Day 27 - Khorat and the trip to Ayutthayah "But I still can't figure out which toilet is which ....."

We decided to get a taxi to take us to a few sites around Khorat in the morning, as we needed to get the bus to Ayutthaya later in the day. Khorat isn't known as a tourist destination so our hotel didn't have anything like an organised tour. While we waited in the lobby for the taxi to arrive, Kathryn decided to take advantage of the facilities downstairs, and was quite amused with the signage for each toilet ... it's too hard to describe so check out the pictures!
First stop was Ban Prasat, where some archaelogical digs had uncovered the remains of a 3000 year old civilisation. The sites were small but quite interesting, and the town itself was also nice to walk around .... at least until it was invaded by around 100 schoolkids on an excursion!
Next stop was Phimai, to visit an old Khmer temple complex - very similar in style to Angkor Wat, but much smaller, but worth seeing nevertheless.
Finally we went to the Dan Kwian Pottery Village. Mike vainly tried to escape the ordeal by attempting to hurl himself from the taxi, but as he was carrying all of the money Kathryn kept a pretty tight hold on him. Most of the pottery was actually disappointing, as the main theme appeared to be garden ornaments, though Kathryn's keen nose eventually picked detected a few interesting pieces which she promptly purchased.
Once back in Khorat, our taxi dropped us at the bus station. We hopped onto a bus which we were both told would take us to Ayutthaya. A couple of hours of travelling later, we both started getting a little nervous as there were no signs of the bus stopping before it reached Bangkok! A quick word to the bus driver, and we were told "we're stopping in 10 minutes". 10 minutes later we were dumped on the side of the road next to a bunch of roadside stalls - where a tuk-tuk driver there informed us were were 25km from Ayuttayah! Of course he offered to help us resolve the situation, and as our options were limited we weren't really able to negotiate a good price for the ride into town. The tuk-tuk ride was an adventure in itself .... weaving in and out of highway traffic, being overtaken on each side by cars even though there were only two lanes, and speeding past cars along the edge of the road .... we almost got our money's worth.
Once we finally arrived at our hotel, we caught the ferry across the river into town, did a quick walk around the city, had dinner at a riverside restaurant where I think the mosquitoes had a better feed than we did, and finally called it a day!