Where Amy Goes

Friday 15 October 2010

Ayutthaya - City of Temples

I can't make a video or post pictures right now, so let me tell you a bit about our time in Ayutthaya, our second city.

We were actually surprisingly nervous to be leaving Bangkok, and not just because we were unsure about the legitimacy of our tickets! We had clung to Bangkok and its tourist-friendly Khao San road as a refuge from culture shock and homesickness, and now we felt like we were plunging again into the unknown. Our train was severely delayed, which Sam found extremely distressing, but when it got going it was a surprise to watch Bangkok fade behind us.

Ayutthaya is a city built into a natural island formed by three rivers. It was the capital of the region, a glittering city of temples and a centre of trade until the Burmese finally sacked it about 250 years ago. Now it is a modern city alongside the scattered ruins, some of which are immense and all of which are very beautiful.

We took a tuk-tuk trip for the morning and visted six temples - we saw the famous head-in-a-tree at Wat Maha That and the massive spires of Wat Chaiwattanaram - this was, as Sam described it, totally sick. The ruins were massive. It was a strange experience for us, who are very used to visiting cathedrals and churches, to step into the places of other people's faith.

In the evening we took a boat tour, which consisted of just us in a tiny boat driven by one woman, with her little son fishing off the back. We watched the sunset from a floating restaurant, and decided, for our first 'on the road' experience, Ayutthaya kicks ass.

Thursday 30 September 2010

Our First Video Diary: Three Days in Bangkok!

We've been here for three days and yes, we're still freaking out! As mentioned in the video, we have now booked our trip northwards; two night in Ayutthaya and then a sleeper train to Chiang Mai, where we shall go an a three-day trek (!!) and then have three more nights to recuperate and decide what to do next!

Photos and more details later :)

Tuesday 28 September 2010

IN BANGKOK!!!!!!!!!

WE'RE IN BANGKOK!!

We said goodbye to Dad at Heathrow and leapt into adventure! It was scary.

The flight was looong - 12hrs - and hard. We didn't have those personal screen things D: so we had to watch movies on the big screen. I watched Karate Kid and 'slept' through the rest, Sam watched Last Airbender and Prince of Persia. The view out of the window was amazing - huge cities and rivers and mountains, and we saw a massive lightning storm over India. It was astounding. Plane food was a let-down hower - the evening meal was yummy but the so-called omlette for breakfast was horrible and made me feel very, very sick.

Bangkok is hot, very smelly and very, very sticky. It's also colourful! We haven't seen ever much, because when we got to our hotel we just collapsed. We had planned on sleeping til about lunchtime, but we didn't get up til about 5 pm. We decided to wander around, found the main back-packing areas pretty quickly, Khao San Road being the famous one. That's where we are now, in a little internet cafe inside a parade of shops.

Our hotel room has, of course, been given the Heffernan treatment :)

Thursday 23 September 2010

FOUR DAYS TO GO!

Nearly there!

I have spent today packing and throwing things away, with Dad's help. Sam has only just started packing today! He's finding the whole process rather baffling, poor fellow.

I have discovered that by and large, today's packing involved putting things into small bags in order to put them into bigger bags (in some cases, such as very small jewlery, I was packing them into tiny bags to pack into small bags to pack into bigger bags).

Many small bags.

I bought two pairs of shoes yesterday, as well as a bunch of other suff including an unexpected free haircut :) One is a pair of Converse sneakers for wearing hiking etc and the other is a pair of pink camo pumps for everyday. I like them :D

I also have two travel clocks. One of them is a robot.