The Adventure to Ayutthaya, Thailand
Top of the morning,
I sit here in an astonishingly filthy white T and even dirtier khaki cargo shorts at some 10 baht an hour gaming lounge in Ayutthaya, Thailand aka The Ayutthaya Kingdom aka Siam aka Tai.
Had an absurdly late night last night, I woke up and was like “what am I going to do all day, I’m bored…” This is at about 9am, decided to bounce. I heard Ayutthaya is inbetween Kanchanaburi and Chang Mai so I decided to go check it out since I could catch the train there. If I did not come here, I’d have to go back to Bangkok to catch the train. I was going to golf tomorrow but just didn’t feel like doing nothing for an entire day, my visa is coming to a close, quickly.
I took a motorbike taxi for 30 baht to bus station, bus to Suphanburi which is the bus you must catch to get to Ayutthaya leaves in 15 min, awesome. It costs 47 baht and is ~2 hours.
Ride the bus, it breaks down, get on another and pass out. Wake up at a bus station. As I get there the bus to Ayutthaya is pulling in and leaves in ~5 minutes, also perfect. This bus, I’m not sure how much it costs. The lady showed me a 100 baht bill but I knew that was not the price so I gave her 60 and she left.
I take the bus and these buses are not like any I’ve seen, they have wooden panels, they remind me of the locals buses in Panama, actually. They are also very colorfully decorated and play contemporary Thai music. I will also note that they are not for everyone… They are not so comfortable and you really stand out, if that bothers you, don’t bother, seriously. This bus was ~2 hours as well. If you do wish to get here, you can go on a “tourist minivan” with a/c for 400 baht, snooze.
First let me say that I have been looking at random hotel / hostel sites as everyone does it and the guest house owner I was hanging with told me he is having success with them. WHAT A MISTAKE!!! This whole trip, I’ve been getting somewhere, asking where the guest house district is and just going for it, with great success, might I add. If you do check a guest house, make sure you google map their exact address, something else I can’t be bothered to do.
Found a place called “LIMA PLACE”, it looks nice and a hotel for ~13US a night, I figure… If I can get a hotel at that price why not, other guest houses in this town are ~5US.
Ask a motorbike taxi guy to take me there, we get lost, finally ~25 min later we get there and it’s in the middle of NOWHERE. I mean I thought he was going to take me to a field, fleece me of my things and then harvest my organs out in the middle of nowhere styles. Far from town aka why would you build here far from town.
Get there, they want ~1.5-2X the quoted price online for “walk ins”. At this point I interject, walk in? You’re in the middle of nowhere, how could anyone walk in? They get really defense and whatnot, I tell motorbike man to wait 5 minutes as he is my only out.
I say listen, if I book online, I can get this place cheaper? She says yes, I say ok where is the internet cafe(she didn’t like this), she says you have to buy a ticket, I go to cafe, they send me back to reception and the ticket prices are absurdly priced.
TIP: If you are somewhere sketchy / not sure about / middle of nowhere: Ask cabi to wait 5 min, he will because if he takes you back he gets paid instead of driving home for free, yes?
At this point I tell motorbike man that I want to go back to town to another place I found online(another mistake), suddenly it’s double price to get back, ha. (I respect that). He probably figured, listen kid, if I don’t take you back, how are you going to get back? Also if he had known where it was, I doubt he would of only charged me 30 baht. Only reason I wanted to stay there was because it looked really nice and had wifi, they charge you an arm and a leg for it, might I add.
Motorbike guy had no clue where this place was either, I’m thinking he just moved here or something, so we go back to taxi stand. At this point the other guys are teasing him because this place is RIGHT around the corner ~3 min ride away from where I began here. I will note, not many tourists whatsoever, kinda reminds me of parts of Java, Indonesia. That said, I’m not in the main “guest house district”, that is for sure.
So I check into this other place, it’s “OK” but definitely removed from the pulse of the city. I feel like I’m in the movie “The Stand” and everyone is dead but myself and this French couple I ran into who pointed the direction of where things are happening.
Was going to go check what’s popping as it’s only ~20 min walk away but the only living creatures around here are packs of dogs and we’re in the country. I just can’t be bothered to try and find this area, right now. I have made the executive decision to hang out here, on ~$0.30 an hour internet while drinking orange fanta until I get bored, then pass out and make up for last night.
So here we are, I’m in Ayutthaya aka Ayutthaya Kingdom. Driving in I saw many ruins, for further details on the place, click here. Basically it used to be a Siamese Kingdom from ~1350s – 1760’s before falling to a Burmese invasion.
Many sources say it used to be called “Siam” but others say locals called it Tai. This used to be an incredibly wealthy city and thriving kingdom. It was also a trading hub as the King had close ties with the King of France and allowed foreigners to setup camp outside the city walls.
You’ll never know, unless you go.
Tips hat,
