Baby Elephants are Super Cute!

We are currently staying in Ayuttaya, Thailand. We rented a nice room with ac, flat screen tv, king size bed and a nice shower for 700 baht, which is a pretty good deal.







It's another smaller town like Kanchanaburi, where the primary attraction is the numerous Wats, or temples. Ayuttaya was once the capital of Thailand and a lot of the old Wats, that are now ruins, are still around being "preserved."

*Wat Ratburana*





We rented a motorbike again, they are just so much more convenient than walking or riding a bicycle, and went out to an Elephant Kraal. They had about 50 elephants of all different ages that we got to pet and play with.









Right when we were about to leave, they started bathing the baby elephants. They had a large plastic tub and they were spraying water from a hose into it and those baby elephants went wild - they loved it! They started playing King of the Bathtub and they would trip and fall over and push each other out... So adorable!

After we had our fill of the elephants, we made our way to our first Wat which was a bunch of crumbling rocks, in my opinion. The highlight of this Wat was when we returned to our motorbike to leave, the key was no where to be found. We scoured the entire site looking for it and even enlisted the help of the security guard and some fellow tourists. Nadda! Then a Tuk Tuk driver approached us, hearing of our dilemma, and offered to have his buddy make us a key for cheaper than the rental place would have charged us to replace the key and the locks on the bike, because they wouldn't want some random person to find the key and then the one bike that it goes to and then steal it... Yup, that's a very realistic possibility... Anyway, we got it done and it sucked, but shiz happens!

*Wat Maha That*


After tht ordeal, we went to see some more Wats, but really, once you've seen one, you've sorta seen them all.

*Wat Na Phra Mane*



*Wat Chai Watthanaram* This one was our favorite!


After touring all day, we rewarded ourselves with some good food, beers, and surprisingly good live music at an open mic night across the street from our guest house. At the bar, we hung out with our canadian friend, eric, whom we met back in Kanchanaburi.







And, finally, a little humor... Here is an example of a bar owner who can't spell 'water,' but at least he knows the important words:




That was about it for Friday. Today, Saturday, we are just taking it easy and planning the next leg of our trip, Northern Thailand. We leave for Chiang Mai at 8 pm on a two story bus! Woohoo!

- Mattie and Julian

Location:Ayuttaya, Thailand

The Motorcycle Diaries

We awoke Wednesday morning to the lovely gardens and peaceful river outside our door at the Jolly Frog GH.






Kanchanaburi isn't a big city, but there are a few things to do that are a bit spaced out and Tuk Tuks aren't around like they are in Bangkok. What were we to do except rent a motorbike! We could have done a bicycle, but I'm really glad we did the motorbike because we ended up going all over the place AND it was only 200 baht for the entire day.





We embraced our adventure bone and went out searching for a real Thai breakfast. Right behind the war cemetery there was this little stand set up that looked really popular. So we went up to check out the grub. It looked kind of like oatmeal in a big pot and it had a sorta greenish tint to it and they were adding a bunch of unknown things to each bowl. They greenish tint almost turned me away but we went ahead and decided to split one. It turned out to be really good! I would have to describe it as rice porridge with pork, Ginger, lemongrass?, and an optional raw egg, for which we opted out.



After we ate, we went to test out our new hog and get used to it before facing the crazy, backwards Thai drivers. It took Julian a while to master the turns but at least it was entertaining to our audience of locals!



Once we got the hang of it, we were off exploring all around Kanchanaburi.












The area has lots of limestone so there are caves all over and we stopped at the Koapoon Cave. It was really big, with 9 rooms and we had it all to ourselves!











We then made our way back to town to see the famed "Bridge Over the River Kwai." We waited there for the train to pass expecting it to be cool, but when it finally did come it was a total disappointment. The single train car was entirely painted in rainbow colors... lame! We didn't deem it worthy of a picture, but we did allow it to squish a baht coin as a souvenir :)






Our next adventure was to the Elephant Center a little outside of town. They had plenty of signs along the way, but no sign for where to actually turn, so we never found it. Instead we kept going out to Erawan Falls. We arrived later in the day than we would have liked, so we didn't get to go swimming or see all 7 of the tiers of the waterfall, but we got to see 4 of them!






On the way back to the front of the park, we came across some people that were feeding monkeys crackers, so we stopped and joined them. They were so cute and hungry. The monkeys would take the crackers and stuff them into pouches in the mouth like a hamster.









On the way back to Kanchanaburi I was a bored passenger so...









We ended up meeting those same people from the park for dinner at this place in the night market. It was only 89 baht for all you can eat/ cook. They had all of the meat, veggies and noodles sitting out raw and then you had to cook it at your table. The middle part was the grill and around it hot water for the noodles and such. Delicious! But it was also hard work.






Nope, the day's not over yet! After dinner we went out for drinks, of course. But not just any drinks, 10 baht drinks!









It was a long, full day but we had a blast... Again!

- Mattie and Julian

Location:Kanchanaburi, Thailand

Goodbye Bangkok, Hello Thailand!

We spent our last few days in Bangkok relaxing and enjoying the city. We ended up staying an extra night in Bangkok, so we had to change hotels. We ended up at The Landmark hotel on Sukhumvit Road next to Julian's dad's hotel. But before we left The Peninsula, we had our wonderful buffet again where we discovered a hidden gem...



Fresh honey right off the honey comb, very cool. We then spent the rest of the morning by the pool sipping mojitos.

After we dropped off our bags at our new digs, we went to pick up our laundry and get massages. Let me tell you, It's going to be really hard to go back to Texas and pay however much for any massage after this. We each got a 2 hour foot and oil combination massage for 450 baht each. That's less than $30 US total AND it was amazing!

For dinner, we met Keith and one of his co-workers and his family for an amazing meal at Ariyasomvilla, which is a super cute little hotel/restaurant/spa tucked away in at the end of Sukhumvit Soi 3. It was a nice escape from the usual city life and the food was excellent. Luckily we had some seasoned veterans ordering for us :)

There are quite a few Western style bars along Sukhumvit Road and we went to a couple of them after dinner. It was nice to grab a Hoegarden among other westerners.

Tuesday morning, we checked out of our hotel and began our trek across the city to the Thornburi Station, where the train to Kanchanaburi departs. We made it just in time because we got a little lost along the way. Kanchanaburi is only about 75 miles from Bangkok, but the trip is scheduled to take 3 hours... On a non air conditioned train. So, as I write this, we are cruising along stopping at every little town for about 10 minutes with the windows down passing through peoples backyards.






I wish there was a way to capture how bumpy the second half of our train ride was in a picture. It was like being in the last car on a roller coaster, air time and everything. Everyone around us looked really scared, but all we could do is laugh. I don't really know why that is since at the same time I thought we might die, but it seemed rather humorous at the time.



So we arrived in Kanchanaburi unharmed and found our way to the Jolly Frog Guesthouse where the fanciest room costs a whopping B290 a night (about $9)



They have free wifi here but we can't get the iPad to connect, so it might be a while until you see this but we'll do our best!






Kanchanaburi is home to The Bridge Over River Kwai. That's about all there is here except for a couple of museums about WWII and what went on here at that time, courtesy of the Japanese. It's a pretty chill town with a bunch of travelers like us just hanging out. We'll venture out tomorrow to see the town, but for now we are going to enjoy the abundance of local bars we have already discovered ;) Cheers!

- Mulian

Location:Train to Kanchanaburi