Thailand: Temples, Jungle-trekking and Many Many Monkeys.

 En route to Asia we managed to fit in a cheeky wee catch up with Rachel in no-mans-land at Heathrow Airport, followed by the best long-haul flight of our lives (ie we slept the whole time apart from during food) and arrived fresh-faced and ready to face new adventures in Thailand.

As we touched down in Bangkok airport, we still didn’t know where we were going to spend the night, our only criteria being that it had to be somewhere in central Thailand, as we only had 5 days in Thailand it seemed silly to stray too far from the ‘kok. We ended up heading just north of Bangkok to Ayuthaya, the historical capital of the ancient Ayuthaya Empire. The temple ruins in Ayuthaya were pretty spectacular, it also had an awesome floating market and charming locals who enjoyed watching us eat with chopsticks and giggled when we tried out a “thank you” in Thai. Above all, it was a rather charming introductory town to Thailand… We definitely ain’t in Europe anymore.

 The best way to get around Ayuthaya, and the best way to get used to Thai traffic.

Wat Phra Si Sanphet, probably the most impressive site in Ayuthaya. Still, hard to believe that Ayuthaya was once the largest city in the world!

Definitely the most impressive buddha in Ayuthaya.

Ayuthaya Floating Market. It sold mostly delicious Thai treats and curries, elephant-themed clothing, cheap souvenirs, and photo opportunities with chained-up depressed starved tigers. The food was the best part.

Nothing could possibly live in water that brown and murky.... could it?

Next we headed an hour and a half north of Ayuthaya, to Lopburi. We had heard little about Lopburi except that it was similar to Ayuthaya, only with slighlty less impressive ruins and slightly more monkeys. We were wrong on both counts – the ruins are just as impressive as Ayuthaya, and there were a SHITLOAD OF MONKEYS

A typical Monday morning in Lopburi. Monkeys rule the town. The locals literally have to arm themselves with brooms and slingshots to protect their shops.

"Terrence, what do your monkey eyes see up there?"

"Two pasty white tourists approaching with large backpacks and a camera. Form the ranks. Let's gettem"

Moments before Felix got into the first monkey-fight of his life. Thanks to the 2 litre water bottle he was wielding, he escaped with his life, just.

This exquisitely preserved temple was in the non-monkey end of town, making the visit a lot less stressful. It was so un-stressful we even learnt a bit about the history - this temple complex was built by the Khmer Empire, the largest ancient power in South-East Asia. Kinda looks like the temple that the monkey king lived in in the Jungle Book, no?


This temple was in the monkey-ruled end of town. The only safe place was inside the temple itself as they had put bars around the entrances to prevent monkeys from getting in. It was like being in a zoo, except the animals are on the outside and you're in the cage...

Still eager to spot more macaques, we caught a bus to the entrance of Khao Yai, Thailand’s oldest National Park and one of the largest monsoon forests in Asia. We’re not entirely sure what a couple of city kids such as ourselves expected to find in a tropical jungle, but I’d say we probably got more than we bargained for. We chose to camp in an abandoned camping ground in the middle of the jungle, which in hindsight wasn’t the brightest idea. We managed to get some decent jungle trekking in during the day, but the night-time proved to be not so straight forward… We spent the night bailing water from our tent as a tropical monsoon/thunder storm broke out over Khao Yai. Sadly our tent was not very waterproof, a situation that was not made any better by the amount of leeches that made their way into our tent. The jungle may have defeated us this time, but we will be back.

There's no public transport in the park, so the only way to get around is to hitchike... Not really that easy on a weekday during the off season...

Mama and baby elephant! Spotted on the side of the road, driving into the park.

Get on ya walking boots, it's jungle-trekking time!

 The 'track' we were following tended to disappear every now and then, so we had to do a bit of jungle-bashing to find the path again.

When we saw the signs saying "Beware Crocodile", we were sure it was a joke. 

When we saw this 3 metre long Siamese croc, we knew it wasn't. We were very happy he'd chosen to sunbathe here, and not on the track.

More cheeky monkeys. These ones were particularly cheeky - while we were hiking they unzipped all our bags and went through all our belongings in search of food. The only "food" they found were Felix's contact lenses, which they ate all of.

On top of the thieving monkeys, crocodiles, monsoons and thunder storms, we had to put up with the leeches. Blood was shed during our jungle trek.

The gibbons’ chanting woke us up after a few hours of sleep, to find that another group of happy Thai campers had arrived after dark and camped (in water-proof tents) across the road. They must have felt sorry for us looking like drowned rats, because they gave us a lift all the way back to Bangkok in the back of their Ute, which was uncomfortable but incredibly kind! We met up with Alex and Robbie in Bangkok, with whom we spent a relaxing few days, not doing a whole lot and preparing ourselves mentally for the next phase, the Indian adventure.

This is how Phoebe spent the 200kilometre ride back to Bangkok... with her sunhat, cob of corn and spring rolls that the driver gave us. Way too nice. 

Wat Arun, the Temple of Dawn. It symbolises the dawn of the Bangkok-governed era of  Thai history, and is probably the most famous temple in Bangkok. More on Bangkok when we return here for a few days after our Indian adventures...

Next time: Volunteering in Kolkata!