Bangkok & Ayutthaya - Thailand
/We flew from Khao Sok to Bangkok directly after our night on the raft boat. It was definitely a shock going from serene and peaceful jungle to the hustle and bustle of Bangkok. When we arrived we were unable to find an Uber, and were facing about a three hour line in the taxi queue due to a local festival and increased traffic. Fortunately, after about 30 minutes of spamming for rides, we eventually got an Uber and made it to our hotel.
Unfortunately, Samantha and I were a bit under the weather for our first two days in town, and really didn't get the chance to do or see very much outside of our hotel. On our third day we took a cab into town to take in the city. Our first stop was the golden Buddha, which is fairly self-explanatory. From there we began walking around through old Chinatown. We met a very friendly man on the street who was super curious to know about our plans and where we were from. If we had done even a little reading about walking around Bangkok we would have known not to trust this guy, but we were taken for a bit of a ride, both figuratively and literally. He showed us on our map where, according to him, one of the oldest temples in Bangkok was, and also a great market where we could get some street food nearby. He also offered to help us flag down a tuk-tuk to take us there, and make sure we paid a fair price. Everything seemed fine, until we arrived at the temple. It was in a back alley and was definitely not old. The guy working there couldn't have been friendlier, and didn't try to sell us anything or push anything on us, so we didn't realize we were being scammed quite yet. It became quite clear however, at our next stop, where we were more or less forced into a clothing store. We had been taken to a number of these types of places in India and Egypt, stores that have connections with taxi drivers and tour companies, and the merchandise is usually nice, but we were not in the mood for any shopping. Next the driver told us we had to go to some tourism office, and he didn't make it sound like we had a choice, so we paid him and decided we'd stop the "tour" and wander around ourselves. We spent some time walking around but then decided to call it an afternoon and head back to the hotel. On our way back we were talking about how annoying it was that we were scammed, but also couldn't decide if that's what to call it. After all, the tuk tuk driver didn't try to charge us any extra money, the guy at the temple was really friendly and didn't pressure us to give him any money, and we did, technically, get a bit of a tour around Bangkok, but it still left a bit of a bad taste in our mouths.
The next day we wanted to do some more sightseeing, and visited the grand palace and the nearby temples. These were very cool and definitely not to be missed if in Bangkok. We think that we may have seen the King's motorcade too, or at least someone important, but none of the other tourists knew, and the police wouldn't tell us. I have a friend who spent several months living in Bangkok and he recommended some fantastic places for cheap eats and food, and Steve cafe was one of them. Its a little Thai restaurant right on the river and the food was out of this world. We had some soft shell crab as well as some fried fish and it was definitely the best seafood since leaving Portugal.
We didn't get to spend quite as much time as we would have liked in Bangkok due to our feeling crappy, but the next day we headed north to the small city of Ayuthayya. The big draw of Ayuthayya is the numerous temples and ruins dating from around the 15th century. We stayed in a small guesthouse and had access to a couple of bikes that we used to explore some of the ruins. It was a nice pace, especially compared to Bangkok, and having the freedom to bike and walk wherever we wanted was nice. The food was also amazing, as seen in some of Samantha's photos. We only spent a couple of nights here, but we felt like we had enough time to see the sights, and so afterwards we headed back to Bangkok for our flight to Chiang Mai.
