We took the train to Ayutthaya (pronounced I-You-Tie-Aah) which was an incredible 15 baht (70 baht=1 pound approx). It is an hour and a half north of Bangkok. We were late arriving in Ayutthaya as the train from Bangkok had crashed so that put us two and a half hours behind but seing as our hotel "Riverside" was only located opposite the train station we didn't have much trauma finding it. The train journey itself was a sweaty basic ride but as it was cheap we can't complain.

Our hotel room had a bath, alleluya! We did our washing in it when we arrived and it dried pretty quickly in the heat. We had a siesta then headed out for an evening meal to the moon cafe recommended in the rough guides. We had to cross the river to reach the main town but a short boat trip costing 5 baht each wasn't bad. Found the cafe without any problems and dined on a thai meal and enjoyed the passing fire swinging show and juggling act that happened to be at the cafe. Stephen tried some of the juggling with the crazy drunk waitress called "Mookie Kookie" using a juice bottle.

We hired a Tuk-tuk driver called Ton who took us to all the temple ruins in the area. There were about six or seven temples we visited, (I forget exactly, there were so many). It took the majority of the day.

The next morning we were off to the station for the four hour ride to Phitsanulok, (Fee-san-low). Unfortunately the train was 'sick' as the information man at the station said and turned up three hours late. The train ride itself was excellent. The seats were very comfy recliners and we were served with a tasty meal which was most unexpected!

At Phitsanulok we had a short walk to the bus stop for Sukhothai. When the bus came we could only just squeeze on, stood in the aisle just inside the door. If we thought that it was full, we were wrong as he kept stopping to let more people on. We spent the hour long journey stood watching some wierd tranny action gore fest movie. This was followed by loud karioke. It was a relief to arrive at Sukhothai, or at least we thought it was, but we were only at the new city and had to reboard the bus for another 12km to the old city where our guesthouse was and the Loy Krathong festival was being held. We arrived finally just after dark and fought our way through the throngs of people to the Vitoon guesthouse where we dropped our bags and collapsed onto the bed, exhausted. This was little relief as once again, the bed was as hard as if the matress was made of wood!