Coup d'etat and a city in ruins!

We were rather shocked this morning while waiting for our tour bus to Ayutthaya to pick up the newspaper and find out that there had been a coup d'etat at the parliament buildings last night. The photos of the tanks were rather disturbing! Luckily when this all happened (at around 10 pm last night) we were snuggled in bed for an early night. Our tour guide assured us that this sort of thing happens all the time, and that there was no danger to tourists or Thais. The best thing was that the traffic was better due to the "changing government". His words...hehe...

Ayutthaya was pretty cool, but we felt rushed through the ruins and it would have been nice to explore some of the Wats (temples) more. We only saw inside two, one with a giant 19-feet tall buddha and one ancient Wat (name forgotten). There are so many temples, and they all kind of blend together after awhile. We also went to Ban Phe-In and saw the old royal residence of Rama V. He had an affection for non-Thai architecture so that was pretty interesting to see these buildings looking so out of place. We climbed aboard a boat and cruised along the Chao Phraya on the way back to Bangkok.

Yesterday we did some wandering down Th Silom and down towards the water. We went for afternoon tea at the Orient Hotel. It was nice to get out of the heat and humidity of Bangkok and be treated like ladies. I had the oriental tea set and Jenny had the traditional tea set. I've never had afternoon tea before...I felt like a pampered colonial woman. Bought some souvenirs from the Patpong market and tried to avoid being pulled into the go-go bars. Also tried to avoid staring at the line of Thai lady-boys...very creepy.

Tomorrow we are going to do a walking tour of Bangkok in the morning checking out the Emerald Buddha, etc. And then we will go to MBK centre for more shopping. I would like to find a cute pair of knockoff Puma shoes and maybe a pair of Chanel sunnies.

I'm still alive, but my camera is not. I have changed the batteries to no avail. And I'm not sure where to go to get it fixed in Bangkok. I guess I will have to use disposable cameras until I get back to Canada...sigh...