We travelled to Ayutthaya via train, my first train while backpacking actually, so it felt quite novel. We would only be traveling for two hours so we chose a third class ticket, which meant no Aircon and sitting on wooden benches but that suited us fine, we were slightly sweaty by the end but overall it was an enjoyable way to travel and we got to look out at the countryside and city’s that we passed through and got a view of the non-touristy sections of the country. We also got to see a lot of monks on the train (not quite the same as snakes on a plane but probably safer!) which felt a bit surreal at first, but we soon got used to it.
We arrived in the afternoon and walked about the town, it was super hot and sweaty which is the common theme in Asia but here it was slightly hotter and sweatier than usual. After a pretty uneventful walk we headed back to our hostel and after a sit to cool down in the Aircon and a shower (we are now showering at least two times a day, normally three!) One it had got dark we headed back out to grab some dinner, hoping it had cooled down slightly, it had not.
Thai restaurants normally have a large menu but the one we chose was even more insane than usual with a thick binders worth of meal options, no exaduration. Grace chose pad see ew, which is thick translucent noodles with soy sauce and oyster sauce vinegar and sugar. I went for a classic fried rice, we also got some traditional thai spring rolls to try. We wanted to try some more stuff but unfortunately the meals are always huge and it feels like a waste if you don’t like it or you’re too full to eat it. So we just tried each other’s and the dumplings.
Grace was debating whether to have a beer as they only had large bottles that are two drinks worth. Even after years of traveling with Grace and her making me try different types of beer in the hope that one day I’ll come round to liking it, (as if the fact it’s always the cheapest drink on the menu isn’t persuasive enough!) I still can’t stand it. So she was in luck when an Australian man on the table next to us offered to go half with her as his wife didn’t like beer either.
The couple both spoke fluent Thai but even without a language barrier there still seemed to be a cultural one about wanting one beer to share between two tables, with three different members of staff coming over in disbelief to check their college hadn’t misunderstood.
The couple were super interesting he was Australian and she was Indonesian. They both did a study abroad year in Thailand 20 years ago, not realising that no-one spoke English, so had to learn Thai pretty quickly. Not an easy feat, I think we’ve learnt about 6 phrases in a month of being here and that’s 5 more than most travelers here! Who’d have thought we’d miss Spanish! But they clearly had a knack for it, as they both spoke English, Thai and several Indonesian languages. They spent half of their year in Thailand and half in Singapore and we had a really fun evening chatting away to them.
The added bonus was that they knew a lot about Thai food and let us try loads of their wide variety of dishes. We got to try tom ya soup I liked it, Grace wasn’t a fan, some spicy shrimp paste sauce with local veg, and mango rice, a favourite desert here in Thailand. Grace liked this but I was less keen, sweet rice just feels wrong to me! We were also offered some raw shrimp which we kindly declined.
The next day was our only full day in Ayutthaya, so we wanted to see the ruins the city is famous for. Well… technically the ruins are the city I suppose. They were the old capital of Thailand before the Burmese invaded and ransacked it in 1767 and a more defendable position was picked for the capital. Even as ruins the city is still impressive and still very sizable as a town. We had a jam packed day, visiting 7 different sites in total various temples and royal buildings. Even in its decrepit state it was still impressive, we were saying how amazing it would have been to see the buildings in their prime, completed and painted, as we walked through a very run down building. At one point the walls were uncomfortably slanted inwards, we rushed through there quickly, not wishing to end up under a pile of rubble.
In one of the sites we saw a building still used for worship, one of the few where the Buda statue hadn’t been decapitated. They clearly don’t get many visitors here as we were the only people there apart from a female nun, who was obviously used to solitude… She let out a really loud fart and smiled to herself before hearing us trying to stiffel a laugh. She rushed off looking horrified. When we came to asia looking to experience new things, hearing a female monk fart wasn’t exactly what I had in mind but it’s definitely a memorable and unique experience I’ll give it that.
At another sites we got to see one of the decapitated Buda heads that had been enfolded into a tree which was a pretty cool sight.
Even walking between the sites we got to see some cool stuff, there were lots of Thai people in traditional dress taking engagement photos in different parts of the riened city, we walked through some beautifully tended parks and saw some locals riding elephants, we also noticed people selling lottery tickets everywhere apparently buying a ticket at a temple is supposed to bring you luck. So a very jam packed day.
After a long day of sight seeing we headed back into the new town to buy our train ticket for that evening, we would be getting a 12 hour overnight train to Chiang Mai. We wanted to book 1st or 2nd class compartments which are air-conditioned beds. But we hadn’t realised today was the start of a week long festival, kind of like Thai New year and everyone was traveling to see friends or family, so the only tickets still available for the next week were third class benches with no Aircon… It would be a long journey!
We had a few hours to kill before our train so we decided to grab some dinner and then check out the local night market. We figured we should probably eat in a restaurant rather than the market itself as the food would be less likely to give us food poisoning. How wrong we were. We ordered some fried rice and to me it just looked like food poisoning on a plate, I can’t even explain why, it was just pale and unappetizing, even the vegetables looked undercooked and tasted hard. I know sometimes my Crohn’s makes me slightly over suspensious of food so I just kept my mouth shut and tried to eat rice only. But it appears Grace had the same thought and after checking a piece of chicken, found it was raw in the middle. Thankfully the food only cost £3 each so we just paid up and left, we didn’t fancy trying to argue it out with a language barrier.
We had much better luck in the market, here all of the food is cooked to order right infront of you and you can see how clean the cooking area is, so we paid another £1.5 each and got a Pad Thai, it was tastier and cheaper than our previous meal and both of them together cost less than £5 so I still didn’t feel robbed.
There were loads of other cool stuf in the market too, big vats of delicious smelling curry, many varieties of meat on a stick, lots of sticky mango rice deserts and even some edible insects, seeing as we’ve both tried these before on travels, I can still feel the wing I got stuck in my teeth everytime I think about it, we didn’t opt for the bugs. We did however purchase some tiny jam donut like deserts which were really nice, but very sweet.
Eventually we waddled out of the market and towards the train station ready for our overnight train. The third carriage was rammed, me and Grace took our seats, two of us and our stuff squished on one bench. We were sat across from a woman who had booked two seats for herself so she could just about lay down on the bench, we were very jealous we hadn’t thought of that. We decided to take shifts in sleeping so we could watch over our stuff, as I’m more of a night owl Grace went to sleep first. About an hour after setting off a train attendant walked down the train talking to different passengers, unfortunately she did not speak English so I just had to hope what she was saying wasn’t important! About 10 minutes later she came back with a tray of pot noodles, she was taking food orders. I pointed to one of the pot noodles and gestured that I would like one, a woman sat across from me shook her head and said ‘no, too spicy’ she then pointed to another flavour on the tray, seeing as I can’t read Thai so was randomly guessing anyway, I agreed to the suggested flavour.
Thank god for that woman is all I can say! If what I ended up with was the mild flavour, I don’t want to try the spicy one! It was really tasty as pot noodles go, but boy was it warm. I was also left with the broth of concentrated spice at the bottom but seeing as there were no bins and I didn’t want it to spill, I had to drink it. It took a good two hours before I could feel the pain in my lips receding. I also think the woman and her husband got a bit too much enjoyment watching my suffering, especially when she asked me if it was nice as I was almost panting like a dog.
Around 2am we reached a stop when half of the carriage got off, including the woman opposite us, so we were able to have a bench each, we also gave up on sleeping in shifts and just slept on our bags so wed notice if anyone tried to take them, (they were already padlocked closed so taking the whole bag would be the only way to get our stuff).
We were woken by daylight and a few hours later we reached our destination Chiang Mai. Hopefully that will be the first and last 3rd class overnight train!
I will tell you all about Chiang Mai soon, lots of love, Alice x