Thailand - Day 3 cont, Ayutthaya River Cruise

 

Tired and hungry from our waterfall excursion I ate before I remembered to take a picture at the small restaurant at the entrance to the park. The coconut smoothie was delicious, others had the mango one which also got rave reviews.

Hot peppers drying in the sun outside the restaurant. The food here, so far, has been very flavourful and I have tried to always eat the local cuisine, vegetarian when available, but with a request for mild spice level. I don't think that request has always been understood as I have had some meals that were much spicier than I am used to. My mouth was happy, it was my stomach I was worried about but so far so good.

As we boarded the bus, Ammy pulled these pods off a Tamerind Tree. She explained how to tell if they are ripe and let us each taste a bit of the fruit (not the seed!). It had the texture of a date and was sweet with a slight sour taste as well. Used in a lot of Thai dishes including Pad Thai.

4 hours on the bus now and there was a lot of napping done.

The usual bathroom break at a gas station

and I checked out the 7-Eleven (masses of them here).

As you would expect at a highway stop there were drinks

and snacks, but also

a whole section of individually packaged lotions and cosmetics.

Back on the bus again and we drove through an area of drained and harvested rice paddies with cattle grazing in them.

Gradually more and more paddies

with rice still growing. Ammy said she remembered when rice was picked by hand and families would help each other with the harvest and then have a big festival. Now it is picked by machine.

Yellow flowers growing. Yellow represents Royalty, Buddhism and good luck in Thailand and we have seen a lot being sold and as decoration.

We drove into the city of Ayutthaya. This is a Tuk Tuk design particular to the area.

We offloaded on a busy street and then waited for our boat to be ready while

watching the constant flow of river traffic and

the ferry taking pedestrians and motorcycles back and forth across the river.

As we cast off we immediately sat down at the laden table.

But it was difficult to concentrate on the, very good, food

with the river banks,

the boat traffic and

and the setting sun.

Many of the tourist boats were gathered to witness

the sun setting behind the Pagoda ruins. We noticed this beautiful wooden motor launch but one of the staff pointed out, excitedly, that it was carrying a Thai celebrity, Pancake.

Khemanit Jamikorn (RTGS: Khemanit Chamikon; Thai: เขมนิจ จามิกรณ์), mostly known as Pancake, was born on 27 May 1988 in Bangkok. Khemanit is a Thai TV actress, singer and model. She won Thai Supermodel Contest 2004 and later won Model of the World 2004 in China.^{[1]  From Wikipedia.}

Although we had never heard of her we took the opportunity to get in on the photoshoot and she briefly upstaged

the main event.

The sunset was not spectacular

and they bombed away.

We spent some more time admiring the architecture

and the lights coming on along the riverbank.

Then, unfortunately, it was time for karaoke (I'm not a fan)

 I sat at the back of the boat, enjoying being on the water and looking at the city from a different perspective. I also began to feel really, really tired and by the time we got to our hotel (an apartment hotel) for the night, I was feeling quite unwell. I started coughing, hard, that night and felt really badly for my roomate, Amelia.