Tag: Thailand

Ayutthaya, Asiatique and a little bit of red light district

For our second day in Thailand, we got up early to catch the Special Express train leaving for Ayutthaya at 5:45 am. The train was air-conditioned, offered reserved seating, and, to our welcome surprise, included breakfast. Here’s the train schedule from Hua Lamphong to Ayutthaya train station if you plan to go there too. We hired a van to tour us around Ayutthaya.  If you’re on a budget, you can opt for a tuk-tuk instead.

Wat Chaiwatthanaram

Ayutthaya used to be a Siamese kingdom so there are a lot of temples and ruins. I haven’t been to Cambodia but I have seen pictures. And the ruins in Ayutthaya reminded me of Angkor Wat.

If you’ve read my Korean blog post, you would know that we don’t go for guided tours. So while other tourists were getting schooled about why some of the Buddhas’ heads were missing, we came up with our own story. There’s this complex of ruins where a big Buddha statue lorded over numerous smaller, headless Buddhas. Our short story went like this: The tiny Buddhas have had enough of the big Buddha’s dictatorship so they staged an uprising. But the tiny Buddhas were not unified in their attack so they lost and were beheaded for their rebellious act.

The other story we concocted was that Ayutthaya was conquered by outside forces and took over the kingdom. To show the people of Siam who the new rulers were, the conquerors defiled their temples by removing all the Buddha heads from their bodies.

Aside from the ruins, the other reason why we went to Ayutthaya was to ride an elephant. Animal rights activists do not support this trade because they said that mahouts or elephant trainers torture elephants to make them obedient. But if you really want to ride an elephant, based on this blog, make sure to patronize a camp where the elephants are not chained up when they’re not giving rides to tourists, that they get to interact with other elephants, and that they don’t exhibit rocking which is a symptom of distress. Luckily, the camp in Ayutthaya satisfied all of those things except that they gave rides on the back of the elephant, not on the head, which is a no-no.

All those concerns aside, riding an elephant was definitely a unique experience. You had this calm beast working its way around a city, crossing the street and avoiding cars like it’s no big deal. It was walking on the sidewalk like a good pedestrian. It was so cute. I felt like waving to everyone because this ride made me feel like I’m a Thai princess in an ancient city. Our elephant’s name is Thaeng Mo (I don’t know if I’m spelling it correctly). She is four years old and is very calm unlike the other elephant Lola. Lola is quite a personality. She doesn’t care: She will stop and eat when she wants to, and has no qualms about posing in front of a camera.

Lola, the mahout, Matt and mother

After the elephant ride, we dropped by the other temples. But since they all pretty much looked alike, we didn’t bother exploring all of them anymore. Plus, we only had bread for breakfast and were starving so we finished the tour after seeing the 16,583,493th Reclining Buddha in Thailand.

Our lunch was another experience altogether. We had spicy papaya salad, pad thai, a seafood platter and this AMAZING seafood curry. I want to say the elephant ride was the highlight of our Ayutthaya tour but the lunch was a very, very close second. I tried to look for the name of the restaurant and I’m sure I snapped a photo of it, but I can’t find it right now. What I can tell you though is that the restaurant is just across the train station and near a 7-Eleven store. Find it, guys.

Moving ovens called trains

The train going back to Bangkok was so much cheaper than the Special Express train, and for one torturous reason—it was a moving oven. Ordinary trains had no air-conditioning and was free seating (read: free standing). There were ceiling fans for ventilation and fresh air came in from tiny windows. Again, this was the height of summer so just imagine all that pent up heat inside a steel carriage packed with passengers at two in the afternoon. The most fascinating thing that we observed during this hot ride was that the locals weren’t sweating despite the heat, and that none of them reeked of body odor. We were the ones who probably smelled bad and for that we are sorry, people of Thailand.

I made a new friend during our train ride.

That night, we went to Asiatique The Riverfront for dinner. From our hotel, we walked to Saphan Taksin train station where there’s a free boat ride to Asiatique. It’s a great place to go if you want to do some night shopping. It’s a combination of small stalls selling bazaar items and shops of cute Thai brands.

From Asiatique we went to Soi Cowboy, which is one of the popular red light districts in Bangkok. This is where they filmed some scenes of The Hangover Part 2. It’s just a short strip of clubs with lots of foreigners and girls showing off their wares. We chanced upon this lady opening up her legs in front of a potential client. I guess they do this so that the customer can check whether they have the right sexual organs or not, because in Thailand, you can never be too sure if you’re dealing with a real lady or a very pretty boy. I wonder what Buddha has to say about prostitution in Thailand?

Read the first part of our Thailand trip.

Summer in Bangkok: The Grand Palace, Wat Pho and a Tuk-Tuk Ride

You shall not pass.

Our trip to Thailand did not start off smoothly. We went there to celebrate Jonas’ birthday and the birthday boy almost got left behind. We bought his ticket months before, when he was still based in Cebu so his flight was Cebu-Manila-Bangkok. Come February, he was assigned back to Manila. We thought we could still use the same ticket, but they cancelled his flight because he failed to check-in in Cebu. They had to make us wait until there was only 45 minutes left before they allowed us to check-in our baggage. We also had to buy a one-way ticket to Bangkok for Jonas which cost as much as his round trip flight. But we pushed it so it’s all good. The lessons learned: read the fine print and do not book connecting flights. Just book two separate flights instead.

Hurray! Celebratory pose because all of us made it.

I am embarrassed to admit that I am one of those people who expected Thailand to be dirty and chaotic because of The Hangover Part II. But once we arrived at Suvarnabhumi International Airport, I knew I was wrong. I really shouldn’t have judged too early because Bangkok is so much better than Manila infrastructure-wise. Their airport is bigger with better facilities. Their roads are clean, well-maintained and not peppered with potholes. I was jealous and felt a little bad for the Manila. Excluding airfare, our budget for our four-day stay in Thailand was Php15,000. We stayed at Holiday Inn, Silom at a discounted rate thanks to Matt.

Point and shoot.

Our first order of business when we arrived was to eat. We found this cafeteria-type food court near our hotel. The vendors and customers knew little to no English so we didn’t bother asking what kinds of food were available. We just based our orders on what they looked and smelled like, and copied whatever the locals did.

What’s for brunch? These things. I don’t know what they’re called.

Thai food uses a lot of spices and it’s so fragrant. It’s too fragrant that I think I can taste flowers in some of their food. We also tried some of their drinks. One of them was like a very sour raspberry juice then the other was like a combination of some sort of tea with hints of what a smelly sock would taste like. It was weird but I enjoyed it after a few sips and managed to finish the whole glass. We had mango sticky rice for dessert to cap off our cheap but flavorful Thai meal.

Mother’s face says it all.

After brunch, we went to the Grand Palace. When I was researching about the Grand Palace, I read that there was a dress code. No sleeveless and midriff-baring tops. No shorts or miniskirts. And no slippers. But when we got there, there were tourists wearing shorts, flip-flops and sleeveless tops. We went to Thailand during Holy Week which was the height of the summer heat. I regretted wearing jeans that day.

The Grand Palace is not so grand. Sure it was expansive and the designs on the walls, floors and ceilings are intricate when you look at it up close but it still wasn’t impressive. But then again we don’t have any palaces in the Philippines to rival Thailand’s Grand Palace so who am I to not be impressed? Maybe it was the heat or the great number of tourists that took away from the experience. But it’s one of those places you have to visit just to get it out of the way. All I’m saying is, The Grand Palace is not a place you would come back for.

To add to the typical Thailand tourist experience, we rode a tuk-tuk to Wat Pho. I was surprised that tuk-tuks are battery-powered and are actually pretty fast vehicles. They are way, way better than our tricycles.

Matt and the Giant Reclining Buddha

Wat Pho is the temple that houses the giant Reclining Buddha. You won’t really do much there except take a picture with the Reclining Buddha in the background. That is it. I read that there’s a good Thai massage place around Wat Pho but we were over the whole thing. We skipped the dinner cruise on the Chao Phraya river because it was a little expensive, we were tired, and we still had an early start the next day for our Ayutthaya tour.