We've now made it out of Bangkok, around a third of the way to the Lao border in a little-ish place called Phimai.

Since we last clocked in, we've mostly been occupied by some touristing and a lot of visa-chasing in Bangkok. We did all several main sights and a handful of smaller ones - Grand Palace, Wat Pho, a few incidental temples, National Museum etc. - which were generally very impressive but very touristy. Interesting nonetheless, particularly as we had very little knowledge of any of this before. One night we also struck very lucky on a jazz bar crawl, ending up at a student-run place where, by the end of the evening, we were not only the only tourists but the only non-performers! Two half days were taken up by trying to get visas for Laos and Cambodia. We went to the embassies, which luckily were close together, but unluckily were about an hour and half out of town, taking into account Bangkok traffic. We got the visas without any bother, it just took up a lot of time, particularly as we had to come back for the Lao one the next day (by means of a sloooow taxi, which got us there with only half an hour to spare - eek!). The plus side was strolling round a part of Bangkok that gets barely any tourists. We found a similar area just on the other side of the river from our hotel, where we stumbled upon a temple full of (mostly novice) monks, one of whom showed us around a bit, which was very exciting.

After 3 days we were citied out, and decided to start on our route east. First stop was Ayutthaya for a night, the capital of Siam before Bangkok. Lots of ruins, formerly very grand, now mostly temple-shaped piles of brick. It was a nice contrast from the city tourism, lovely and atmospheric, not least because we'd rented bikes to get around on, which was a welcome change. Early next morning (yesterday) we carried on to Phimai, the centrepiece of which relaxed town is a stunningly reconstructed Khmer temple. Today we've seen the museum housing its best friezes, lintels and sculptures from the outside: closed the three days we'll be here. It had to happen sometime! Also went to a little traditional village where there have been several excavation of bronze- and iron-age burial sites, which was interesting (good little museum), un-steamie and a little light relief from our temple-dominated sightseeing.

Tomorrow we move on eastwards to Surin, where there promises to be silk, elephants and temples (so for anyone who'd forgotten, we're in Thailand!). By the end of the week we hope to be in Laos. Catch you laters, alligators!