1000 kms completed by bus, train, scooter and boat to reach Ayutthaya – next stop Bangkok

Well after leaving Laos we progressively travelled through Ubon Ratchathana and Khon Kaen before jumping on our first train to complete the 6 hour journey to reach Ayutthaya. This is our penultimate blog update from Thailand, with the last ‘wrapping’ up our time in Bangkok.

At Ubon Ratchathani we were 2 of only 3 tourists in the entire town!. We visited an immaculate temple at Wat Phra Nong Bua both during the day time and at night – not only was the outside stunning but inside were 4 Buddha’s and a small gold internal tower, that almost reached the roof. The temple is associated with snakes, hence the amazing sculptures of two enormous intertwined snakes..

At Khon Kaen we again only sighted one other westerner in the city. During our time we explored the streets and came across some amazing art painted on walls, plus visited a few temples – one of which (Phra Mahathat Kaen Nakhon) we climbed up 9 storeys, to get a spectacular view of the city. But all things do come to an end, and we needed to get to continue our journey towards Bangkok – but not straight away.

…. so we also decided to ‘rip up our plans’ and break our train journey to visit Ayutthaya. This town has UNESCO status, and we visited a number of key key temples (using the 220 Baht (NZ$11) pass); Wat Na Phra Men, Wat Phuttai Sawan, Wat Phra Mahathat , Wat Ratchaburana, Wihan Phra Mongkhon Bopit, Wat Phra Ram, Wat Chai Watthanaram, Wat Tha Ka Rong, Wat Phra Si Sanphet and Wat Phanan Choeng. This was a fantastic decision, and gave us the opportunity to see the ancient stone work being retained and preserved.

The ONLY DOWNSIDE on this stop was seeing tourist riding elephants – these majestic animals are mistreated and put under so much stress and pain to support this so called ‘ride of a lifetime’. Northern Thailand has banned this already and it’s about time tourists took a stance and refused this horrible trade.