I couldn’t just do one recap post about Thailand! We were all over the country and there is so many beautiful cities besides Bangkok. Or second stop in Thailand was Ayutthaya which is a mix of a more modern Asia and ancient ruins. Ruins that were over 500+ years old.
We spent a day in a half of Ayutthaya seeing the Summer Palace of the King and Queen, visiting ruins and experienced a local Thai club complete with giant chicken statues, a bottle of whiskey and attempting to enjoy a Thai band.
Summer Palace
The Summer Palace was a 20 acre compound filled with a mix of Thai, Western and Chinese style architecture. One minute you were looking at a 18th century home and next door could be a Thai temple that overlooked a definitively Chinese building.
Ancient Ruins
The ruins we saw dated back to the early 17th and 16th centuries, with two very unique styles. Wat Yai Chaimongkol, a temple best known for its enormous statue of the Reclining Buddha and Wat Chai Watanaram which is very Cambodian and strongly resembles Angkor Wat.
Wat Chai Watanaram
Going Out in Ayutthya
We wanted at least one night where we could experience going out like a Thai person. That involved a dinner overlooking the river, Thai whiskey, more spicy food, an evening spent in a bar with bottle service and a Thai band.
There was a lot of activity packed into a few hours… let’s start with dinner. We arrived in style via Tuk Tuk, a motorized taxi bike that seats 4-6 to our restaurant right along the river. Two soups- one spicy and one very similar to chicken noodle soup with lemongrass. But the star of dinner was the chicken with Thai basil and peppers. Spicy and so flavorful!
Thai whiskey straight up. Strong doesn’t even begin to describe this…
A Coke on the side
The Thai club was interesting to say the least! Most Thai people drink beer or whiskey. When you go out you buy a bucket of beers or a bottle (yes an entire bottle) and along with that comes service.
The 5 of us had a waiter ready for our every drink need. More ice? Sure. May I refill your glass? Sure. We ended up splitting a half bottle between 5 of us. It only ended up being about 2 drinks each.
While enjoying our bottle there was a popular local band setting up.We figured it would be pretty interesting. We were correct. It hard to really enjoy a band when you have no clue what they are saying and there is 0 emotion being shown. No smiling, no dancing. They just stood there and sung into the microphone.
We took our Tuk Tuk back to the hotel and called it a night. Early for Thai standards but we had been going since 6:30am.
