Day 5: The Curious Incident…

This morning we packed up with the intent of getting breakfast in the guesthouse and then catching a 10:30am train to Bangkok. I was locking our door when I heard Zach say from the porch, “um…we have a problem.” I rushed over and looked at what he and the girls were staring at. There were my shoes, Zach’s shoes, Melina’s right shoe, and Diane’s right shoe. Each girl was missing a left shoe.
It is Thai custom to remove ones shoes before entering a temple, home, or other sacred space. Our room in Ayutthaya is in a separate building from the rest of the guesthouse and we enter from a garden gate before removing our shoes and setting them in a shoe rack on the porch. Which both girls had done before going inside last night.

A little mad and a little panicked and a lot confused, we quickly scanned the garden area and then I took the shoes to reception. Two nice young girls came to help. We all looked everywhere, and eventually they called the owner to check her CCTV. Five minutes later and she named the culprit. Her dog, a Zellie-sized black mutt had snuck through the gate when it was opened to let a car in during the night and made off with the girls’ shoes! We asked the young girl if they could find them, but she just shook her head sadly. “No. Need to buy.” Well. I guess this is a good way to test Zach’s theory that all we really need to remember to pack for a trip is our passports, our credit cards, and ourselves.

The culprit, just sitting there. Digesting shoes.

We couldn’t stop laughing about what we’ve been calling “The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime” all through breakfast. The receptionist was very apologetic and offered to reimburse us for the cost of new shoes for the girls, but we had to get back to Bangkok and figured it would be easier to get shoes there anyway. It was an annoyance (especially since they were brand new shoes) but it wasn’t any person’s fault. Thankfully, the girls have sandals they can wear for the day, but they definitely aren’t fit for hiking in the jungle. As we checked out Zach made a deal with the receptionist: our breakfast was free, she gave us a partial refund for our room, and the owner would email us the CCTV footage of the heist because, well, it’s priceless.

On the train we were in third class again but with more success: not only were we able to find seats but they were almost all together! I was the one with a seatmate who, you guessed it, was the only guy in the train car with his window closed. Seriously. And this was with no air conditioning. Thank goodness for the fans.

One of the vendors came through the train car with a treat I had been searching for in Ayutthaya after I read about it in the guidebook just yesterday. It is called roti saimai and was invented in Ayutthaya. When I did a Google image search so I’d know what to look for, I recognized it immediately as something Zach and I had seen sold on the streets of Bangkok but we had assumed it was bags of uncooked noodles. In fact, it was described online as a “Thai cotton candy burrito.” So I bought a bag on the train for later.

In Bangkok we checked our backpacks at the left luggage counter in the train station. Then we were forced to spend our afternoon doing something we would never choose to do, especially on vacation: we went shoe shopping at the mall. But this was no ordinary mall.

Sign at the left luggage counter at the train station

With 8 levels of stores, kiosks, restaurants, arcades, and international tourists (due to its easy access from the airport), this was actually a site unto itself. Not typically our thing, but still pretty amazing. We had fun picking out our lunches at the giant food court. You don’t pay the food vendors directly; instead you put money on a card and use the card to pay. That meant service was fast and easy. Melina chose noodle soup (her obsession), Zach ate pad Thai, and I opted for a plate with larb and stir fried greens. Diane ate hard boiled eggs and noodles. For dessert, Zach and Diane ordered bowls of shaved ice swimming in a syrupy sauce and and surrounded by brightly colored gelatins, fruits, beans, and corn. Really, it was truly terrible. They tasted it all but ended up just eating the shaved ice and leaving a bowl of purplish slop to be cleared by the bus boys. We all shared the roti saimai from the train and it was AMAZING. One of my favorite desserts ever! I can’t describe it fairly, but it is palm sugar cotton candy strands rolled up into a thin pancake. Believe me, it tastes way better than it sounds!

After getting the shoes, we still had a few more hours before we needed to be at the train station so we walked to the nearby Jim Thompson house. Zach had read about this popular site, the house of a rich silk magnate, but it hadn’t piqued our interest. It seemed silly to go to Thailand to tour an American’s home. But it was close to the mall and turned out to be beautiful and fascinating. On the 20 minute tour the guide compared Thompson’s home to traditional Thai homes, so it was a great way to learn about the way Thais in Bangkok live. Thompson had taken three separate teak homes and attached them to make his estate, combining Thai design with American conveniences in a way that was pleasing to the eye as well as functional and comfortable given the weather and customs in Bangkok. It turns out that on this very day (March 26) in 1967, Jim Thompson went missing in Malaysia and was never heard from again, so we were there for the 52nd anniversary of his disappearance. We weren’t permitted to take pictures inside the home, but Zach took many in the garden and at the silk worm demonstration where we watched how they boiled real silk worms to extract the silk. It was amazing, and the exhibitors delighted in the girls by giving them real cocooned silk worms to take home! We are not sure if they are alive or dead…we’ll see if they are allowed through customs.

Boiling silk worms

Jim Thompson house

On our way back to the train station we stumbled upon the Bangkok Art and Culture Center, a gorgeous building remniscent of the Corcoran art gallery in style full of art shops and cafes (and combos of the two) along with some very unique exhibits. One showcased Thai agriculture and we sampled fresh coconut and pomelo (looks like a giant lime but tastes like a less sour grapefruit). Another had self portraits painted by refugees living in Bangkok along with their personal stories. Most were Christians that had to flee religious persecution from Vietnam or Pakistan, and their stories were tragic and hopeful at the same time. This would be a great exhibit to have at home, especially with Charlottesville’s refugee population.

Eventually we picked up our bags and hopped on to our overnight train south to Surat Thani. We are in a first class sleeper car this time, and although not even close to swanky, it has been so fun! Some highlights:

– We ordered dinner from an attendant that was delivered to us. There were other vendors with food that was probably better and cheaper, but the attendant was so sweet! She told us she had only wanted two children, a boy and a girl. She kept trying for that girl and was now stuck with four boys! She brought her youngest to meet us, and he was an adorable 10-year old helping her out on the train while his school was on holiday.

– Our compartment is really two connected compartments, each with a spacious bench seat. At night an attendant comes and converts it into surprisingly comfortable bunk beds, on which the girls have been sleeping soundly.

Train food

– There are two bathrooms at the end of our train car: a regular toilet and a squatty potty. As our first experience with a squatty potty was a near disaster, I haven’t let them use the one on the train but personally I actually prefer it as there is no chance of touching a disgusting public toilet seat even with the train bumping and rocking.

– Right before bedtime, Diane lost a tooth! It had been hanging by a thread for about two weeks, and she finally popped it out. Her lisp is quite charming, and Zach and I are thrilled we are going to have so many pictures of her adorable tooth gap on this trip. D is thrilled that the tooth fairy will visit her on a train (we hear she brings Thai baht). It also seems fitting that we would begin and end our day by losing something!

Zach’s note: I always say we need our passports, a credit card, each other, and (not to be forgotten) two pairs of underwear per person.