The fateful train was already 2 hours late when we departed the train station for the 7 hour journey. We had bought the far more expensive 2nd class carriage with air con..... or so we thought. What we got was a hot carriage with broken air con and locked tight windows. Fans above simply moved hot air around the cabin. The train staff came around with one simple drinks service for the entire journey. In many ways 3rd class really do have the best of it! But of c...

We only spent one night in Lopburi and the next day we hopped on a train north to Phitsanulok. The journey took 5 hours in a warm but windy 3rd class train. Food and drink sellers hustled and bustled their way up and down the carriages constantly. Once we arrived we sought out a guesthouse recommended by our guide book (Lonely Planet) called the London Hotel. It was a real dive! Thankfully the price was only 150 Baht (3 pounds) a night. Even the town didn't of...

We left Ayutthaya by bus for Lopburi and after a two hour journey were unceremoniously dumped in the middle of the city without a map and with only a name of a hotel we wanted to go to. We asked a Saamlor driver to take us to it but because he didn't speak much English (or more cynically, because he wanted a good commission...) he took us to the wrong hotel quite a way out of the city centre. Oh well... it was a nice place though and we soon got out and about sig...

We've now departed Bangkok and took a bus a little further north to a small town called Ayuthaya. It was once the former capital of Thailand in ancient times and now contains many beautiful ruins of temples and palaces. On our first day there was a massive storm which limited what we could do but today has been much brighter. We've seen a number of sights including a Buddha head tangled almost beyond belief in the roots of a Bodhi Tree and row upon row saffr...

So we fled Goa and arrived in Bangkok after a reletively painless flight, in the early hours of the 25th April 2009 - my 26th Birthday! Yay! Bangkok welcomed us with typically open arms and a big friendly smile. It was a relief and we both felt happy to be back in Thailand once more. There have been a few monsoonal storms (particularly in Ayutthaya!). We spent our time in Bangkok exploring the Chatuchak weekend market which is massive! Over 2000 stalls sel...