The Ancient Capital

Sandy beaches have become the crumbling temples of Ayuthaya, the capital of Thai civilisation from 1350 until the Burmese destroyed it in 1767. Now all that remains are the orange brick bones of once large and sprawling temple complexes. I left Ko Phangnan yesterday with a thankfully calmer boat ride. I even slept on the upper bunk of the sleeper car this time. I woke to a flooded world on the outskirts of Bangkok. Whilst the city is dry the water out here still slowly recedes from homes and ruined croplands. These people were not so lucky. As the train enters the city, a new face of Bangkok emerges as massive motorway flyovers, metro stops and skytrains take shape, crawling with workers. Bangkok is investing heavily in infrastructure, no sooner had the first metro cars ridden the rails of the first line,  a major expansion of the network had begun. In the shadow of this construction however is the hulking shapes of motorway pylons unfinished from the last wave of construction brought to a halt by the Asian Financial Crisis. Hopefully this time it works. Investing in infrastructure now may save Bangkok from becoming another unweildly Asian megacity. On a lighter note i have observed the many humorous spelling, grammar and syntax errors of translated signs. Today as I was withdrawing money from an atm it warned me: "Caution. Beware of social engineering techniques" why it was telling me this I do not know.