Six Plus Gramps

Finally, we were able to take a short trip in February, the first since August. We decided to drive up to Ayutthaya, Thailand and spend a week learning about the ancient history of Thailand’s former capital city. Gramps and his girlfriend Nong came with us. We left on Sunday around noon and had an uneventful three-hour drive to Ayutthaya. Considering Thailand’s roads are ranked as one of the deadliest in the world an uneventful drive is a great thing. Oh, we did have one incident, but it was Charlie this time instead of the kids. Charlie, our bearded dragon decided to poop on Ayden about 30 minutes into our drive. We had to stop, dig out the luggage and find Ayden some clean shorts. The downside to bearded dragons, they have some nasty poop!!

I booked a family room for the six of us, Richard and Nong booked a separate room for themselves. We stayed at the Binlar Guest House right across the street from the historical ruins of Ayutthaya. COVID had drastically brought lodging costs down. Our family room which had 1 king bed, 1 queen bed and 1 twin was about $48 a night. Richards room was around $18 a night.

After we settled it was dinner time, we decided to just eat at the restaurant that the guesthouse was a part of. The dinner was excellent, and we enjoyed a beautiful sunset with the ruins in the foreground during our dinner. For dessert the kids had some fruit popsicles, something we have not seen very often in Thailand. We decided to turn in early, prepare for tomorrow's adventure and get some sleep, so we thought.

Around midnight Sofia woke up puking in bed. Christina doesn’t do great with vomit, so I had to daddy up. Once Sofia was cleaned up by Christina and sleeping again in our bed with a bucket next to her, I stripped the sheets, cleaned the floors, Christina tried to wash out her blankie and bear. I really didn’t sleep the rest of the night, Sofia continued to wake up every couple of hours and puke in the bucket. I would hold her hair and then help her brush her teeth and go back to bed.

Monday since Sofia was still recovering, we decided to just stay in the guesthouse, watch some movies and just have a lazy day. We did venture out around lunch time for some hamburgers and then we stopped by the Ayutthaya Elephant Palace to feed the elephants. Jeremiah loves feeding the elephants, Sofia not so much. After we spent some time enjoying the elephants company we went back to the room for a nap. I love having lazy days when we travel, no reason to rush. For dinner we some waffles, you can get waffles for dinner at most markets or delivered via delivery app such as Grab. The kids love this of course.

Tuesday morning Sofia was better. We decided since she had just been sick, we would forego walking all over Ayutthaya and instead opted to take a short drive to Ang Thong. Just outside of Ang Thong is Wat Muang where you will find the tallest Buddha in Thailand so after a breakfast of muffins and sweet breads from 7-11, we drove about 30 minutes to the temple. Wat Muang was breathtaking the Buddha is 300 feet tall. There was more than just the Buddha, the Wat also has a heaven and hell statue park. The hell statues can be quite disturbing depicting what I guess are demon torturing the damned. After about an hour at the Wat the kids had about had it, it was getting hot and a mutiny was inevitable if we didn’t get them some cold drinks, air conditioning, and food.

A quick google maps search for a restaurant and we were off. Lunch wasn’t that great even though the restaurant was highly reviewed. Oh well, not everyone has the same tastes. We returned to Ayutthaya and rested a bit at the guesthouse until dinner time. For dinner I found a great Italian restaurant KAFFA Cafe. The owner/chef was wonderful, we thoroughly enjoyed our meal including the strawberry cheesecake we had for dessert. Back to the guest house for some rest as I had booked a tour of Ayutthaya the next morning. Well, that is what we thought again.

Ayden was first, he started puking around 2300, thankfully he made it to the bathroom. I got him a bucket and put him back to sleep. It was going to be another sleepless night for me and Christina. 0100 Jeremiah puked in his bed, again I cleaned everything up while Christina showered Jeremiah. Poor baby kept screaming, he is only 4 years old and didn’t understand what was happening. I found another bucket and we got him to back to sleep in our bed. Ayden and Jeremiah took turns puking for most of the night, then around 0400 Zachary puked on himself. Man, we could just not get a break. Jeremiah was finally better later that morning, Ayden finally stopping getting sick around noon, but poor Zachary was puking most of the day. Sofia was bored and bouncing off the walls so Grandpa and Nong took her for some walking and shopping. not much else to report, I was able to move our tour until Thursday. Pre COVID this would not have been possible considering it is high season. But we were probably the only foreign tourists in the entire town so not a problem this time.

Thursday morning everyone was better, Zachary was acting a bit sluggish and saying he didn’t feel good. My dad intuition said he was lying; Zachary hates the thought of visiting temples even though he usually has a good time. My intuition was correct, about 30 minutes into our first temple visit he was running around playing with his siblings. Our tour guide I found on Facebook, turned out to be an amazing guide. We visited 4 different temple ruins, and 1 functioning temple where our guide explained many different cultural aspects of Buddhism and how and why people pray. This was something were really enjoyed and wished previous tour guides explained. He taught us a lot. I won’t go into details of the different ruins we visited but to sum things up Ayutthaya was the capital of Siam until the late 1800s when the Burmese invaded, pillaged the riches of Ayutthaya and burned it to the ground.

The kids were ready to mutiny again, so we squeezed into the tuk-tuk and drove to a restaurant the guide had lined up for us. Lunch was wonderful, the restaurant was on the Chao Phraya River, since there are no tourists in town our boat was able to come and pick us up at the restaurant. I had asked for a 90-minute tour boat tour of the rivers that surround Ayutthaya. Kids always love boat tours and this one was no exception. The best part was feeding the catfish at one of the Wats. Killing animals is forbidden at a temple and with this particular temple being on the water the number of fish here was incredible. As we approached the area where people come to feed the fish, they started splashing the water with their tails in anticipation of being fed. They were probably starving considering the lack of tourists, we ended up with less than clean river water all over us, but the kids had a blast, so it was definitely worth it. The boat returned us to the restaurant after circling the city, we squeezed into the tuk-tuk and returned hot, tired, yet satisfied from our wonderful tour of Ayutthaya. After a bit of a rest the kids reminded us it was dinner time. For our last night we decided to walk down a few blocks to the local light market for dinner. We love visiting the various street food vendors and grabbing a quick bite while we explore. Jeremiah quickly found some luk chin (hot dog on a stick), Zachary found some fried chicken wings, Christina opted for a donut, I cannot remember what the rest of us ate.