Being a Bangkok house husband means playing many roles. One of the most fun is travel agent - whilst my hard-working beloved is out winning the bread, I get to plan fun things for us to do at the weekend. I'll be sharing some of these here on the blog, in the hope that others might benefit from the fruits of my research.
So, first up was a place I've visited before and knew would make a nice, easy and cheap weekend out of town - Ayutthaya. After all, what better place to start exploring our newly-adopted country than one of the great seats of it's culture?
Getting here is simplicity itself, and unbelievably cheap. A third-class ticket on the ordinary train from Bangkok costs a remarkable 15 baht!
A bargain for a journey of two hours or so. For some reason, you can't buy a ticket for these trains more than an hour in advance, so your best bet is simply to rock up at Hualamphong after work on friday, present yourself at the ticket office and hope for the best. Trains seem to run every hour or so, with the occasional express that cuts half an hour off the journey but costs a lot more for the privilege. Conditions in third class are somewhat basic, but fine for a journey this length. Get to the platform good and early and you should hopefully get a seat - the train fills up somewhat as it makes its way slowly through Bangkok's suburban stations, taking about an hour just to get out of town - but it's a relaxing and interesting way to travel. For more info, see the ever-useful railway guru, Man in Seat 61.
The route is pretty straightforward. Just walk out of the station and across the road, heading down the alley between the food stalls directly opposite the station entrance. At the end you'll find a well-signposted ferry pier, where a few baht will get you across one of the rivers that surround the old town and onto the 'island' itself.
Once across the river, a right turn will lead you towards Naresuan Soi 2, Ayutthaya's cousin to Khaosan Road (of which more later), but we preferred to stay somewhere a little less backpackery, and so headed straight on towards the historical park at the centre of the island. There, down a pleasant little alley opposite Wat Mahathat, lies the thoroughly charming Tamarind guest house.
Discovered with the help of the marvellous Travelfish, who in years of using them to find accommodation have never steered me wrong, this is a lovely place to stay. Endearingly ramshackle but spotlessly clean, with a welcoming owner who couldn't be more helpful, a great location right opposite some of the main sights, and bargain prices too.
So, having checked in and deposited our bags, we were hungry and in need of a drink. Times like this, when you've just arrived in town and want your immediate needs met without complication, are when a backpacker 'ghetto' comes in rather handy, so back to Soi 2 we went. To be honest, the comparison to Khaosan Road is rather unfair - especially out of season, when this short, somewhat low-key strip of bars and restaurants is actually rather charming.
We grabbed a seat at Street Lamp, which seemed to be the busiest of the bars, and they took very good care of us, providing cheap beer (Big Chang, 60 baht. - we're not in Bangkok now!) and simple but tasty and good value food. All this in a friendly and fun atmosphere, with entertainment provided by the house band - who offered the usual Thai-style covers of stuff your dad likes, but gamely played on through the power cut which transformed our meal into a more romantic, candle-lit affair than we were expecting. Once the power returned, they even welcomed one of our fellow punters up on stage, lending him a guitar to live out his axe-hero fantasies. They were eventually forced to stop, though, when the rainy season lived up to it's billing with a spectacular downpour that forced us all inside, then flooded the bar itself!
One of the joys of travelling during the rainy season is the occasional forcibly-extended bar visit, and so after several more beers than we were planning on, we walked through the sodden streets back to the guest house. The next morning was thus a little fuzzier than we hoped, but we headed out to see some sights regardless, after hiring bicycles from our ever-helpful host - 50 baht each for the day, which seems to be the going rate.
There are plenty of guides that detail the wealth of historical sites Ayutthaya has to offer, so I won't retread that ground here. Besides which, it doesn't pay to get too hung up on obsessively ticking off the temples - simply cycling around this town littered with treasures can be the most rewarding thing, admiring them as you glide past, rather than clambering over them in the company of a coach-load of tourists. Pick a few sites carefully to explore more thoroughly.
No matter how good your intentions, as the day gets hotter and you approach yet another pile of old bricks, temple fatigue can set in. A nice way to escape the sun for a while and set what you've seen in some context is to visit one of the town's museums. We checked out the Chao Sam Phraya Museum, just south of the historical park, which as you'd expect contains a fine collection of buddha images, a number of which were apparently found packed inside the colossal Phra Mongkhon Bophit statue located nearby.
The real treasures here, though, are the incredible relics recovered from deep inside Wat Mahathat and Wat Ratchaburana - a glittering array of golden and bejewelled knick-knacks reminiscent of the treasures of the pharaohs. Amazing stuff, and a great way to lend some context to what we'd seen elsewhere in town.
After all this, like us you'll probably be quite hungry. A nice place for a spot of lunch is Malakor, on the corner opposite Wat Ratchaburana. This was a recommendation from our guest house, and it was only upon climbing up the stairs to its charming wooden deck area that I realised I'd actually eaten here before several years ago on a previous visit. Cheap and tasty, both times.
Whilst there's plenty to see on the island itself, I'd urge you to go a little further afield, if only to see the amazing Wat Phanan Choeng. Reached by another short ferry journey from the south-east of the island, this still-working temple serves as a vibrant counterpoint to the ruins elsewhere.
A colourful array of fascinating merit-making activities take place at this sprawling complex - covering statues in gold leaf, shaking fortune sticks at the various shrines, stapling notes to the 'money tree' - but the undisputed star of the show is the central buddha image, an immense, gleaming, 19-metre high statue, some 700 years old, that dominates the main hall.
We were lucky enough to arrive whilst a ceremony involving 'dressing' this biggest of buddhas was taking place, and watched enthralled as huge lengths of bright orange cloth were folded, distributed amongst the gathered crowd, and draped over their heads before being thrown to helpers standing on the statue's lap and hauled up his chest. A truly staggering sight.
On the cycle back, we had hoped to sample the local snack that some of the guidebooks recommend - Roti Saimai, a kind of candyfloss-filled pancake. However, this seems to be rather hard to buy in less than wholesale quantities, with the stalls only offering sacks of the stuff large enough to rot a whole family's teeth. One stall-holder, though, took pity on our attempts to buy a smaller quantity and rolled us a couple of individual ones, for which she would accept no payment in return! It's delicious stuff, but I'm quite glad we didn't buy a whole sack, as we'd surely have eaten ourselves sick on it.
And so, our appetites unspoiled, we headed out for dinner - ending up at Old Place, on the river near the ferry crossing from the station. This proved to be a great choice, a truly family business where we ate a number of delicious dishes, each served by a different member of the family, on a pleasant wooden deck overlooking the river.
Particular highlights were the seafood, both the amazingly-fresh squid, and the sumptuous prawn red curry proudly served to us by the youngest of the family with a little assistance from his big brother. Suitably well fed, we could just about manage the short walk back to Soi 2 for a final drink, this time at Chang House, run by seemingly the hardest-working man in Ayutthaya, who was more than willing to entertain us with his conversation in between leaping up to charm the backpackers into his establishment.
And so to bed. We'd managed to fit so much in during our short stay that we felt happy to head home in the morning (how strange, to be calling Bangkok 'home' now!), after one last quick temple visit - all the more pleasurable in the early morning before the coaches arrive and you can have it to yourself, apart from the dogs that appear to think they own the place.
Ayutthaya makes for a great weekend away from Bangkok. It would be worth the trip alone for the amazing historical sights on offer, but really it's enjoyable for much more than that. It's just the right size to spend a couple of days exploring, an easy journey out of the city, and has a genuine, easy-going charm to it that makes pedalling round its treasures and relaxing at its bars an absolute pleasure. We will surely be back.
No comments:
Post a Comment