Day trip to visit the King

Not the King of England though... the King of Thailand!

About 25 kms (15 miles) south of Ayutthaya is the Bang Pa-In Royal Palace. This was the summer residence regularly used by King Rama V until his death in 1910. Nowadays it is rarely visited by the royal family, and is used for state functions and welcoming foreign dignitaries. So unfortunately, the king wasn't home when we got there!

First problem though, was finding out how to get there. Most people book a tour from either Bangkok or Ayutthaya, but they're are way too expensive for our liking. As I've said before, Thailand can be very cheap in many ways, but if you want to play tourist, it can add up quickly!

It would have been 200 baht ($5.60 USD, $7.60 CAD) to take a Grab (similar to Uber) taxi to the palace. Which in itself is not bad. But our host here at the guest house suggested taking the train, which is far cheaper. The only problem with that is that there really aren't that many trains. But, the schedule said there was one leaving at 12:15pm, so we made our way to the train station in time for that.

We took the ferry across the river.

10 baht ($0.28 USD, $0.38 CAD) each.

There was a huge barge being floated down the river.

At the Ayutthaya train station, we bought our 3rd class tickets to Bang Pa-In. It's only two stops down the line, so about a 15 minute ride. The cost was 3 baht ($0.08 USD, $0.11 CAD) each. Yes, that is correct... 8 cents USD, or 11 cents CAD! A taxi would have been reasonable, but this is almost free!

But 12:15pm came and went, and there was no train. A lot of other people waiting though. Thai trains may be cheap, but they do have a reputation of not being on time. It was 12:49pm when it finally showed up.

There is our train!

15 minutes later, we got off in Bang Pa-In. From that train station, it is still a 2 km walk to the palace entrance. But, there are things to see along the way, such as the Wat Chumphon Nikayaram Temple (often called the Royal Temple), which is totally free. Missed by most tourists because it's not part of the palace complex.

Believed to have originally been built in 1632, however extensively renovated in the 1800's.

Definitely one of the most original interiors we have seen.

Nobody around but us, and a monk (sitting on the right in this photo).

The wall paintings are damaged, but still amazing.

Fancy buddhas!

Definitely one of the most interesting temples we've seen.

I was reading that they are awaiting funding to restore the interior paintings, but I think they look better in their original condition.

From there, to the palace entrance where we had to install the lower part of our zip off shorts. The palace has a strict dress code, and knees must be covered with both men and women, as well as arms, especially for women. No flipflops, but regular sandals are okay.

Cost for foreigners is 100 baht ($2.80 USD, $3.80 CAD) each.

The palace grounds are very well manicured.

It's a 48 acre complex, so lots of walking... however you can also rent a golf cart.

Of course we chose to walk it.

I thought I was warm in the 35C (95F) temps until I saw these guys!

This pavilion is amazing!

Property fit for a king!

What a beautiful spot.

Hardly anybody around!

That building on the left is air conditioned. We went in there for a half an hour to cool off!

Old royal clothing.

The main residence.

The "Chinese" palace.

This Chinese style building was originally wood, but it burned to the ground in 1938. It was rebuilt in the same style, but in concrete. Apparently the interior is really special but it is rarely open to the public. In fact during our visit, very few of the buildings were open to the public.

Fancy roof decotations.

Chinese art.

Every decoration depicts a different scene.

This pond has a lot of fish and turtles.

And other things. We spotted a head poking up near the shore, and we figured it might be one of those Asian monitor lizards. They can grow quite big, and we wanted to see how big this one was. We stood and watched it for a while, then this bird came along and was getting closer and closer to the lizard. We thought for sure it was going to be dinner, so I took a video...

We made it back to the train station at around 4:00pm to find out that the next train back to Ayutthaya isn't until 6:09pm! There are local motorcycle taxis, but they wanted 150 baht each. A Grab taxi is only 200 baht, so I tried ordering one but none responded as being in the vicinity. So we decided to walk about 1 km down the road to a restaurant to have something to eat while we waited for the train, but we got to the restaurant to find that it was closed. The family who runs it was there though, and they insisted on having their young boy take us on a scooter back to the train station, even though we were quite happy to walk. So, all three of us hopped onto a scooter, just the way the locals do!

So we waited for the train, and fortunately it was pretty much on time. By the time we got back to Ayutthaya we were starved though, and popped into the first spot we saw for some food.

Pad Thai, in Thailand!

It was pretty good though, or maybe it's just because we were so hungry!

We are going to walk over to see some more elephants today, and then do a sunset riverboat trip late this afternoon.

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