7/1/2015 Sorry I didn’t blog yesterday but
it was so hectic I hardly had the time.
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Yesterday started at 7am on a bus and
heading to the Kings Royal Summer Palace. Here we met with an amazing historian
who showed us around. It was beautiful to see the palace and to hear how the
movie ‘The King and I’ was based on a true story and the Young Prince in the
movie is actually the current King of Thailand's grandfather (or was it great
grandfather?). This fact I found really interesting as I love the movie though the
Thai’s believe that Mrs. Anna (the English governess) fabricated a lot of the
story as in their stories the King wouldn’t stomp around bellowing out
“etcetera, etcetera, etcetera”. We got to see where the Kings favourite wives
lived as back in King Rama the 4th he had a lot of wives and
apparently over 50 children.
After the Royal Summer Palace we made our
way to a museum where we could learn all about the Dutch trading with Thailand,
how it came about, why it came about and why it continued. This I did find
interesting though not nearly as interesting as the Summer Palace. The fact
that it was nearing on 11am and we hadn’t had a chance to have breakfast yet
may have contributed to the fact I was more interested in finding coffee. I
also took this time to contact my parents to see how they are and that they’re
enjoying a nice holiday where dad is managing to catch fish (if you know my
family you’ll know this is a rare occasion).
After lunch my mood picked up and again
became extremely interested in Elephant Riding which was our next activity.
There isn’t much to say about elephant riding, apart from elephants are large,
walk slow, like to spay water on themselves and us on top of them and are very
fun to ride :D
After the elephants we went off to Ayutthaya:
The Ancient City of Thailand. It was stunning to see all the different ruins to
see how the Burmese came through Thailand and destroyed it. The main things
they destroyed apart from the buildings were all the Buddhas. Ayutthaya had so
many Buddhas which are now headless as the Burmese would storm through and
decapitate majority of them. The only ones I personally saw with heads still
one were really big and the Burmese probably couldn’t decapitate them. Our
amazing Historian tour guide (I’m sorry I cannot remember his name) was still
with us at this point and was able to tell us some really intriguing stories of
Ayutthaya.
This brought us to what I thought was the
end of a long day as we got back to Mahidol Campus at about 6pm but that I
found was where my really true experience of Thailand started. I strongly
believe that sometimes the best experiences are the most spontaneous ones, this
was the truth last night!
We couldn’t decide on a place for dinner so
Prem came up with a plan to go to his friends parents restaurant. Prem is a
student at Mahidol University and came to UC last year as part of an exchange
program, he has been with us majority of the week and is extremely nice. At first I was a bit sceptical as Prem took
us down ally ways, around corners and down some more ally ways just to come to
this really small place where he smiled and said “here we are”. The saying don’t
judge a book by it’s cover was this place to a t. It looked small and not very
interesting but when we got inside (a few of us decided to be really authentic
and eat dinner on the floor) it was such an amazing place. It is hard to
describe a place like this, it felt like home cooking with Prems friends mother
running around giving us salads and cooking from a portable gas cooker out the
front of the room. After my amazing teriyaki chicken and trying a little bit of
my friends grilled lemongrass chicken (both were aroy mak mak!!) I went out
with Birian to help/observe the cooking. The food at this place was delicious
(aroy!!) but I don’t think that was the highlight for me, the hospitality at
Thai Grill (that’s the name of the place) was the best. Prems friends mother (I
really need to get her name) was so lovely and nice, she was easy to talk to
and taught me how to cook a few really good meals just by a running commentary while
cooking. She offered me to stay to learn more but sadly I couldn’t but her hug
as we were leaving was so nice that I really want to go back and see her again
which makes me think I have to come back to Thailand (not just for her though).
I know this blog is long but Thai Grill is
an absolute must if you come over here. The authentic experience is way better
than any touristy attraction I think. To top a now wonderful day off a few of
us stopped by a gelato shop on the way home where we had some amazing ice cream
with alcohol in it.
If you’re still reading this blog then
thank you, I promise this will be the longest blog (hopefully)
Anna xx
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