Traveling and Ruin Full of Monkeys

22-23 November 2014

After two nights in Ayuthaya it was time to leave our wonderful hotel and continue heading north.  Today will be quite an adventure since we are going to experiance our first train ride in Thailand.  The plan is to take a train to Lopburi, get off for a couple of hours and see the sites, and then get back on the train to Phitsanulok where we are going to stay for two nights for a little relaxing in a smaller city.

We went to the lobby to check out and asked the hotel owner to help us with transportation to the train station.  He looked up on the computer and saw that there was a train to Lopburi leaving in 20 minutes so he called a tuk tuk to take us there.  Wait...we can make it to the station, buy a ticket, and make the train in 20 minutes when the station is 10 minutes away...oh, and the tuk tuk driver said he will be here in 10 minutes?!?  "No problem" the hotel owner said.  The tuk tuk driver showed up and the hotel owner I'm sure told him we were in a hurry.  OH NO...THIS IS NOT GOING TO BE GOOD!

A tuk tuk in Ayuthaya. Different than the ones in Bangkok.

Up to this point we have avoided tuk tuks for two reasons...one, we don't trust that they will charge us the proper amount, and two, they are crazy drivers.  In this case, the hotel owner negotiated the fare, so we were OK in that department, but now the crazy tuk tuk driver is going to be even crazier since he knows we are in a hurry.  We jump in not feeling good about the situation:

Tim holding on tight.

Guess what...we made it alive and on time, but the train wasn't the right train to take, so all that rushing was for nothing and we boarded a train to Lopburi two hours later.  It was only a 1.5 hour ride and cost 13 Baht ($0.40) each for a 3rd class ticket.  This is the cheapest seats where you sit on fairly uncomfortable benches back to back with other benches and there is no air conditioner (the windows are open).  

Once we were sitting is when things got weird...food vendors started going up and down the aisle selling street food.  They were selling everything from soda to rice dishes to bowls of soup.  This went on non-stop for the entire trip.  I called it a "sitting market" since we just sat there as the food went by us versus other markets that we walk through.

Street vendors on the train.

We arrived at Lopburi at 1:00 PM and immediately bought our ticket (second class this time) to Phitsanulok that leaves at 3:19 PM.  Why are we stopping at this town for two hours?  To see the famous Lopburi monkeys of course.

Monkey statue at the train station.

For some reason monkeys have taken over this town.  They mostly stay around the ruins of Prang Sam Yot since that is were the tourists are that feed them, but some are just wandering around the town:

The monkey on the middle of the sidewalk didn't like his picture taken. He chased me down the street after I took it.

After stepping around monkeys on the street we made it to prank Sam Yot.  Check out these pictures:

Monkeys everywhere.

Feeling a little anxious putting our backs to the monkeys.

There were venders selling tourists food to feed the monkeys.  Here is a video of someone feeding them:

Enough monkey business...lets move on.  Our next train ride to Phitsanulok is 4 hours so we upgraded to 2nd class.  It cost a whole extra 66 Baht ($2.00) to upgrade making our ticket cost 163 Baht ($5.00) each.  Even though the car wasn't air-conditioned, the seats were a lot more comfortable:

Riding in style in 2nd class.

Here is some of the scenery out the window of the train:

First time we have seen mountains.

Sunflowers.

Rice paddies.

Rice paddies at dusk.

Finally at around 8:00 PM we pulled into Phitsanulok:

We went straight to our hotel and straight to bed. 

The next morning we slept in.  The plan is to have a casual day walking around the city.  First stop is looking for a vegetarian restaurant that is listed in the travel guide.  On the way we passed some interesting things:

Interesting bus.

After passing it a few times we finally found the place and I sat down (while Tim watched) to a meal that I didn't have to worry if I was eating meat:

I don't know what I'm eating, but the woman kept saying, "No meat, no meat."

After lunch, we picked up a better map at the tourist information center (there seems to be one of these is every city) and walked our way up a road that followed a river.  Since Tim didn't eat yet we stopped at a coffee shop that had an english menu.  After some chicken and rice for Tim he decided to order an banana split.  He pointed on the menu and the waitress smiles.  We then saw her take the picture to another waitress and she looked concerned and then a waiter looked concerned.  We then saw our waitress throw on a jacket, grab her keys, and run out the door to her scooter.  5 minutes later she returns with a bag.  We stared at her and she started giggling as she opened the bag to unveil bananas. Tim did eat the sundae and said it was pretty good...especially the fresh from the market bananas.

Also along the way we saw some houseboats.  These are supposedly some of the last house boats left since the country passed ordinances not allowing them and we also passed this really nice tree:

House boats...I think the one on the right is a bar/restaurant.

Nice tree along the river walk.

Of course we had to go to a couple of Buddhist temples (Wat Ratburana & Wat Phra Si Ratana Mahathat:

Wat Ratburana

Wat Phra Si Ratana Mahathat

Then, back to the room around 3:00 PM for a siesta.  We left the room around 7:00 PM to find dinner and was pleasantly surprised to find a night market just down the street. Look at the goodies we found and ate:

Doughboys with octopus, fish, and crab in the middle.

You can't go wrong with doughnuts.

Yummy fishballs.

Next stop, Wood Stock....a local bar with a 60s feel.  We experienced a new beer (Tiger) served table side with a bucket of ice, and drank it like the locals...in a glass on ice.

Groovy 60s wallpaper.

We are done, so back to the hotel.  Tomorrow we continue north to Sukhothai Historical Park.  By the way, here are pictures of our hotel room that cost 1,600 Baht ($49.00) for two nights: