Ayutthaya was the ancient capital of Thailand/Siam, and is now a UNESCO World Heritage Site. I hadn't visited too many ancient temples thus far in my travels, so I enjoyed my few days here. It might be a bit much if you're templed-out, although it's one of the only places I've seen where the city is built around and within the ruins, so it's a pretty interesting setting. Amongst the sites in Ayutthaya is the iconic Buddha head in a tree at Wat Mahathat. There's that many similar temples and ruins, it's hard to keep track of where you've been... One of the two museums (sorry, can't remember which one) has scaled models of the major temples before they went to ruin, which is worth a look if you want to educate yourself.

I felt I could do with some exercise, so I hired a bike and visited as many of the outlying sites as I could. The traffic is daunting on first appearance, but the cars, motorbikes and motos are used to cyclists and pedestrians on the roads and it's actually pretty safe. The hire bikes are all fixed-gear though, which makes getting over the big bridges a bit of a nightmare. Also, beware of the dogs, which are pretty feral (possibly rabid) and seem to go for cyclists; lucky for me the only dog that got near me was muzzled...

On my final day, I met up with an Aussie guy on the run from his Thai girlfriend – or, to be precise, her mother – who was trying to fast-track their marriage. He was convinced he'd be in physical danger if any of her relations found him on the run. I'm not sure I had much sympathy for him, though, given that his brother had also fallen for a marriage scam before this, so he wasn't exactly unaware of the possible consequences of falling for a Thai girl.