Another very full day.
After sleeping off the night before and waking up around 2, Christine and I headed out yesterday and got a boat tour through the Ayutthaya river. The boat ride was excellent. It was a lot of fun to ride past people swimming in the river and have them turn to wave at us. The boat made three stops, the first of which was a Buddhist temple that houses one of Thailand’s largest Buddha statues. The thing was massive! There were also monks leading holy blessings. A man was walking around with a microphone and stopping to let people shout in it. The whole experience felt somewhat bizarrely like a Buddhist version of an evangelist Church, surreal. But at least the statue was pretty cool.
I’m not quite sure what the second stop was. Some monks were wandering all around, and there were some interesting buildings and statues, but I’m pretty sure I didn’t go to the spots I was supposed to. When I got back to the boat, our whole tour group was there except for Christine. I went back to look for her but had no luck. Since I had no other way to find her, I had no other choice but to call her on my iPhone, which I had not purchased an international calling plan for. So, I’m fairly certain the call cost somewhere around $6 for 2 minutes. Awesome. After that, I somehow pocket-dialed my friend Jenn in California at 4:30 AM in her time zone. Which she was thrilled about and cost me another $6 at least. Doubly awesome!
From there, we went to our third stop, which seemed to be the ruins of a Buddhist temple. Unfortunately, since everything was in Thai and no one in our group spoke any English, I had no idea what I was looking at. However, I feel like I’ve seen photos of this place before, so maybe once the pictures are online, someone will be able to identify it.
After that, we caught the bus to Nakhon Sawan, where Christine has an apartment. We dropped off our stuff, grabbed her motorbike, and then met up with two friends of hers for dinner, drinks, and karaoke. We wound up staying out until 3:30 AM and had a pretty good time with laughs all around. Today is my last full day here, as tomorrow I have to take a bus back to Bangkok and then a flight to Tokyo at 4 PM. While I’m really excited for Tokyo, and I’ll be glad to get out of the sweltering heat, I’m definitely going to miss this place and Christine.
In a few moments, we’re going to head out for the day. Christine wants to show me some of her favorite places around town and attempt to teach me to drive the motorbike. Assuming I don’t kill us both, I’m hoping to make it an early night, so I can be rested up to travel tomorrow. We’ll see if I succeed.
Cheers!