First stop: Bang Pa-In Palace
It took around an hour of travel for us to reach the provincial city of Ayutthaya. It’s a long ways out of Bangkok, so definitely a rural area.
I spent all my time looking out of the window and seeing the city influence slowly fade away and become just smaller buildings and rural houses. And I thought that, hmmmm, it’s almost like the provincial areas in the Philippines too. Barely any difference other than the signs and letters were predominantly Thai, and some houses had Buddhist religious artifacts. I tried to look for other more differences, and I was hardpressed to find any more. It was strangely very familiar. Houses look the same, the gates look the same, the color schemes look the same, roadside eating places look the same, the small brooks look the same… yeah, familiar.
We reached our first location: the Bang Pa-In Palace. Also called the Summer Palace. And it was an exceedingly nice place for a tour. Very picturesque, clean, and… man, the fresh rural air. You can smell the difference in the air. Like the previous tour, we waited a bit inside a covered area while our tour guide bought tickets for the group.
Our tour guide was Mr. Visan, a spry man who keeps fit and able with his job. Like the tour guide named Sam yesterday, Visan was a gentle tour guide with a firm handle on what the group should be doing and very mindful of our time. Multilingual and genial. Enthusiastic, knowledgeable and articulate. Spoke English very well. Not to mention he seems to know the places we went to like the back of his hand. So far, 2 out of 2. Impressive.
To me, if that man respects the job that much, the least I can do was to not get in the way. And I was mindful as well that this place has less margin of error to tolerate than Bangkok. If I get lost here, I’d miss a chunk of the tour. If you get in a deep-shit accident here, the nearest hospital was a long way out. So while I was determined to fully enjoy the trip, I kept myself fully alert at all times. Keep out of accidents, be mindful of my body’s limits, basically. The mints helped immensely there. As well as the peppermint inhaler I bought at 7-11 yesterday.
We went on a scenic route of bridges, greenery, and very opulent buildings of European influence. It’s like someone made a park that also happened to have nice summer houses. There’s definitely Thai buildings and design motifs, you won’t miss them.
Then we went to a nearby building that looked very different from the other ones. This was clearly a Chinese palace.
It was in a spot of land that I thought was well-planned. Middle of the area, tranquil, and had nice stone tiles out front. Our tour guide had us wait in the shade while we waited for the full delegation of VIPs to leave in golf carts. Then we approached the palace. It’s exceedingly well-maintained too.
After a few minutes of gawking at the red-and-gold Chinese house, our tour guide then led us to other houses and views.
We made a full loop tour of all the nice places in the Summer Palace area, so our tour guide led us to where we started. There was a small gift shop near the ticket booth, with lots of nice things but one look at the prices let me know that I’d have a better bargain somewhere else.
That was our brief respite from the increasing midday heat (was airconditioned) and also the toilet break. Once the group was done with all our business, the tour guide told us we’d head to a big rural mall for lunch at a food court. And right on schedule too – 15 minutes to 12PM.
He managed the tour time that well. Time to eat.
Water bottle count: 1
Briathrail // Albert 2MNG 
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