15th - 17th December

I should point out that I have already written a full account of this once before, and just before I posted it, I got a bug on the computer which wiped everything I'd written. So this will be briefer than it would have been.

We were quite happy to put some kilometres between us and Bangkok as we headed for Ayuthaya, former capital of Thailand. It is a very spread out city, full of ancient monuments and wats. Most of the ruins are located within a vast 'historic park'. We walked for hours around the various places of interest, and in the early evening came across a garagantuan, seemingly never ending night market. Everything was for sale here, from clothes, perfume and electronic gadgets to various livestock and (yum) fried insects. We eventually found our way to a food court of sorts in a large grassy area. These food courts are a favourite in Thailand, and usually consist of 10-15 stalls or counters each serving 2 or 3 different types of food. This one had about 30 different stalls, and we settled on one serving spicy fried chicken and vegetables with rice. We were given a bowl of soup with it, and I thought I'd give it a go. Soup is eaten with rice in Thailand, so I got a big spoonful of rice and soaked it in soup, and down it went. It was only then that I noticed the dark lump lurking at the bottom of the bowl... Upon further investigation this turned out to be an ear (naturally). From what I'm not sure, although it looked worringly human!

We left Ayuthaya the same way we had come, by train. Thai trains don't have the romance, the history, the friendliness, or even the comfort of Indian trains, but how cheap they are! So far we've only travelled third class; the seats are benches, the carriages crowded, your personal air conditioning system only fails if your window's jammed shut, and there is a constant flow of vendors barging past you to sell fruit, drinks, beer, meals etc.

But for all of this, the journeys are usually short (under 3 hours) and virtually gratis. And the scenery can be wonderful: paddy field after paddy field stretching out to the horizon, with the occasional Thai in a wide brimmed hat bent over his crops. Small villages and towns fly by and occasionally a large, dark meandering river is crossed. Beautiful.

Lopburi, similar in many ways to Ayuthaya, differs in two. The town is compact, as opposed to the far flung locations of Ayuthaya's sights. We checked into our hotel, and explored all the surrounding sights without even coming close to dying of exhaustion (or getting completely lost as we did in Ayuthaya!) The second difference is simian. Lopburi is famous for its monkeys, but we had almost given up hope of seeing them when we visited the last of the town's ruins. And there they were, hundreds of them! Mischievous little b*****s too - one fancied some of our pepsi and nearly got his wish, another tried to climb my legs, and a third one leapt onto katie's back...twice! And survived. Impressive. Later at a (crappy) monkey temple, we got to hold a baby monkey that had been orphaned - very cute. Although it did try to escape from me so I don't think the feeling was mutual. We only stayed one night in each place, finding that to be enough.

And so it was that we found ourselves at the bus station in Lopburi. After the discovery that our bus - due to depart in 15 minutes - had departed early, we found a cheap cafe to wait the hour and a hald for the next one. Later, after devouring a delicious and extremely cheap meal (for me, Thailand beats India on food, if nothing else!) we got on the local bus to Supanburi. From here we would catch another bus to Kanchanaburi.

The first bus was very old and slow, and we were the only foreigners (it's much easier to get to Kanchanaburi from Bangkok). Behind us sat a trio of Buddhist monks, and all around us villagers got on and off regularly. This bus got in on time, but the next one was an hour late departing, then took twice as long as it was supposed to to get to Kanchanaburi. So when we finally arrived at our guesthouse after an 8 hour bus journey, we were told that when we hadn't arrived exactly at the time we had tentatively given them, they had let our room go (despite us saying we were coming on public transport and would probably be late). We considered the options avaiable to us (strangulation, blunt object, or another hotel) and decided on the latter. ( A close call though, I can assure you!) But at least we had arrived!