Backdated: 29th June 2013
Me and my bike |
Today was our full day in Ayutthaya, after arriving yesterday and grabbing some grub. We decided today we would either rent bicycles or motorbikes – depending on rental prices. We enquired: 80 baht (£1.60) for two bicycles for the day or 400 baht (£8) for two motorbikes for the day. Although when you convert it into English money, the motorbikes were a good deal, we decided to be stingy and sweat it out on the push bikes.
We had already drawn up a rough route on the awful tourist map they give you here (there are no street names on the map so even figuring out where we were staying was difficult. I spent 20mins last night using lonely planet and google maps to figure it out and scribble all the names onto it). Our route encompassed Wat Phanan Choeng (with its 19m high gold Buddha), Wat Chai Wattanaram, Wat Phra Si Sanphet, Wat Phra Mahathat and Wat Ratburana. We had planned to do the two that were furthest away and off the island first and then basically work our way home, however we changed this plan on the advice of the lovely lady from Tour With Thai who told us that Wat Chai Wattanaram was lovely at sunset.
Big Buddha |
There is now a company who take abused elephants and take tourists on rides around the ruins with the elephants dressed up in royal outfits. Not sure how much I believe they’re ACTUALLY trying to do good as the elephants are still being trained to sit and pose with tourists and still be loaded with the chairs that I hear are bad for them. On top of that, it costs 400 baht (£8) per person for a 20 minute ride around ruins that you don’t want to see (not strictly true - I’m sure they’re nice but they’re not the important ones). So we decided, for all reasons listed above, to give it a miss and cycle on to Wat Phra Si Sanphet.
Rocking the audioguide |
Remains of Buddhas body |
Buddha head wrapped in tree roots |
All in all, our bike rental was a successful experience. We only had one collision – and that was with each other! We were on a roundabout:
Me: is there anything coming or can we cross (the junction)
Len: no we’re fine (2 seconds pass) motorbike (a second passes and I immediately start to brake – Len is still looking over his shoulder) actually nah, go!
CRASH.
Len: FUCK!
Auditioning for 'house band' |
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