Monkey watching

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When I woke up in the morning, in the suboptimal hostel, my roommates had already left (which wasn’t too bad, because they didn’t make me feel too comfortable). Quickly packed my stuff, and walked a whopping 50 meters to the hostel I originally planned to go to (but that was closed the night before, because my bus arrived 2.5 hours late). What a blessing. Clean, cozy, nice personnel that spoke pretty good English. Immediately checked in, but the rooms were still filled, so I couldn’t enter the room yet. Then left my stuff over there, went and rented a scooter, and went on an adventure to Khao Sam Roi Yot National Park. On the way there I took the smaller roads, which was quite horrible, and on the way back I took the highway, which was quite an experience as well. When I arrived in the National Park, after having climbed for way too long to get to my destination (in the burning sun), I found out the whole trip was very much worth it! I was presented with jawdroppingly beautiful scenery. A cave with all kinds of green vegetation, a couple rays of sunshine that found their way through the small openings in the top of the cave, and a tiny but beautiful temple.

I walked around there for quite some time, just enjoying everything, and then went back to the hostel to properly check in. After arriving in my room, I quickly met someone from the Netherlands and a Canadian, and we strolled around the night market together.

The next day it was time for me to check out, and to go to Ayutthaya. I spent way too long in the lobby of the hostel (because I had a nice chat with some random people) but then took the minivan to Bangkok, and from there the minivan to Ayutthaya. These minivans go every 30 minutes, so I arrived in Ayutthaya pretty quickly. After checking in in the hostel, I fairly quickly met a Brit that introduced himself as JJ, and we ‘travelled’ together for the next few days. At night we had some kind of soup. Mine had chicken in it. Not chicken breasts, not chicken wings, chicken. Like, also the non-edible parts of the chicken. As soon as I figured that out, I removed most of the pieces I didn’t trust, and luckily I was still left with a good meal even after removing the pieces of chicken.
The next day I was brutally (slightly exaggerated) woken op by JJ, asking me if I was still on for the trip to Khao Yai National Park. Of course I was! Quickly readied myself, and then we went off. GTA style, no-traffic-rules-Thai-style, overtaking more than being overtaken. After pretty much 2 hours non-stop on the scooters, we arrived at the national park. We saw monkeys (one of which decided his water bottle now belonged to him, so he climbed on my scooter and tried to get my water bottle out of the compartment), deers, beautiful scenery and dry waterfalls.

When we returned back home, everything was sore from riding the scooters, but we decided that it was very much worth it.
The next day we saw some ruins of temples in the old part of the city, and then I had to wave JJ goodbye, and a little later grab my bus to Sukhothai.

Once I arrived there, I found out that somehow, I’d booked for the 25th of May, instead of for that night (the 10th). Luckily they still had enough room, so it was no problem.
The next morning I tried out the free bike the resort offered, but I quickly found out why they were offered for free. Almost every bike had failing brakes, empty tires or missed paddles (or some combination of that). In the end I found a reasonable bike, and just rode it to the bus station, instead of all the way to the old city. When I arrived in the old city, I went around the historical park, but I think the combination of the burning sun, and seeing too many temples in the last few days made me a little tired of temples, so I didn’t spend too long there. But it was still quite nice!

After returning back to my resort I chilled out there for a bit, and afterwards took yet another bus to Chiangmai, from which I’m writing this update. Time for the next adventure!