On our third day in Thailand...

...we saw ancient ruins in one of Thailand's former capitals, Ayutthaya.

It was quite surprising to go from riding the very modern SkyTrain to riding a normal train in Thailand. There are three classes of trains, and we took a third-class one as it was the cheapest. The train was completely open-air--no air conditioning--and felt very old. As the train headed farther away from Bangkok and filled with more and more people, things got very crowded, hot and sweaty. Merchants walked up and down the narrow aisles carrying baskets of food and drinks, calling out to passengers to buy. One merchant took money from a passenger and stored it in her ear! She had quite the little storage spaces in her ears--a lesson to always wash your hands after handling money I guess.

When the train finally arrived in Ayutthaya (about 2 hours from Bangkok), we took a little river boat to cross over from the station to the city, and then we rented bikes. Cycling about and seeing the ancient ruins in Ayutthaya was one of my favorite parts of our trip. Below are some pictures from various ruin sites.




...Look closely.

I had heard so much about riding elephants in Thailand, and had seen many great pictures of friends riding along on them, that I was very excited when we took our own ride around the ruins atop of one of the huge animals.

Tree roots have grown around the head of Buddha. It is one of the most famous sites in Ayutthaya.


After hours of biking around and checking out the ruins, we turned in our bikes, rode the riverboat back to the station, and prepared for the long haul back to Bangkok. We definitely weren't excited about the train ride, but the overall experience was worth it. Also, when we were walking back to our hotel from the station in Bangkok, we passed a group of guys playing futsal and they invited Chad to play. Of course, that made his day (and he even scored a goal!).