Whats? wats?

A peaceful night went by in the creepy room as i dragged myself out of bed at 6am. Dumped everything into my pack and was out of the room in less than 5mins. Daylight was early in thailand, the sun was out an hour before me. In a matters of minutes, the bus was rolling towards ayutthaya!!

Through the cracked wooden floorboard, i could see the asphalt road running beneath me. As Jay Chou's Dao Xiang started to play in my mp3, i looked up to see both sides filled with rice crops. Truly a fitting moment

Moments later, my bus was filled with many university students heading to school in ayutthaya. I was kinda intrigued by the male female ratios of the university students here. There seems to be more females than males in a 7:3 ratio. Knocked backed my belief that parents would rather send males for education.

As my bus came to a halt and everybody on it alighted, i find myself in an unfamiliar land.

"Do you know where i can find Internet?" I asked a few university students in uniform who seems shocked by my sudden intrusion.
I was pointed down a road where the availability of westerners were augmented. Logged onto the internet to find a place to stay and after obtaining the address, got lost(again) trying to find it.

Rented a old bicycle(30B $1.30) and went in search for food. If you ever head to ayutthaya, remember to head to the tourist center for maps and information. Those provided at GHs were far too vague.

Duck rice 25B $1.10

Many of the sights, wats mainly in the city central has a admission fees. And these although was not alot, could add up to a considerable amount by the sheer number of them.

Big statue with gigantic robe
What's wat?
More wats!

A snack that you have to try when you come to ayutthaya is this thing called Roti Sai Mai(20B $0.90). It is actually hairlike cotton candy in Poh piah skin. Kinda weird combination? it taste pretty good though.

Pack of sweets and skins
Put a bunch of hair in it
Roll it up
And pop it in

My first night in Ayutthya was spent at "Ayutthaya guest house"(150B), i asked for a single room but instead they gave me a double. The place is clean and pretty chic, but i did not need these decor, so i went to a cheaper place the 2nd night. At BJ Guest house(100B), the place was not as new as the other 1 as it was the home of the family staying there. A good point other than the price is that the family speaks good english and was very hip.

They were having lunch when i was checking in and they told me to eat with them. Their lunch was from a mobile store which stops right outside their place, selling noodles(20B $0.90) and stuff. Char siew noodles

You know when you eat, there would always be some sauces and chillies to go with it. In thailand, they have something else.

Sugar

Dan, one of the family member took a huge heap of sugar and added it to his noodles! i followed suit and tried half a table spoon. Pretty interesting though. Then its more wats!
This tree looks like the 1 from ankor wat, and appears in almost all brochures and pamphlets. i climbed over the wall and did not have to pay to get in. LOL!
Ayutthaya used to be the capital of thailand for awhile before it was taken over, that explains the many wats around
Walked past a school and saw many students eating this, so i went to try. Cheap and good and sour, not my favourite kind of food.
Their tuks tuks here is slightly different from other places in thailand, they eat max 6 instead of 3.
At night i went to their night market and had a familiar beef hor fun(30B $1.30) which taste very much like from Singapore

After the 2nd day, i felt like there was not much to do here except more Wats, so i decided to leave Ayutthaya. So i laid in front of me 4 choices, 1. Lopburi , 2. Phitsanulok, 3. sukhothai, 4. Chiang Mai

1 being the closest to where i was. 1,2,3 looks pretty interesting and could take up some time before i head to laos. However what is there is more wats, similar to Ayutthaya. 4 is a bigger place with more to do but to get there, it would cost. Going to 1,2,3 first would break the journey in parts, making the cost of travelling more bearable.

Then i found a particular activity that caught my attention. A elephant camp where i can volunteer for a week learning and living with elephants in chiang mai. It is very expensive at 12,000B(bout $500) but would be the experience of a lifetime. With that i decided to head to chiang mai.

Gave them a call that evening and they said they are full!!! Damm! So i am back to square 1, not knowing where to go.

The morning i wanted to leave, i just went to the train station and see what information i can find there. Looked at the schedule and saw there is a train to Chiang Mai at 9.43am. A quick glance at my watch shows 9.42am!

I did not want to ponder anymore about where to go and i allowed fate to decide for me. Since i am directed there, i am sure there is something or someone there waiting for me. Picked up my ticket(586B $25 Ouch!) and spent 10 hours of xmas even on the train. Off i go to chiang mai!

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!

Jingle Bells Jingle Bells

Jingle All the way!

Ho Ho Ho!


A very merry christmas to all my friends and family back in singapore.

To my nanny and family who i spend my last 19 christmas eve with without fail. This year i would not be around but i am sure you would guys would still have as much fun as ever.

To the rest of my friends, Dont miss me too much!


Ho Ho Ho Ho!

Day 7-9 Dec 19-21

After reading through my previous post, i realise i forgot to mention something. In thailand everytime you watch a movie, there would ALWAYS be a short clip of their king and when the clip is being played, everybody will stand automatically stand up till the end of it. The few of us was kinda shocked when we suddenly saw this happened. Afterwards I clarified this with my thai friend Ahmy and he said that they do this because thais respect their king very much.

I woke up kinda late on day 7. The bed at Apple GH was terrible. Both the pillow and mattress was hard and they did not have blankets for the cold night. End up i had to use my sleeping bag far earlier than i expected. Woke up many times during the night and ended up sleeping all the way through to the afternoon.

Had some time so went to the river side to try out my funky new Gorrilapod. Pretty cool actually and it attracted quite a few onlookers.

Evening Chao Praya river

First shot! Missed!

Decided to change position!

Meeting up with Ahmy was kinda fun, we went from talking about making a business selling cotton candy on khao san road to buying a tuk tuk and drive around the world. Too bad his surfer was too quiet.

Ahmy with his bear rice
Insects, would you eat them?

Early next morning, i had to catch a 7.45am train to Kanchanaburi. Woke up at 6am(not that i had much sleep anyway) and went off. 10mins after walking off, i realise i couldn't find my Singapore Sim card! So i rushed all the way back and found it beside on my bed. Phew!
Went to take a ferry to the other side of the river and the ticket collector wasn't in sight. In the end, me and everybody Else did not have to pay for the ride :DI initially had my doubts that the ferry doesn't stop at exactly where i wanted and i was right, it skipped my stop. Without a choice, i had to take a cab to thonburi tran station.
Then another problem occurred, the cab driver does not speak english and could not understand where i wanted to go. He was kinda helpless and pulled up at the side road while i quickly grabbed my notebook and drew a picture of a train -_-" and went "choo choo!"
"Ahh ok ok!" he got it and off we went to the train station(60B $3). Drawing helps alot!

Kiss on the train
My 10B $0.40 lunch on train
And off we go!
This is a train "station" in the middle of no where.

Kanchanaburi is 4 hours train ride(100B $4.20) west of bangkok, this place is known for the Death railway which was constructed by the POW in world war 2. There are museums, cemeteries and many others about it's history that you will see here. Took a motorcycle taxi(yes you heard me right) to my GH for the night. Imagine me with my huge backpack and sitting on the back of a motorcycle zipping in the traffic, kinda cool actually.

My motorcycle driver. Thais like to wear their helmets like this, don't ask me why

The GH that i wanted to stay at was full for the single room and i did not want to pay for a double, so i had to walk to my 2nd GH, Nita guesthouse(90B $4) which i later realise was 1.5km away....
I was feeling kinda crappy and tired after walking for more than half an hour in the hot sun with my pack, on top of that i got lost on the way and had to backtrack quite a bit. Just as i was checking into the new place, i saw a Caucasian girl ordering food at the same place and she said "hi".

My room
Beside was a floating restaurant. It will drift down river while you eat

I waited awhile for my room to be ready and dumped my pack into the room and went to find food, turns out she is still there. We chatted and she said that she had just checked in awhile before i did. The whole place doesn't seem to have any other people staying except the 2 of us. Kind of surprising since i think that Nita GH isnt really such a bad place.

After discussing our plans, we decided to go explore together. We ended up renting(300B with gas $13) a motorcycle(i did not tell YOU that they never check for licence) and with my newly made friend, went riding. A little infor about her, her name is Alice and she is from France doing internship in Bangkok and on weekends, would sometime travel to other parts of thailand. Death museum, named after the countries involved.
I look weird with the helmet and gloves LOL
Alice
By the river
I have no caption for this...

Went to a few interesting Wats around the area and 1 interesting thing that i saw was that even though kanchanaburi is far away from china, there is a huge impact from the chinese community on their structures and temples. I saw HUGE chinese graves and several chinese temples along the way.

Familiar?
Dragon temple
While we were coming down, we saw this guy carry his GF all the way up the long flight of stairs. The girl better marry him
Then Alice said she wants to try riding it. First time for her, abit slow but safe nonetheless
Temples
Temples
Having fun with my gorrilapod
Huge chinese graves

Then we went to see a "floating nun" as depicted on Alice's french guidebook. Was very excited about it since i did not believe that it could really happen. After watching it, i was feeling sad and sympathetic. Watch the video to find out.





I felt that it was more like a circus act, a overly fat person kicking around in salt water. And they kept asking for donations. Don't bother going for it.

Those were near the nuns...
This is how they pump gas
Thai bells
Dinner!

After dinner, we went to see the death railway. The main character in this place. The bridge may just look like any ordinary bridge to people but if you could spend some time understanding the history of it, you would definitely look at it with a different light.

Near the death railway

The next day, Alice is returning to Bangkok. For me, i did not see the point in staying either if she left. So i decided to head to my next destination as well. In the morning, we took a train to Nam tok to see the waterfall. We avoided the more famous and beautiful Erawan waterfall cause it was overly expensive(300B $13) for foreigners and 10 times less for thais.

My first Tuk Tuk ride in thailand(taxi all the way in bangkok)
Grave of the POWs
The people had to stand aside for the train to pass!
Over the death railway
Innocence
This thai girl was very sweet, she knew all the sights along the way and alerted us just before it appeared. She even offered us some snacks
-_-"
View along the way to Nam Tok
Waterfall for children
Picnic for adults

The main area was full of kids and we decided to go to another spot further away. Perfect, less crowded!

We talked about our lives and what we want to see happened in the future. Kinda felt like we were long time friends at that moment.

We later realised that we had both planned to rent a bicycle and just cycle around kanchanaburi. But as it was the 2 of us, i opted to rent a motorcycle and it turned out to be a much better idea considering the distance between the sights. Sleeping ZzzZ

After returning back to kanchanaburi, it was time to part. We exchanged our goodbyes and with a hug, she moved onto her life in Bangkok and me to a new destination.
I guess all good things have to come to an end so that when we look back, it will always remain as a pleasant memory.

Off she went back to Bangkok
and off i went to suphanburi
My bus driver in front of his bus

I boarded my bus to suphanburi(50B $2) where i will change to another bus to Ayuthaya. As the bus rode on, the sky became darker until the road around was pitch dark except for the tail lights from the vehicles in front and the head lights from the vehicles opposite.
Then i had another problem, the last bus to my next destination had already left an hour ago... So there i was in a bus heading to a place where it is not even listed in the guidebook and i had no plans for lodgings!

Just as we are closing in to Suphanburi, my bus pulled to a stop. Alright maybe the conductor lady needs a toilet break. So off she goes to the toilet and back and said something in thai that made everyone get off the bus and wait by the roadside, me included. A passenger of the bus managed to converse to me that we had to wait for another bus but i had no idea why. Fortunately half an hour later, we are burning rubber towards suphanburi.

When we are there, the driver dropped me off by the road side and pointed to a buiding opposite. A bus station? a hotel? i went without knowing what it was.
Pigeon holes! Great! a hotel to sleep(205B $9). But when i went up to the room , it sent a chill down my spine. The place looks like those scene from ghost movies with big stained mirror facing the bed, old school bed and blanket, giant old wooden cupboard and toilet with cracked tiles and a weird smell. I felt uncomfortable there and did not even want to take any pictures in cause i accidently take something i did not want. I even did not bath and just went straight to sleep, setting my alarm clock for the first bus the next day...