Our first five days were over. We got the tattoos we wanted and were off to our next stop. Ayutthaya. Neil and I chose a lot of initial locations and planned the first seven days or so with food in mind. Ayutthaya was no exception. It had the added benefit of being one of Thailand’s previous capitals and another bonus of having ancient temple ruins. It was a win win really. The small town is approximately just over an hour by train, a relatively short trip by train standards, and extremely cheap. It cost us about fifteen Baht each if memory serves, so roughly fifty cents. We were off in the morning, as early as we could drag ourselves out of bed, complete with sleep in our eyes and our backpacks at the ready. The train was uncomfortable at best, mainly because Neil and I had to share a seat which was at the back of the car and smaller than the rest. Grateful that it was only an hour or so we sat there like two peas in a pod that would take a tremendous amount of force to pop out of the shell.

We arrived in Ayutthaya and got off the train realizing in that moment that I had forgotten to save the address of the hostel we were staying at. A local tuk-tuk driver offered to help, no doubt to try and give us a ride afterwards, by taking us to a local restaurant that had WiFi. We found the address and got directions from the driver that said he could take us there. As he looked with hopeful eyes, we declined and opted for walking. Along the way we stopped at a hotel to re-confirm the directions and kept our bearing towards our goal.

As we were walking we noticed a couple that seemed as lost as we were. They were French and had a fair amount of difficulty with English so as we criss-crossed each other a few times the exchanges that were made were small smiles and awkward laughter due to both pairs being slightly lost, even with our directions and their map.

We finally arrived at our hostel and got checked in. It was a small family run place, not many rooms or extras, which was expected, but the staff were friendly and helpful. The only other two people there were a pair young ladies. I overheard them as we walked up the stairs to our room, Germans. I went back downstairs after depositing my bag to have a smoke and sat down next to them. I asked to share their ashtray to which they obliged. Small talk and introductions ensued between the Germans, Julia and Lena, and I. While this was happening Neil took off out of the hostel without a word. I assumed he was grabbing a coffee or water or something similar so I didn’t bother to ask. He arrived back about three minutes later with a large plastic bag full of beer from the F-Mart down the road. It begins, I thought to myself. Without a word he handed out beers to myself and each of the girls while introductions were made again. Another five minutes of the obligatory “Where have you been” and “Where are you going” discussion went by and in walks the French couple from before. Again without words, and while they were walking up the stairs past us, we handed them beers, motioning for them to join us when they settled in. They came back down and introductions were again completed. Ben and Cloe. Our first night become a bit of a drinking game to break the ice and entertain one another. Honestly I never expected that when Neil and I brought up Chiang Mai and our plans there that all of the others would ask/mention/hint that they would like to come along. One night…one night was all it took to become fast friends. I guess that kind of thing happens a lot while travelling. You almost have to become friends quickly because you have no idea how long you will see or know them for. It makes for heightened awareness and a high likelihood of friendship anyway because we were all there for the same reasons. Travel and experiences. Little did I expect to be travelling with Julia and Lena for ten days and Ben and Cloe for five though.

We took an extra day in Ayutthaya in order to ensure that we all got on the same train together. This also meant that we had one extra day to check out more temple sites and more food. Our primary reason for choosing Ayutthaya as a food location was this restaurant we read about that serves massive river prawns. This would be the most expensive meal in Thailand by a huge margin. We dragged the others along with us however we did not expect an hour and a half long tuk-tuk ride each way in torrential rain. In any case, we arrived and were seated. Immediately we ordered the prawns and they certainly did not disappoint.

After temples the second day We left for Chiang Mai on our night train, this one fourteen hours, with all of our new friends with us. I found sleep difficult due to the noise and motion of the train but managed to get enough broken up rest that the day would be fine. Neil and I had a plan of action for Chiang Mai, at least for the hostel we wanted to stay at. As I was beginning to understand all to well, plans can change quite rapidly. We adjusted our plan so that the six of us could all stay at the same hostel. We settled in at Living Place 3, dropped our bags and proceeded to discuss what the next set of plans were. That is for next time, though.