Adventures (and Misadventures) in Sawadee Land (Part 2 of 4)

Day 2. Ayutthaya Tour, Afternoon Cruise and PP Acrobatics

'Twas not a very good start for us. We were hassled by the tour driver and another tourist because we were late (hey, it was not our fault, the email says that we're to be picked up at 7:30am and they were there at 7:00am!) We were transferred to a tour bus and then off we went to Ayutthaya about 2hours ride from Bangkok. First stop was the Summer Palace. This is even better than the Grand Palace, the place was amazing! We rented a golf cart to tour around the place. I get to practice my driving skills (good thing the cart was so slow coz I don't know how to brake, haha...).

By the golf cart

We had lots of nice photo ops here.

I don't really know what this is, looks pretty though.

One must try is the strawberry juice from the resto. I was expecting just ice topped with strawberry syrup. I was in for a treat though because there were real strawberry bits in it. The drink costs 40baht only, not bad huh?

A refreshing drink, must try! :D

Then we were off to the ruins. There were dogs lying around the grounds, which we thought were dead coz they weren't moving and they have sores all over their body. It added to the gloomy ambiance here. Nothing much to see, just ruins everywhere.

The umbrellas ruined it!

On a happy note, I bought a nice landscape painting here (from 1200baht, the price went down to 340baht. I am not sure if I got a bargain though, but I'm really happy with my painting, something to give to my honey so that he'll be inspired to paint again. :D).

After this we went to a small temple, nothing much to see here.

Actually we don't know what we were doing here, nice photo op though ;p

And then to the original reclining buddha. We just took a few clicks here and then off we went to the cruise.

The Original Reclining Buddha

Buffet lunch at the cruise was so-so, nothing to gush about. The cruise was set to run through Chao Praya river. Well, what can I say... after the novelty of riding trough the cruise wore off, we were a little bored. There was really nothing much to see and it was also raining then so we cannot go up the deck. After 3hours of cruising along we were dropped off at a mall to be picked up and sent back to the hotel.

Wat Arun (Temple of Dawn) as viewed from the cruise

Come night time, we were looking for something to do so we decided to check out nightlife at Patpong district and the so-called PP acrobatics.

SCAM#2. (R18 from here on...)

Before we even got out of the cab, somebody's already approaching us to direct us where to go. He asked us if we're going to shop or to see cabaret or pingpong show. Since we are a already a little wary of Thais because of the earlier scam, we told him that we're just looking around. After a few minutes he approached us again and we went with him to a club just on the outskirts of the market. He told us that we can check the place out first and we don't have to pay anything. The show was not quite what we expected. There was a table in the middle of the floor where the girls are gyrating to the music. One by one, each girl takes up centerstage to do some "acrobatics". For the curious, the acts were: someone pulling out a long string of glow-in-the-dark something out of her you-know while dancing to the music, somebody put in a pen there and wrote welcome to thailand (don't accept anything they offer from the stage coz they'll make you pay for it, besides who would want to, right? Eek, double gross!), someone else put in a straw and blew candles over a cake, yes, there are pingpong balls shooting from there, someone popped balloons, someone opened soda water, someone pulled out a string of blades (now that really freaked me out!) and someone mixed a juice in there and then squirted it out to a bottle which they will offer you also (now this one tops my gross list forever!). So in the middle of the act, the club owner approached us and showed us our bill amounting to 7100baht for the 5 of us. Apparently, you pay for the show and the drink which was supposedly only 100baht at the start of the show (way overpriced already) was in fact 300baht each! And mind you, we weren't the only tourist scammed here because earlier, there were already people from another table having the same argument. Apparently this is how they operate. So we argued with the boss 'til the price went down to 400baht each. After that, we finished our drink and left.

Lessons learned: 1. In Bangkok, everything you pay, no free! (in typical thai accent, :D)2. At the sign of a commotion, leave.

We ended the day eating noodles on the street outside our hotel, to blow off some steam, before calling it a night. So there goes our 2nd day. Hey, we still have 2 more days to enjoy so hang on...

Expenses: Ayutthaya Tour and Cruise with buffet lunch (Asiatravel) - 1800Baht