Well we woke up early as we had a few things to pick up before heading off to the local bus to get back to Danang. We say bye to Mascha and get to the bus just as it was rolling away. By chance it was the same one as the trip in. It started a lot slower, but soon became a racing, honking, yellow bullet through the crowded streets. At one point we picked up a full load of school kids which added to the craziness. We were able to communicate that we wanted off at the train station (or as close as possible) through some “bumpy bumpy bumpy” and hand motions from the Vietnamese guys. It ended up being a lot closer than when we left… good to know “for next time.”
We had some food, as we finally were confident we had some time before the train left, and then we shuffled on to see what awaited us. Hard sleepers on a new train, after being told repeatedly that you wouldn’t be able to sleep at all, made us just a little apprehensive. When we got in there, it was perfect. No different than China, except there were only us in the cabin for the first 6 hours or so. We played some cards (golf has replaced asshole as the game of choice) and then tried to have a bit of a nap. Eventually we got some Vietnamese cabin mates and we all were forced up into our beds. 2 top and 1 middle bunk. We slept on and off, but it was so hot, you were never really asleep.
We woke up in Ayutthaya and headed for the train station. We got our stuff packed and went for the train station. We looked into what it would cost to take a sleeper train from Lop Buri (about 20 bucks for second class) and we got tickets for the train to Lop Buri as well. We skirted around the offer of the “Express train” (what we could only assume was the “tourist train” as it cost over 10 times as much as the “ordinary” train and only got us there maybe 20 minutes faster.
On arrival in Lop Buri we realized we were even further from tourist safe Bangkok. Under full assault from bike powered (single gear) tuk-tuk drivers, we finally gave in to paying a little more than what we wanted as long as they took us to the monkeys. First stop was a temple which looked just like every other temple we have seen, and it cost a butt-load to get in, so we skipped it. Then we were taken to some Buddha shrine-like thing which was one of maybe thousands we have seen. At this point we realized that the price we already wern’t happy with might be an hourly rate, so we just kept saying monkeys to them until they got the point to cut the tour short and bring us to the area with all the monkeys.
Now, granted, we had seen the odd monkey on the side of the road, on a sign, a fence, a pay phone, what have you… we had the impression that there would be a lot more around. Finally we were brought to an old wat just CRAWLING with monkeys. We left our tour guides at the street and went in. There were bags of sunflower seeds for sale for 10 baht (30 cents) so we thought it must be safe, plus everyone else was doing it. Not knowing exactly what to do (do we throw it like feeding ducks?) some guy made sign-like language motions showing me to put it in my hand and have the monkeys take it.
Amy was pretty nervous, but after seeing this one monkey politely take the seeds from my hand with his little monkey fingers one by one, she asked for the bag to try herself. This is when it happened. We were lucky enough Jen had started a video and sort of caught the act on camera, but it doesn’t truly do the situation justice.
We found that inside you could more safely feed the monkeys as you were essentially in a cage, and they were on the outside looking in. Their only option was to nicely take the seeds one by one through the bars. It was quite odd being on the inside of the cage with the monkeys on the outside.
After we got rid of the tuk-tuks and set off to waste some time until the night train. We discovered that the monkeys were maybe a 5 minute walk from the train station, keep that in mind for future trips to Lop Buri… Then as we spend a lot of our time, we had some food, indulged in some ice cream, hit an internet cafe to get some accommodation for Chiang Mai, and then spend the rest of the time at a really cool little side walk bar until heading back to the train station.
The train was a lot nicer than the Chinese one. Softer beds, not as jam-packed with people, AC… not a bad deal.
Also, for a bit of fun, here is some elephant dancing from Ayutthaya…
