Journeying between Christmas and New Years..

So the aim was to get to Chiang Mai in two days.. it didn't quite go to plan. When we got to Bangkok we had missed the last bus to Ayutthaya by 15 minutes so had to start our journey again in the morning. Once we reached Ayutthaya (the easy part) we checked the train station to be sure there werent any last minute tickets available (our plan A), there were not. Plan B, was to get a minibus all the way up, but once we reached our hotel we were told that minibuses to Chiang Mai do not exist from Ayutthaya. Plan C, our fail safe was to get the government bus so we went to book this... Plan C was not to be either. There was a little bit of stress at this point but after a lot of running around and debate our last option was to get a VIP night bus the next evening (making us 2 days late for our hotel booking up North). Night buses were the thing we had both vitoed in Thailand, but it was VIP how bad could it be...

During the day that we had to kill in Ayutthaya we decided to look around the temples dotted about the city (from a similar age to those in Siem Reap). We only managed to get in to one temple (a good one) and I managed to get chased by a very angry dog whilst trying to find a temple. Luckily I was on my bike so managed to narrowly escape a snap at my heel, needless to say I did not continue my search for that particular structure and instead headed to 7-11 for my staple: cold chocolate milk.
That evening we were loaded on to our "VIP" bus. I know what one is supposed to look like as we were parked next to 2 in the petrol station but ours was definitely below par. Amongst the general tatter and sitting above some part of the engine, this was THE coldest journey I have ever been on. Air con was on overdrive and even all the street maps I had accumulated from various cities did not keep me warm when I wrapped myself up in them.

However. After a sleepless night we made it. We were briefly herded in to a different hotel and supplied with tea whilst a man tried to sell us many many tours and a room at said hotel. But finally we were free to explore our New Year's destination.