From Auroville to Delhi to Bangkok

After saying goodbye to my German sunyasis (spelling??) and my doggie woggies, I headed back up to Delhi for some last minute administrative things (such as posting yet another big box of stuff that I couldn't fit in my bag!). Then, before I knew it, I was on a jet plane, leaving India - after almost 3 months there, it felt so strange to be finally leaving...I had gotten so used to living in India! So I said goodbye to Tara and Shaggy and all of my Delhi friends and, after a brief stop-over in Singapore, I met up with Boobie in the huge and very badly designed new Bangkok airport!! We had 3 wonderful and luxurious days in the Marriott Hotel and Spa - I was very spoilt and worried that I would not be able to adjust back to the backpacker lifestyle again!! Hahaha! But 5 delicious days on Koh Chang island (3 of which were with Boobie), living in a very simple but beautiful beach shack, sipping on pina coladas, watching the sunset over the water set me straight immediately!!! I was originally only going to stay 2 days, but the Tree House Guest House was so wonderful that we just couldn't tear ourselves away. I also met an Austrian biochemist who just finished her PhD and a Greek-German cross-cultural trainer who spoke Indonesian!!! What a small world! Boobie had to get back to Singapore for work and I headed back to Bangkok and ended up sharing a room on Kao San Road with a very sweet Cambodian woman and then made my way up to the ancient capital of Ayuthaya. It is a very quaint little town, surrounded by a moat and littered with wonderful old temples - many in Khmer style. I met a wonderful bunch of Mexicans - one of whom won Mexican Fear Factor - who I hung out with and explored the temples and night market. It was a very nice place with enchanting temples but it was sometimes a bit hard to keep up the temple-exploring stamina in the scorching heat of the day! Luckily, our hotel organised a late afternoon boat trip to see some of the outer temples and a night tour of a handful of the temples that are lit up at night and both of those experiences were absolutely wonderful - the temples looked so different and mesmerising at night! Then today I spent the day travelling to another ancient capital of Sukhothai and sampled my first Thai train - very clean and sort of old-colonial feeling, but VERY hot and stifling, even in 2nd class! Am just getting my photos burnt onto DVD now, so will try to add some more in the next few days!