Yesterday was our last day in Bangkok until the end of our trip, when we fly out from here. We headed to the train station in town, stopping at a stand to grab a few different flavors of Thai-style roti, which is sort of somewhere between a crepe and a pancake. We took the train an hour north to Ayutthaya, a small city surrounded by rivers that used to be the capital of Thailand before it was sacked by the Burmese in the 1700s.

We immediately took a liking to the town. With 50,000 residents, it feels much more laid-back than Bangkok. We walked into town, stopping at a pavilion for another bite, and then stopped to get a massage to kill some time before our hotel check-in.

The hotel is pretty neat. It’s an old wooden house, and our room has a huge jacuzzi tub. Only $10 per night!

After we dropped our bags off in our room, you guessed it, we went to get some more food. This time we got boat noodles, a local specialty featuring your choice of noodles in a little broth with some pieces of pork or beef and a couple of small meatballs. This place has had a Michelin star for four years in a row, and we got four bowls of noodles for $2.40!

Afterwards, we figured we should get another massage (I mean, they’re only $7.50 for an hour!), so we walked over to another parlor, and this one was even better than the one before.

For dinner (yes, this is the fourth meal of the day), things got more adventurous. I had raw shrimp and preserved egg salads, both of which were actually quite tasty (and spicy!), followed by stir-fried morning glory and dried fish with a sweet and sour sauce. We walked back through a night market for a couple of small bits of dessert before heading back to the hotel for the night. All in all, an exciting new place and lots of new foods today. I’m sensing a theme with this whole massage-food thing…