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it’s my first time venturing out of bangkok throughout the entire trip.

ayutthaya was the ancient capital of thailand from the year 1350 to 1767. it’s a province outside bangkok, about 76 kilometers up north. when it flourished, it was said to be a very beautiful city. but after a burmese siege in 1767, the place had lain in ruins ever since. the purpose for my trip there was to see the ruins.

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the day started off with me ignoring the alarm clock and waking up late. had planned to go to ayutthaya for the day. but when i got to the lumpinee train station, it was already after noon. and if i caught the two-hour train ride to ayutthaya anyway, it would be about 4pm on arrival while most of the temples and ruins closed at 5pm. not much exploring left to do.

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gosh, i can’t believe i have to leave bangkok in two days’ time. i have already gotten so used to living in my serviced apartment, walking to the BTS station to take the skytrain, exploring the city by myself, taking pictures wherever i go, talking to random strangers, etc etc etc! but today, i saw the ugly side of bangkok.

tuk-tuk drivers. NEVER agree when they approach you to drive you to your destination. chances are they would drive you off to a jewelry store where you would waste your already very limited time browsing through the boring jewelry so that they could earn commission and free gasoline from the store.

how they operate is usually like this: the tuk-tuk driver spots a tourist. he then approaches the tourist asking where he wants to go. the tourist names a place called XXX. the driver would then suggest going to another place called YYY before driving him to XXX, claiming YYY is a great place. but in actual fact, it’s only because the jewelry store lies along the route to YYY. and he doesn’t mention the jewelry place until he has already driven you off. usually, he would offer a very cheap fare of 20 baht which you would find hard to resist.

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people always seem surprised when they find out my trip in bangkok lasts seven days. they tend to think that seven days is too long. but right now, i suspect i may have to extend my trip because there is so much more to do and so little time left. i’m seriously beginning to fall in love with bangkok.

i went to chatuchak weekend market today. they have all kinds of things there, such as clothes, accessories, food, household stuff, toys, pets, you name it. there are supposedly 20,000 over stalls open on weekends, and it’s really no exaggeration. it’s impossible to visit every stall because there are just too many, and it’s almost like a maze. to avoid getting lost, i took pictures along the way to set up a “picture trail”. so that when it’s time to leave, i could just follow the pictures and backtrack.

for now i would just let the pictures do the talking.

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it was a very fun day for me yesterday. i set out to lumpinee stadium to watch muay thai kickboxing. but before that, i had time to check out the supposedly best khao mun kai (chicken rice) in the city. the shop was called kaiton and i had some trouble locating it. i walked up and down an entire street of foodstalls but none had english names written anywhere. finally, i decided the biggest chicken stall would have to be kaiton. i was right.

the staff even donned bright pink t-shirts with a chicken logo at the back haha… the khao mun kai was very cheap at 30 baht. it came along as a plate of rice with chicken on top (same case as in singapore), with a bowl of chicken soup and some very spicy sauce.

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