Thailand Adventure--Day 6

Up early today. Our baggage had to be out by 7 and we needed to finish packing before a quick breakfast. Then down to the boat landing where the long tails took us back down the River Kwai to the bus. It was difficult to say goodbye to this resort. Stunningly beautiful place.

We have a couple of long days driving towards the northern part of Thailand. Our first stop is Ayutthaya (pronounced ah-you-tee-uh with the emphasis on the second syllable), the first capital of Thailand. Along the way we stopped at the Bang Pa-In to visit the Royal Summer Palace. The weather is much cooler here. Still warm, but with a nice breeze and perhaps 10 degrees cooler, it is much more tolerable. The current Bang Pa-In Palace was constructed in the late

1800's though a palace of some form has stood here since

the 1600's. The current palace sits in a vast, beautifully landscaped setting surrounded by lots of water. Several stunning buildings dot the landscape with both European and Asian inspired architecture. We were able to visit several of the buildings while others were off limits to all but the royal family and their guests.

Back on the road, our guide, Anil, had the driver stop along the way at a couple road-side stands.

The first one sold Bamboo Rice. Lengths of bamboo about 2 inches in diameterwere filled with sticky rice mixed, each flavored with a different local ingredient. We loved the pumpkin and the coconut ones. They split them open with a machete and then we scooped out the cooked mixture inside. It is cooked over coals for a couple of hours and the result is just delicious. The inner layer of the bamboo adheres to the sticky rice inside binding it together. It looks a bit like a tamale when you see it opened up.

The second stop was far less appealing to us but still fascinating. It was a stand that sold rat! Yes, that is what I said. These are field, wild rats trapped

in the rice fields. They used to have a natural predator but the predator has become endangered and so the rat population has gotten out of control. How do you solve the problem? Well, the Thai solution seems to be to eat the rats. They call it star meat (rats spelled backward), to make it more appealing, I guess. They still looked like rats. They are quite a local delicacy. No one in our group, however, was enticed to do more than take photographs. Even I, usually willing to try just about anything, was unable to bring myself to give it a go.

We arrived at our hotel for the night, the Krungsri River Hotel in Ayutthaya, one of the old capitals of Thailand. After checking into our rooms, the group met in the lobby at 4:30 to bus over to a couple of the famous temple ruins burned

down in a war with Burma in the 1760s. The recent floods rendered one of the sites off limits to visitors right now but even from a distance it was a stunning view. We also walked along the river which was adjacent to the temple giving us another view of the temple and a great look at the river traffic going by.

As we re-boarded our bus to return to the hotel, a half dozen elephants walking by attracted our attention and cameras. These were the first elephants we had seen since arriving in Thailand and the fact that they were just walking down a major street in a fairly large city was, as you might imagine, an attention getter.

They had handlers riding them and as they walked up the street they collected money from locals and tourists alike. For most of us, having seen elephants only in a zoo, this was quite an opportunity.

Back at the hotel for dinner, we ate, of course, Thai food. We were safely back in our room for the night by 7:30. Very long day, indeed.