Ayutthaya and the Floating Market

   A few days ago my host father came to me and told me to pack my bags... I asked for what (naturally), and he said that I was going to go to Ayutthaya the next day! So, me being the good Exchange Student that I am I went straight away and packed. I found out the reason for going the next day. We were going because one of the host families had a friend who passed away, and that friend lived near Ayutthaya. Ayutthaya is really far away from where I live, so we were going to be spending one night there as well. So the host family took this extra time to give Joao, Raul (for reference to who these two are, look at previous blogs), and I a great experience of Ayutthaya.

     Now enough with the long explanations, and on with short ones with pictures! The night before I left I went over and slept at the host family's (the one taking us to Ayutthaya) house. The first morning we woke up around 4 A.M. and got into a bus to basically sleep for the 8 hours it took to get to Ayutthaya. I'm sorry to say that I didn't take any pictures of the funeral, but in short: the body is cremated, the hold the funeral at a normal Thai temple, and it's basically like a visitation for an American funeral (but all in Thai). After the funeral we drove for another hour or so until we got to the floating market. I'll let the pictures speak for themselves (well with captions too).

Just to be able to say I was there!

A restaurant on water.

We even got to see the cook in action.

Joao, Raul, and I getting ready for the boat ride.

The boat ride was a basic tour of the floating market and surrounding area, but it was at night! It made me almost think I was in Italy.

That's what we probably looked like.

Even the host mom decided to come along for the boat tour.

   The boat tour was the last one of the night, and it was late in starting besides. So to say the least, it was very late when we finally got to the hotel for the night. But it was well worth it! The next day we headed for the elephants! On our way we went to the elephant... farm I think... But it wasn't the main attraction. We headed to the elephant place of work, and got to have one of the best experience: elephant rides!

The elephant place of work from the outside. 

They had baby elephants for a first impression.

The most common look of elephants anywhere: the trunk (nose) in an upward angle.

Yes, we are all wearing the same shirt. A friend gave us each one and we thought it'd be cool to wear them that day.

And now for the elephant ride!!!!!!

It was actually rather short, only 10 minutes or so. But still getting to ride that animal was pretty amazing.

After our rides there was even an elephant show. They did some cool tricks like this one. It was an awesome spectacle to see. 

This was the biggest elephant they had. To give you an idea, where it is standing now anyone can walk under it without hitting there head. It was BIG!

   After the show we had the long journey back home, full of sleeping and well sleeping. We got home and basically went straight to bed with dreams full of dancing elephants (that was part of the show).