7-Eleven rules!

Hello once again.

It's true. 7-Eleven does rule. That was one of the biggest surprises when we arrived in Thailand. There are 7-Elevens on almost every block here. We've found ourselves visiting almost every single one we come across (and that's a lot) to peruse the aisles as an excuse to stay in the store for a little while. The reason: they are are always air-conditioned. Ah..... It also turns out that they have the cheapest beer in town, so that's good too.

We left Bangkok yesterday enroute to Khao Yai National Park -- a three hour drive by bus. It took an hour to get to the bus station in Bangkok, so by the time we got off in Pak Chong (near the park), we'd been travelling for about 4 hours. When we were just about to arrive, we did a little more research and discovered that it was going to cost us $15 each to visit the park -- that's almost highway robbery even in the States, let alone here in Thailand; especially on a tight budget. And that price didn't include the cost of getting up to the park and hiring someone to get us to the far corners of it by tuk-tuk. So we had a major gear-shift, bid the hornbills adieu (sob sob....), and walked directly to the train station from the bus station. The train to Ayuthaya arrived literally the moment we bought our tickets, and we settled in for a three hour train ride. The trip was beautiful, going through forested limestone outcrops and ridges with large Buddhas on them (there was a HUGE white Buddha on the side of a mountain that looked just like Mary on the Mountain in Butte, Montana... only it was Buddha), then out into rice paddies that were teeming with birds (see the previous post). The train ride was a vast improvement over our China experience. We arrived in Ayuthaya in the evening and eventually found a cute place to stay. Because of our circuitous rout, we ended up with a 9-hour travel day but were only 1.5 hours from Bangkok. Oops.

After dinner we got lost, which was fun.

Today we wandered the ancient temples of the city and generally had a great day. We had the best noodle soup we've had since Laos (though it still didn't come with the huge pile of greens we loved there) and got Thai iced tea to cool us down (seriously, Thai people put sweetened condensed milk in everything). We'll rent bikes tomorrow and continue our explorations further afield before boarding a night bus to Chiang Mai.

Buddha head in a strangler fig tree, Wat Mahathat

At Wat Mahathat, Ayuthaya, Thailand

ruined temple, Ayuthaya, Thailand

ps. -- did I mention they drive on the left side of the road here? It messes with your head.... It's like driving in England, but with scary third-world style traffic.

elephants, Ayuthaya, Thailand