Ayutthaya and the River Cruise and my final day in Bangkok

My final full day in Thailand, I took a tour to the Royal Summer Palace and the Ayutthaya temples, along with a river cruise.

I began the morning by waiting around for the bus that was an hour late before the tour started.

The first stop of the day was the Royal Summer Palace, which was built originally in the 16th century, but had to be rebuilt in the 1800's due to disrepair.

Above is the Royal Residence.

The palace is actually relatively low-key for being a royal palace, but it was quite beautiful and intricately decorated.

The far building is Saphakhan Ratchaprayun (The Assembly Hall for Royal Relatives).

I wandered around the temple with another solo traveler, Anna. We quickly realized we would have been best friends if not for the fact that we lived on opposite sides of the world.

This is the Ho Hem Monthian Thewarat (The Golden Palace of the God King).

In order to get into every building, you had to take off your shoes, which is Thai custom. I planned poorly when I decided to wear converses.

I loved this decorative piece, though I'm not entirely sure what it was. It seemed to be some sort of room divider.

After heading to get a Thai Tea (of course), we headed to our next stop, the Ayutthaya Temples, my favorite place I saw in Thailand!

Wat Matahat was the main temple we saw, which was founded in the 14th century and destroyed in the 18th century, though some of the main reliquary towers remain which is what we can see. Before its destruction, it was one of the world's largest cosmopolitan and urban area.

The Royal Court of Ayutthaya exchanged ambassadors with places such as French Court at Versailles, the Mughal Court in Delhi, and imperial courts of Japan and China. 

The temples were definitely my favorite place in Thailand. The architecture was beautiful.

We then went to the Royal Temple, built in the 1400's. It housed Buddhist relics and holy books and was also the center of peace treaties.

At the last stop, there was a couple that arrived at the bus 15 minutes late for the 4th time. Apparently, that was the last straw for an Australian woman who yelled, "We have better things to do than sit on a bus all day!" She and I became instant comrades.

The river cruise was also fun. It was interesting to see the countryside, and we ate lunch at the same time. Afterwards, Anna and I went to another temple and walked around Bangkok a bit. We exchanged information and parted ways, only to learn the following Friday that she had a flight into Seattle and I was home. So 3 days after meeting in Bangkok, we met up in Seattle. It was surreal.

On the tour, we discovered that Thailand has 14,000 temples, so we joking were counting down. "Oh that's temple number 6! Only 13,994 to go!" We spent much of the day laughing hysterically, which was great! It's always fun to meet new friends when traveling alone.

On the cruise, we were joined by a woman named Agnes from Hungary. A lot of our discussion involved not being able to understand our guide at all. Supposedly he lived in Chicago but at no point did I know what he was saying. He also thought I was Greek, then Mexican. Also that her travel agent made mistakes and didn't pick her up at the airport or one of her tours, which is frustrating. We also chatted with a woman on a diving trip who showed us a giant picture of a monitor lizard she'd seen in Bangkok. It was approximately the size of a komodo dragon.

The following morning before my flight I visited the Jim Thompson house. He was an American businessman who had an extensive art collection. It was a beautiful house! I flew home later that day via Seoul, so I could pick up my luggage and eat some final Korean food with Craig! A lady at the airport yelled at me at security because my carry on was 2kg overweight, despite the lady at the desk saying it was fine. So I had to go through the line twice, so I could get an "oversize carry-on" tag and go through the gate. I was practically near tears and said, "I just want to go home" so she didn't make me pay for it. Thank goodness. I arrived home safely just in time for Christmas Eve!