It is 5 AM and we are in a taxi to Bangkok airport for a flight to Delhi. We were informed last night around 9:30 that we have a 7:30 AM flight. Bill said (jokingly?) that he tried to find a hotter city than Bangkok and there was only one - Delhi - and we are going there.
Yesterday, we went to Ayutthaya, a city 85 km outside of Bangkok, where a large area is designated a Unesco World Heritage Site with some ruins and temples scattered about. Ayutthaya was the Thai capital city 417 years ago. We found it to be OK, not fab.
In order to get credit for the scavenges in Ayutthaya, we were required to take the train at least one way. We took it back in the afternoon. Think Slum Dog Millionaire. We stood in the aisle for almost 2 hours and were constantly jostled by food sellers carrying plastic bags of bottled drinks and leafy produce. No AC of course and the windows were partially covered by those heavy metal corrugated sheets that look like the top of a broiling pan. The ride was $1. Our friends Bev and Buz took an express (timing didn't work for us) for $8 for two, with AC, reclining seats and a quicker ride. But I had the special experience of getting disrupted every 5 or 10 minutes by a vendor and had to elongate and mash myself either against a seated person's head or the seat frame.
We travelled to Ayutthaya by comfortable AC taxi that was about $30 and took a bit less time. Not to pass a day without a tuk tuk scam, our delightful English-speaking taxi driver suggested that we start our day there with an elephant ride before it got too hot. Since that was a scavenge anyway, it made sense. But we asked him to stop at the tourist information office first so we could get maps and guidebooks. He tried to discourage us. Scam coming and we didn't spot it. He took us to the elephant ride area (correct destination) and after we paid him, he led Alex to the ticket window, showed his face and left. Alex asked for the price list. Nothing posted. The ticket lady produced a paper with a price - which we later surmised was the highest price to charge unsuspecting tourists brought in by tuk tuks. Having already ridden an elephant within the last 2 days, the thrill was cranked down a notch and we were mindful of the 20 minute investment. But we enjoyed the lumbering tour around Wat Phra Si Sanphet, ruins of an important monastery on the palace grounds. We visited a wat - Phra Longkhin Bophit which we thought was a scavenge but wasn't. Realizing that distances are much longer than they appear on the map, we hailed a tuk tuk on the road to take us to the large reclining Buddah which is outdoors. We had to have photos of both the Ayutthaya and Bangkok recliners and say which is longer (Bangkok by a few meters). We then showed the tuk tuk driver the photo and Thai words for the Queen Suryothi monument. He nodded and took us to a different one - King Naresuan the Great. As we approached the King's monument, we delighted in the giant brightly colored fake roosters lined up for some special event that was being set up - like soldiers in front of the monument. Never discovered what that was about, but when we turned our attention to the actual monument, it was clear that it was a weapon-wearing warrior, not a queen. Pressing the tuk tuk driver, he took us to the right place and we saw the queen's monument. To comply with the rule that limits the number of scavenges you can take with a single driver, we had him return us to the railway station. We did a mandatory food challenge across the street - buy safe street food. We bought a plastic bag of fried banana chips and a bag of candied mango strips that looked like gummy worms, coated in sugar and hot chili pepper. Both were scrumptious (and were our lunch). Back across the street to buy our train tickets now that it was 20 minutes before departure time, as the ticket seller had told us earlier that was the maximum advance purchase time. However, there was now a handwritten posting that the train was rescheduled for about a half hour later. Time for another scavenge! We hired a woman tuk tuk driver to take us to Wat Maha That to see Buddah's head emerging out of the ground and entangled in tree roots. To take a photo of yourself with Buddah's head, out of respect, you must not be higher than his head which means you have to sidle up and squat on the ground next to him. As we rode the tuk tuk back to the train station we debated adding one more scavenge and asked the driver to u-turn; we rethought it and decided we were cutting it too close on the train and asked her to u-u-turn, now in a 360 tuk tuk ride. We had time at the station to get into the line that had formed to buy tickets. Vindicating the decision not to cut it to the wire.
After getting off the train, we did two more scavenges near the train station. We took the sky train to Jim Thompson's house - which we had figured out was the house of the "legendary American spy" and then to the jewelry market to get price quotes for jade, rubies, sapphire and amethyst.
We rushed to catch the 4 PM cooking lesson which was being given at the hotel. The hotel's cooking school is right next to the spa and because we arrived 15 minutes early, we asked at the spa if we could take a shower. Only one room was available for us to share. Fine with us. We could cover our eyes, turn our backs, whatever, but we really wanted showers. "Room"?? It was more like an apartment - and bigger than some in Manhattan. You enter a foyer, turn into a sitting area with sofa, TV, music center and grooming area. There is another, separate "wet room" which has a large bed/massage table (?) in the middle and a wall shower, large bathtub, another door I never opened, that probably was a steam room or sauna. The final room was a toilet with a sink and vanity outfitted with all kinds of grooming stuff, including a hairbrush and mouthwash. We each got 7.5 minutes in the shower and came out of our "room" completely clean and refreshed (except that we had to put our filthy clothes back on).
Cooking school was fabulous. Sherry, one of our group of 20 organized our private class from 4 to 7 PM and 16 of us did it. It would work perfectly because 9 PM was the deadline to end the Thailand hunt. That allowed us one hour after school for our last mandatory food scavenge. The only one we would have time for was to try some Italian food. I had found that there was a pizza place nearby and we could bite a slice and snap a photo right after cooking school. Problem was, the class was running over and that after the instruction part, they were going to serve us a dinner. It was becoming obvious that if we didn't get the mandatory food challenge in, we would lose all of the points we had earned in Thailand. We hated to walk out on the class to get a stupid pizza, so I slipped out for a moment and asked the concierge to call the pizza place and have a pie delivered to us at the cooking school. In the meantime, it turned out some of our fellow travelers were in similar straits because they were also short a food scavenge or were on shaky grounds interpreting the ones they had done. BUT, how to finesse the incredibly rude act of having a pizza delivered in the middle of a serious cooking class? Soooo ugly American. At a moment when we were changing cooking stations, I conspired with the chef that we had a birthday in our group and were having something delivered in a few moments. When the pizza came, chef produced a birthday candle, lit it and we delivered it to (another) Barbara and all sang happy birthday. Check! Mandatories completed. The lesson was so well done. Chef's English was perfect. He made 4 items and for each item, the sequence was: he demonstrated, then we tasted, then we made it. After the 4 rounds, we ate a full dinner of what we all had made. The menu was: Thai Beef Soup, Golden Pouches with Vegetarian Stuffing (aka fried dumpings), Curried Fish Mousse with Seafood and Mock Ark Shells in Coconut Sauce.
Great day!!