Nothing much happened. I spent most of the day in Nakhon Sawan as check-out from the guesthouse was 2PM and I needed to arrange a few things. When I left after 2PM my first concern was to find some food. Not after long though I find myself looking for a watermelon as it was very hot and I needed water more than food. Yesterday, as I was looking for some familiar part of Nakhon Sawan after I arrived to a new, unfamiliar part of this big city, I bookmarked a place where they were selling melons so it was quite easy to find it. By the time I got there I wasn’t sure if I wanted anything else. So I bought only the melon for 30 Baht and went back to Nakhon Sawan Park to eat it by the artificial lake they have there. As I was eating it two guys came and sat on a bench not far from where I lay on the grass. I noticed that one of them is trying to make eye contact and he was looking at my melon. It didn’t take long before he offered me a piece from their plastic bag full of pastry and so I offered him the melon in return which he accepted. Later they left me with a couple more pieces that they couldn’t eat. I thought that it was interesting how things work out sometimes as I had kind of a proper meal without buying it.

Later I was lying in the grass resting a bit and another two guys came with 5 French loafs each to feed them to the fish, which the water was abundant with. We also talked and one of them offered me to stay the night in his house for free. That would be nice but I had plans to get to the historical city of Ayutthaya today and even though it was quite late afternoon already I still wanted to do it.

As I was about to get on my way the clouds got dark and it was clear what was coming. So I inserted the waterproof lining into my riding jacket and set off. I had to pass only two sets of lights before it started to rain. Then it rained or downpoured on and off . The darkness was faster than me and so 30km before Ayutthaya I was riding in quite unfavorable conditions until I was forced to stop by strong side winds that the weather added to the equation. I ended up in a private fuel station managed by a father and his three young boys. They lived there as well so I witnessed them eating their dinner on a table just behind the fuel stand. The father offered me to join them, which I refused with thanks as I wasn’t really hungry and didn’t feel like taking advantage of the situation again. They ware kind enough to let me be parked in the shed together with their cars. I received a couple of bananas and cup of water later anyway. One thing I was thinking about though was to ask them if I could stay the night in the shed. I didn’t do it at the end as there was nowhere to hide from the headlights of the cars coming to re-fuel and I wouldn’t feel safe enough about my bags.

When I arrived to Ayutthaya I was looking for some police or someone else to ask where to go to find a guesthouse for the night. I eventually found one and he, together with his colleague, assured me that there was nothing cheaper there than 400 Baht a night. Yeah, right, I heard that before… So I asked them to direct me to the local Tourist Police. It wasn’t far so not much later I found myself with a tourist map of Ayutthaya and a couple of places to check out.

The first (the cheapest) guesthouse I was looking for was PS Guesthouse (N14.36004 E100.57041). I found it after just little difficulties and it looked fine. I asked for the cheapest room and I got one for only 100 Baht, even though the tourist map advertised prices between 120 and 300 Baht per room per night. That was great news. The room was probably the best I had for this price. Actually the whole guesthouse was looking very good and two things were excellent – first was that they are hidden from the street (which is a side street anyway) and have their own (quite large) yard where I could safely leave my bike behind the gate and second is that it is being managed by a Thai English teacher, an English guy and the teacher’s daughter, who also speaks English very well.

The guesthouse is very clean, has a very pretty kitchen outside in the front yard with a fridge, free ice tea and lots of food that you can buy.

(156km)