg in the picture.. I didn't notice the odour at all...

http://www.smufflersworld.com/2013/04/thai-pink-eggs/