Back into the national park

One of the problems with this type of "senior backpacking" travel that we are currently doing is that we don't have a vehicle. We've solved this problem in the past by renting a car, the way we have done in Romania and Turkiye. This time, we've been trying to avoid it because we really didn't need one in the cities, and the train is so easy to use. 

But when it comes to getting into a national park here in Thailand to do some hiking, it does make things a little more complicated.

Bugs and bats

On Friday afternoon, we did our scheduled half day tour with the group from the guesthouse. This tour does not go into the national park itself, so it's quite a bit cheaper because you don't have to pay the park entrance fee per person.

Once again, there were five of us in the back of the truck... us, a single guy from Birmingham, UK, and a couple from France.

We saw a lot of interesting stuff!

A busy day yesterday as we did a full day tour into Thailand's Khao Yai National Park. 

We had read that the full day tour can have as many as 15 people on it, but you are separated into groups of 5, so it feels like you're on a small group tour. We had a younger guy from Germany, and a mother and daughter from France with us.

Ayutthaya to Pak Chong travel day

Wednesday was not that exciting of a day, but you kind of want travel days to be like that! 

We had reservations for the 11:30am train from Ayutthaya to Pak Chong. It's a two hour train ride, and each ticket cost 173 baht (4.85 USD, $6.60 CAD) each for a one way reserved seat in third class. We are quite happy in third class with all of the locals. Much more fun that way, and they have all the windows wide open with the wind blowing through.

Ayutthaya Boat Tour

This is the second post of the day because we were so busy yesterday it wouldn't all fit into one post! So if you missed the first one, you can read it here... https://www.travelwithkevinandruth.com/2023/12/busy-day-with-elephants.html

Anyhow, after we were done having fun with the elephants, we had to meet up with the boat tour group at our guest house for a 3:30pm departure. We hesitated about doing this boat tour because it got mixed reviews. But, we decided that the 250 baht ($7 USD, $9.50 CAD) price was reasonable, and it would just be a chance to do something different.

Busy day with the elephants!

We had a busy day yesterday, so I'm actually going to break it into two posts. The first part of our day, we walked over to the Royal Elephant Kraal Village. About 3 kms (1.8 miles) of flat walking. People think we are crazy to walk that far in the heat, but hey... you gotta get some exercise!

There are a lot of elephant rides given in the Ayutthaya area. This is a controversial thing, with many westerners trying to change the practice. However the Thai people generally see nothing wrong with it, having lived and worked with the elephants for thousands of years. And of course there is a lot of rhetoric and misinformation thrown into the mix by the animal rights organizations.

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!

The day started off a little disappointing

We feel like we haven't been getting enough fruits and veggies, which is really surprising to us. Given the tropical climate, we figured that fruits and veggies would be inexpensive and in abundance the way they are in Mexico. But that's not the case. Most meals are made with some bean sprouts and a few leaves of something green (maybe kale, which is not our favorite), and sometimes a few chunks of peppers.

Anyhow, we've been making a concerted effort to correct that, and one way is with fruit smoothies. They're not necessarily cheap, but we had a mango and banana one the other night that was delicious.

Feeding the elephants, and a lot of interesting things to see!

It didn't take us long to find two good restaurants that we like here in Ayutthaya. And they're both on the same road as our guest house, so it's really convenient. The first one is a hole in the wall type of place with basic cheap meals and the couple running it are smiling and friendly. They do a stuffed omelet for breakfast that's really nice. 

And the other is a little more upscale, but they have a wide variety of interesting dishes, and still at reasonable prices.

Train from Bangkok to Ayutthaya, Thailand

We had booked the train on the official Thai train website. The website has an English version, and although it's not super user friendly, I had no problem doing it. 

We left the apartment at noon, and made our way back to the pink line monorail, this time with our daypacks and carry on suitcases. With one connection, we arrived at the Krung Thep (Bang Sue) train station around 1:00pm with lots of time for our 2:15pm departure.

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A week in Bangkok is more than enough for us

We had been contacted by an American couple, Lisa and Lance who were asking about our time in the stan countries, and they just happened to be in Bangkok and asked if we wanted to get together. We were planning on heading downtown anyhow, so when they suggested a meeting point in a shopping mall in a downtown area we hadn't been to, we were totally fine with that.

We left the apartment at about 11:10am, and arrived at the big fancy Terminal 21 mall and headed to the 5th floor food court. Lisa had suggested having lunch here. Certainly not the type of place we would normally choose, however there were a lot of local food choices, and with typical street food prices.

Glad we went, but it's a bit run down...

Looking for something off the beaten path here in Bangkok, I came across Ko Kret Island. 

It's only an island because of a canal they dug in the early 1700's to speed up shipping traffic between Bangkok and Ayutthaya. Over time, erosion caused the canal to actually become part of the river, and now Ko Kret is a man made island. 

Thoughts on Thailand so far

We've only been here for four full days, and only in the city of Bangkok... so keeping that in mind, here are our thoughts so far...

Yes, it's hot. Bangkok is one of the hottest cities in the world with a typical daytime high of between 32C to 34C (90F to 93F). Doesn't really matter what time of year, although some seasons get more rain than others. 

We're surviving, because we were mentally prepared for it. But I think we knew even before we came here that it's not a place we could live.

Fun exploring some of downtown Bangkok

On Monday, we relaxed in the apartment until after lunch. Ruth had read of a sound at light show that they do at one of the bridges downtown, and it doesn't start until after dark. We hadn't been to downtown yet, so we figured we would start late and see some of it at night as well.

We headed out at about 2:30pm.