Escaping from Bangkok

squirrel count*: 2

I didn't last long in the heat and pollution and massive overcrowding of Bangkok. I was staying in the super-touristy (but very cheap) area around Khao San Rd and it was just so hectic - backpackers everywhere and all that comes with them (touts trying to drag you off to a hotel or on a tour so they can get their commission, hawkers and tuk-tuk drivers shouting at you from every corner). It drove me a little nuts. But Bangkok was great when I got away from the tourist hordes. I went to this great temple at Wat Pho where there is a massive (35 metre long) gilded reclining Buddha, which was just gorgeous.

Chinatown was awesome too - alleyway after alleyway crammed with shops and hawkers and shoppers and motorbikes. Crazy, but fun. I haggled for a while with a woman at a store over a purse I wanted to buy, until I finally realised that I was actually haggling for ten purses (mental note for the future - in Chinatown in Bangkok, they only sell wholesale). The price was still really cheap though - the cost for ten was less than what I'd pay for one purse in Oz. Also good (and gory) was the Forensic Museum at Siriraj Hospital. It's filled with all sorts of body parts in formaldehyde: jar after jar of body parts with stab wounds, hearts with bullet holes, limbs with tattoos on them. I love all that gross stuff. And I loved riding up and down the Chao Phraya River on the ferries to cool off after a morning of sight seeing.

But after 3 days of it, I needed to get out of Bangkok. I headed one hour north to Ayuthaya, the old Thai capital. It was wonderfully relaxing after Bangkok. The town is really beautiful - commercial and residential areas interspresed with national parks and canals, and dotted with the brick ruins of Wats (temples) that were built four to seven hundred years ago - when the population of Ayuthaya was over a million people (population now: 80 thousand). The feeling of history when wandering around the ruins was just amazing. But mainly in Ayuthaya I just hung out in the cool of the garden of the guesthouse where I was staying, drinking far too much Beer Chang with a crew of locals and other solo travellers from Ireland, NZ, England, France and Germany. Lots of fun. I stayed there 3 days before getting up early (with a slight hangover) to hop on a train to Phitsanulok.

• the "squirrel count" started when I was travelling through Europe with my sister Jen in 2001. We were so excited when we spotted one in our the garden of our hostel on our second day in London. We soon got tired of keeping track of squirrel sightgings, though - the things are bloody everywhere in London! When I saw a couple of squirrels at a park in Bangkok (OK, maybe they were squirrel look-alikes) I thought I should restart the counter.