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My Thailand advenrure with my travel buddy, Angeline, and her Ate Melissa (Part 2)

 

Touring Lopburi

 

Central Thailand’s Lopburi is one of the oldest cities in the country. It was within the large Khmer empire in times gone by and was briefly the capital of the Ayutthaya Kingdom. Today,
Lopburi is known to be the sunflower province of Thailand and home to many temples which the country is famous for. There's also a road in Lopburi where macaque monkeys roam and live around with the locals.
Unfortunately, the sunflowers were not yet in bloom at the time of our visit. But the monkeys in Phra Prang Sam Yod
live among the Thais. They freely roam the street and jump onto the cars to look for food. The locals had made it a point to leave foods or bananas for the monkeys on top of their cars. Some locals feed them on the street.
Temples are everywhere. Even  street rotundas are made of old, restored temples. We visited Somdet Phra Narai National Museum where special, ancient temples can be found.
King Narai the Great, King of Ayutthaya during the second half of the 17th century built his palace near the Lopburi river.
The palace was designed by French architects in a mix of Thai and European architectural styles. Construction started in 1665 and was completed 12 years later in 1677.

After King Narai’s death in 1688 the palace was abandoned. It was nearly two centuries later King Mongkut ordered restoration of the palace and the construction of several new buildings. Nowadays, the palace buildings are in use as exhibition halls for the Lopburi museum.

The 17 acres palace grounds, enclosed by brick walls covered with plaster, consists of an inner courtyard, central courtyard and outer courtyard, separated from each other by high walls.

 

Prutanam, Bangkok


After four days of refreshing farm life, it was time to see the country's capital which is Bangkok.
Of course, no trip in Thailand is complete without seeing Prutanam and doing the rounds of its flea market, Bayoike, for quality, affordable wear, t-shirts and souvenir items.
We rounded the touristy and highend establishments of Prutanam and caught up with several  friends on group tour who were billeted at Novotel Hotel. The hotel district is some 10-20 minutes walk away from Bayaoike while Bayoike is five to 10 mins away from our  home away from home, at Dream Hotel, where we stayed for two days prior to going back home.
Traffic in Bangkok is as bad as the traffic in Metro Manila. But we noticed that the Thais are more disciplined -- even our Tuktuk driver never overtake the cars or Tuktuk ahead of him. Thai drivers, including taxis, would wait and queu in proper lines, thus avoiding chaos and more traffic on the road.

Thailand is about two times bigger than Philippines. Philippines is approximately 300,000 sq km, while Thailand is approximately 513,120 sq km.
Thailand is famous for foodies as a street food heaven. It is also most visited for its beaches, jungles and elephants. We wanted to see more of Thailand and the elephants but we only have Lopburi and Bangkok in our itinerary.
With friendly Thais who look exactly like us and more places to discover in Thailand, we will definitely be back. Here's praying that the virus pandemic would be eradicated the soonest so we can all travel again.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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