After a couple of days spent in Bangkok I eventually decide I can’t postpone departure any longer so in the morning I take my bike to the nearby train station. Yes, it’s the easy way, but I already had a look at a map of Bangkok and just the thought of finding a half pleasurable way of escaping that humid chaos of cars and tuk tuks that define Bangkok gave me a headache. Sure, there’s the highway but spending most of a day riding a highway just didn’t appeal when I knew I could put myself and the bike on the train. So 15 Bath bought me a ticket but it cost another 90 Bath to have my bike with me.

The train is 3^nd class and doesn’t move much faster than I could have done on my bicycle. After two and a half hours of travel I have made it to 85 km north of Bangkok, where I get off in Ayutthaya. I have been here before, so being familiar with the city’s layout I zip right out of the train, crosses the bridge over the river – actually the city is connected to to Bangkok via the river Chao Phraya – to the old part of town and in less than ten minutes I’m installed in a guesthouse. Eventually, I meet to other cyclists, just arrived from Bangkok. They had been riding the highway and said it was just fine. Oh well!

Ayutthaya is the first of a number of ancient cities with a glorious past on my route, all known for their ruins of temples – we are of course talking UNESCO classified stuff here… Next up is Lopburi, where I spent a couple of days in good company with some nice people and monkeys (Lopburi is famous for its monkeys). From Lopburi I went to Uthai Thani. Here I made the dubious decision to stay away from the main roads and instead explore the back roads. A miscalculation of distances on my part meant an improvised stop in Pat Yao some 80 km up the road – I think my map should rather be called a sketch or maybe I need to work on my map reading skills. From Pat Yao it was another 130 km to Kamphaeng Phet. That was a long, warm day on the bike figting a head wind in not so inspiring territory. Anyway, Kampaeng Phet is where I am know and just have explored some of its lesser known ruins. I will save the history lesson for later and possibly do a write up on all cities at some point. Now the road is calling!