The system for taxis in Bangkok appears to have changed since we were last here, now many taxis are resplendent in pearlescent pink and all appear to be metered! As a result, it is often cheaper to take a taxi than to bargain your way from place to place by TukTuk. So we took a taxi to the train station, just in time to get a ticket for Ayuthaya, first class air con (there did not seem to be any alternative and the helpful girl at Bankok's Hua Lampthong station seemed to be saying that the second class train leaving later in the day would be more expensive (?) An hour and a half journey (including a complimentary meat based meal that we refused) and we were here.
 
That night we ventured out to a recommended cafe called '29 Steak' (it was supposed to have a good range of veggie food - don't ask!) We had a fabulous surprise when we ordered Spicy 3 Egg Salad as part of our meal only to discover that the three eggs were different types of ways of serving eggs . All hard-boiled, but as well as the usual one (good!), and the spicy pickled one (quite tasty!) there was the totally black one! We think this may be a 'Thousand Year Old Egg', but we're not sure! We did try it - slightly gelatinous but not totally convincing that it's an improvement on a standard boiled egg! We were also impressed that they generously covered another dish with boiled minced pork. We're not recommending this place to other veggies.
 
Ayuthaya is much larger than we had imagined and has long straight roads more apprpriate to a new town than a 14th century capital city. The ruins of the many Wats are scattered throughout the town although many are concentrated into what is now called the Historical Park. They were all ruined when the Burmese overan the whole area in 1767 sacked the treasures and destroyed all of the statues (there are lots of references to 'the enemy' doing this but no references to the many times that the Thai armies similarly overan Burma, Cambodia and Laos). We hired bikes and had a really splendid day cycling in and around the ruins although it might have been nice to see something that was nearly intact! One huge tower (Prang) at Wat Ratburana was build by the King's youngest son to hold the ashes of the king who had died naturally and his two older brothers who had killed each other in a power struggle to take the throne . We climbed a number of steep staircases to get a good way up the Prang, only to find an even steeper, vertigo inducing set of stairs leading back down into the heart of the tower. Here in a tiny chamber covered with murals still holding much of their colour, was where many bits of fine jewelry and treasures were found when looters raided the Prang in 1957. Now it is mostly hot and claustraphobic.
 
After an energetic day yesterday, today we are 'at home' relaxing in a pagoda build in the centre of the water lily lake that gives our guest house its name Baan Lotus. The original house is an old teak house that has been restored. Next to it is a very nice new house built in the same style (but with the added attraction of air-con!) All around the house are the gardens with palms, banana plants and other vegetation - actually it looks a bit like we are always trying to get our garden to look like! However, it is a bit warmer than usually found in England. Earlier today Jen spotted something large swimming in the lake but we couldn't identify what it was but yesterday, in a different lake, we saw a big water monitor lizard leave the shore and swim in a lazy way across the water. Later we realised that as well as the shoals of smallish carp like fish there were a number of extremely large (around a metre long we guess) catfish who came to the surface to take tidbits thrown in by the gardner/handyman. These were very impressive and bigger substantially than those we had seen the day before in the market. However the hotel was unable to reproduce the tanks of live eels and other creatures, including a very sorrowful bucket jammed full of live frogs and held down by netting.