This weekend was very interesting. It was essentially all the time I had to pack in as much sight seeing as possible. Of course, the rushing and unplanning resulted in some pain. Saturday started off a bit slow. I made arrangements to leave with some students at 10:30 to get a massage. I woke up at 4:30 and the wait until 10:30 began to work on me a bit. But, the massage was amazing and it was great to have my student there who lives in Thailand. She was able to tell me what to expect and how to respond to some little oddities.
After the massage I went on my way in search of Khao San Road. Another student mentioned some good things about this place so I thought I would check it out. Sadly, it turned out to be quite horrible. Tourists from around the world behaving badly gave me a glimpse into how the rest of the world must see us. As I stood next to an American college girl wearing extremely short shorts that were turned down at the waist in order to expose the maximum amount of skin, I felt embarrassed. I decided to head to the ferry and take the river down to the Chinatown area instead.
In the evening, I joined more people from my class to go to the night market. They had some great stuff and amazing bargains. I am so indecisive though. I left with just a few little trinkets for my neices.
Sunday was an entirely different story. I went to a place called Ayuthaya which was about an hour and a half on the bus. It cost 50 Baht to get there (about $1.50 US) and I was on an air conditioned Greyhound type bus. Once you're there you see amazing ruins from when the Burmese sacked the original capital of Thailand. I also sat with two different ceremonies and saw the large reclining Buddha. All of this was made possible by the sweetest man ever, 
Pongsak. Pongsak was my Tuk Tuk driver. The minute I got off the bus he came after me with a map. I was a bit turned off at first, but he just seemed nice so I agreed to let him take me around for three hours. This turned out to be the best decision I made. He took me everywhere, bought me bottles of water and even took me down a little residential street where he bought me a bag of fresh pineapple and let me taste his potatoes.
When he took me back to the buses he made sure I got on the right one and sent me off with a smile. His English was limited but he tried to give me little bits of info as we traveled. One funny thing though -- when we arrived at this one monument where there are statues everywhere of roosters (aka cocks), he explained that "we [the Thai people] love cocks".
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