My Travel Adventures

When I first began planning my trip to Ayutthaya, I did not think I would be able to see all its attractions in a single day. After all, this legendary city flourished for four centuries as the capital of Siam, one of the most powerful and prosperous kingdoms of Southeast Asia. However, with a bit of planning and a reasonable amount of cab money, a journey from Bangkok and back can take just around ten hours. At eight in the morning, Reese and I were getting breakfast at the Krung Thep Aphiwat train station just as the national anthem boomed from the speakers. When the national anthem played again at six in the evening, Reese and I were in front of the same train station waiting for our cab.

Today, Reese, Linda, and I made a trip to Wat Phra That Doi Suthep, an iconic golden temple that stands atop a mountain just west of Chiang Mai. We started our journey later than I had hoped, as finding a breakfast place in the morning proved quite a challenge. We racked up a further delay while waiting for our Grab cab, with all the taxi drivers either still recovering from a late night or already ferrying huge quantities of tourists. At around ten o’clock, we finally reached the beginning of the so-called Monk’s Trail.

November is a busy time in Thailand. As locals prepare for one of the biggest celebrations of the year, thousands of tourists from around the world descend upon the country’s most popular attractions, from Chiang Mai to Ayutthaya. The festival, known as Loy Krathong, celebrates the full moon in the twelfth (and final) month of the Thai lunar calendar. In Northern Thailand, which encompasses the historical domains of the Lanna Kingdom, Loy Krathong also overlaps with Yi Peng, a festival that celebrates the full moon in the second month of the Lanna lunar calendar.

I set today’s alarm to six o’clock, but I was up much earlier. Siam Reap is a city whose peace has been destroyed by tourism, and the pounding of drums and bass guitars in nightclubs can be heard from afar until sunrise. After packing our bags and eating a quick breakfast, we ordered a Grab to the eastern entrance of Angkor Wat. While this was my second time visiting the temple, I was still surprised by the width of its moats and the length of its walls. We walked around the arcades decorated with bas reliefs of heroic battles and dancing apsaras before ascending to the very top of the temple’s central tower.

We woke up early this morning, as we had booked a tour to go to Preah Vihear and Koh Ker. These temples lie quite far from Siem Reap: the journey to Preah Vihear takes around three and a half hours – or three with a fiendish driver like ours. When we arrived by the ticket office at the foot of the mountain, our guide asked whether we would like to rent motorcycles or a van to ride up. We had already noted our rapidly diminishing supply of riel as we were buying the tickets, so when we learned that the motorcycles cost five dollars each and the van twenty-five, we opted for the former.

Today was our last day in Laos. We ate a slow breakfast and asked the front desk to arrange a van to the airport, which was ready in about half an hour. Joining us was a group of Canadian tourists who seemed completely nonplussed about getting to the airport just minutes before their flight to Saigon. We, on the other hand, arrived over an hour early, which gave us plenty of time to check in and fill out the e-entry form to Cambodia: We were only informed of this obligation by the lady at the check-in counter, but at least she saved us time at the airport in Siam Reap.

Since our hotel was a bit far from the centre of Pakse, we had to hail a cab that would take us to the street with all the motorcycle rentals. We found one right in front of our hotel: it was a motorcycle with a roofed carriage attached to the side, and the driver asked for fifty thousand. I doubted he would know the rental place I had in mind, so I told him to drop us off at a temple nearby; that way, we could take a few pictures and walk right over.