The following day we woke up too late to catch our bus, so we rushed over to the train station and made it just in time for the morning train. Unfortunately, the train blew something part of the way there and we missed our connecting train to Ayutthaya and we wound up spending two hours at the train station waiting for the two o'clock train - time that was wisely spent planning the next two days.
In Ayutthaya, we checked into our guesthouse at 4:30 and made our way to the nearest temple ruins. After Angkor, I wasn't expecting to be impressed with the ruins, especially seeing them for the second time, but they were still really interesting and walking around them was a little mind altering, as if you were walking around on the set of some old movie. They are mostly conglomerations of crumbling brick or weathered concrete, but their sheer size is impressive (of course not compared to Angkor - an entry I still need to write...).
The last one, to me, was the most interesting, not because of its size - it was a relatively new (or redone) wat of average size - but because of the melee occurring inside. The whirring of activity outside of the wat made it immediately apparent that this was not your average Thai wat. There was a man outside, positioned to the right of the door, beyond the countless pairs of shoes left respectfully on the steps, who appeared to be doing an onsite infomercial, trying to capture people entering and exiting the building. Inside the doors, the floor resembled that of the New York stock exchange, littered with papers from the incense being used to pay homage to the Buddha. The first room was lined with alter after alter, each bearing numerous Buddha images and candles, surrounded by Thai's holding incense and lotus flowers, bowing their heads in deference to the Buddha. The third alter in was flanked by five chanting monks, a sight that wouldn't have been much unlike any other wat, save the fact that they were chanting into a microphone which transported their mantras electronically to large speakers throughout the wat. Lining the walls in the center room were more alters, sandwiched by traditional Thai instruments, one side of which lay silent, while those on the other side was put to use, their sounds blending with the amplified chanting and the voices of the pilgrims to create quite a din. The farthest room from the doors held an enormous Buddha image draped in the amber wraps of a monks robe. The floor in front of the image was packed with Thai's on their knees holding up trays which held strips of the robe which they would hold up patiently until a man in the front made his way to them, grabbed the robes, and flung them up into the Buddah's lap. As the robes landed, one of the three monks standing to the side of the Buddha image would pick them up and tie them to the end of the rapidly lengthening "robe" sash over the shoulders of the Buddha. It was a sight to see!
That night, exhausted from sight seeing, we watched a pirated copy of Batman Begins, which I still can't say I saw, because the sound quality was poor and we think that some of the scenes were missing, but it was nice to see a movie after so long, even a sad copy of one.
The following day, we rented bicycles again and managed to make our way around by getting lost, finding our way, getting lost, finding our way again and still making it back in time to catch the 4:00 train to Lopburi - a quick stop to see the monkeys before boarding the overnight train to Chiang Mai.
Soon after we disembark in Lopburi, we were treated to the sight of monkeys roaming the streets like squirrels back home: monkeys crossing the street, monkeys climbing telephone poles, monkeys sitting on electrical wires, monkeys sitting on the tops of buildings, monkeys as far as the eye can see - except, that is, in the monkey temple, where they were "supposed" to be. Finding the temple deserted and presuming that the monkeys knowingly departed when the tourists did, we crossed the street to another set of ruins that was teeming with monkeys. As we walked along the sidewalk, I heard Kevin let out a yell and when I turned around I saw that there was a monkey on his head trying to steal his hat. Kevin yelled and shook his head, hanging on to his hat to prevent it walking off with the monkey, while I laughed and grabbed the camera to capture the moment on film. Just as I handed the camera back, the tables turned as the monkey leapt from Kevin's head to mine and grabbing at my hair in pursuit of my rubber hair bands. This time I did the yelling and Kevin did the swatting, as the monkey grabbed out one of my earrings, before jumping off his perch. Luckily he dropped the earring before he got away. A little girl on the stairs was not so lucky, as we watched a monkey jump on her head, grab her hair tie and run off up the steps, leaving her bawling inconsolably. After we'd had our fill of the monkeys, we went to find a cafe for dinner and to while away some time before our train at 10:50 that night.
Unlike during my previous experiences with overnight trains in Thailand, I found I wasn't able to sleep well, while Kevin slept like a baby, so when we finally arrived in Chiang Mai, I was exhausted and just wanted to sleep. Unfortunately because we only had two days and we needed to make the most of them, sleep wasn't an option, so I reached for whatever reserves of energy I had left and we set off to catch a cab to a local temple on a mountain where Kevin wanted to hike.
The hike is a story in its own right, but to keep this post from getting much longer, I will abbreviate it, by simply saying, we found the trail, lost the trail, found the trail again - oh, wait, that's no the trail... where was the trail again... and charging off into the brush, racing the slowly sinking sun, chasing fears of having to spend the night in the woods. When we finally reached the road, dirty, tired and wet, all of the tourists had made there way down and the army of taxi's that had stood waiting when we arrived, were no where to be seen and we had to rely on the kindness of a woman passing by on a motorbike and a couple in a pick up - with whom the woman dropped us after realizing that the weight of the two of us was probably not the safest thing to tow down the steep mountain road - to get back into town. Amazingly enough, still going on three hours of sleep, I managed to eke out another few hours at the night bazaar, where Kevin and I did some gift shopping for friends back home.
On Tuesday, we rented a motorbike to make our way to the Elephant Conservation Camp 70 km south of Chiang Mai. Relying on the maps in my Lonely Planet guide we effectively got ourselves lost (again - I realize that this is becoming a theme) adding an extra hour to what should have only been an hour and a half trip. Luckily for me, the scenery around Chiang Mai was really pretty; unfortunately for Kevin an extra hour meant an extra hour on the back of the bike, which he was not particularly fond of.
We arrived at the camp in time for the 1:30 p.m. show, the last for the day, and watched as about ten trained elephants demonstrated how elephants are used for logging in the forests. Unlike other elephant shows around Thailand that train elephants to do circus tricks, the Elephant Conservation Camp, works to preserve the Asian Elephant and the history of their relationship with the people of Southeast Asia. They also rehabilitate sick and abused elephants both at the site and in the field. The show was really neat, leaving Kevin to wonder about the difference between train an elephant and training a dog, something he could have paid to learn to do at the camp had he had the time and the money, and I was happy to be supporting such a great organization.
We made it back to Chiang Mai without getting lost and boarded our train for our last day together in Bangkok before Kevin's long flight home (which, I am happy to report, got him home in one piece).
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