Back to where we left off! If you haven't read the first part of the Bangkok travel where we came from Ayutthaya to Lopburi, you can check the post out here.

The train ride took about an hour and a half from Ayutthaya to Lopburi.

There's a number of sights to see at Lopburi, but our top priorities were the Monkey Temple and the Sunflower fields. All of which we had about three hours to cover!



We had no idea how we were going to get to both of these places since we don't know of any rentals or taxis around the area, but we were lucky. The owner of the street stall where we had our lunch (right opposite Lopburi station) at was really helpful.

We told him of our plans and he said he could help us get a driver (probably a relative or friend of his) as the Sunflower field was about 30km away. Definitely not a place you wanna go by bike or foot. And so, he got us a driver to take us to the sunflower field and the monkey temple at 700 baht (SGD$14 per person).
I read on some site that you could take a public bus to the fields at only 30 baht or so, but the journey is about two hours back and forth. Because we wanted to catch the last train back to Bangkok at 6PM, we took the driver offer. Yay to a comfortable ride!!

Lopburi Sunflower Fields

The fields took my breath away. Yeap, first time in a sunflower field, or any floral fields in fact. Finally getting to tick this off my list!

The Lopburi sunflower fields comes in full bloom in Nov - Jan, so we were really lucky that our trip was this timely! If you're travelling this coming Dec/Jan, you should pay the fields a visit too. The locals who owned the area are also really friendly and courteous, although they may be a language barrier if you can't speak or understand Thai.

Even so, they offered us some sunflower seeds while we were traipsing in their fields!




Han being so fixated on the seeds hahaha.





Because I already spent 350 baht to get here, I should take myself in the fields in all sorts of angles right?? Thank you Han for capturing such beautiful shots!! From Melbourne to Bangkok, he knows just what kind of shots I love hehe.




Made the sunflower boy wear my hat. He really looks like a farmer here...






Just beside the fields, some locals are also selling other food items like drinks, honey, baked nuts and so on.

Lopburi Monkey Temple

Our final stop was the Lopburi Monkey Temple, which wasn't located too far away from Ayutthaya station. I think Han enjoyed the Monkey Temple the most, because he finally got to reconcile with his own kind. :') HAHA I kid.

The monkeys were really mischievous, albeit adorable and we had a lot of of fun just playing around while photographing them in their habitat. Bring a change of clothes if you plan to play with them cause you could get dirty.







Somewhere inbetween, Han found a buddy! This little monkey had lots of fun just sitting on his shoulder while rummaging for food in his hair. A few other monkeys also hopped onto him later.


"Call me the Monkey whisperer" lolol.

I also had a few small monkeys climb on me while swinging on my hair... But I just can't do it the way Han does - with a smile and all LOL.

Generally, the monkeys are just playful and not harmful at all, so just keep a watch out on your personal belongings to make sure they don't grab and run away with any of your loose items. There's also kind of a temple caretaker around who will help to warn the monkeys not to climb on the visitors, if you're scared of them.






And then the perfect golden hour light came around just in time for me to capture a few shots before we left Lopburi for good! Our journey back to Bangkok took us about three hours, so we still had some time to visit a night market before we called it a day.


Definitely an exhausting, albeit rewarding day trip out of Bangkok. It's not something I would usually think to do, especially since shopping and eating alone can take up all of my days in the land of smiles but this was a good kind of different. Getting lost, finding our way, and seeing these beautiful sights became the highlight of our trip. And of course all the street food we had.

It was kind of rushed, but I think that any more time spent on either of the places may end up being a bit boring. A day trip without a night's stay was just perfect for us. But there are travellers who take this route whilst on the road from Bangkok to Chiang Mai. That's quite a feat itself.


In the next post, I'll touch on the specific costs of our travel and how we got around from Bangkok to Ayutthaya and Lopburi with the railway! Hopefully the photos from both posts have already convinced you that these two destinations are worth the trip.
Also, I brought my GoPro with me to Bangkok, so I'll definitely be working on a video for it! Now that school's out, I have so many plans to get this video and my previous Melbourne/Redang video done!! Till then x.

Check out my other travel posts:
▶ A Day Trip from Bangkok (Part 1) - Ayutthaya Temples
▶ A Day Trip from Bangkok (Part 2) - Lopburi Sunflower Fields and Monkey Temple
▶ A Day Trip from Bangkok (Part 3) - Getting to Ayutthaya and Lopburi 

Just last Saturday, I finally went on the long awaited trip after the end of the school semester. There's no better way to treat yourself to months of hard work than a plane ticket to elsewhere. :')
Coincidentally, Han also had his block leave that very week, so we've been making a few plans to travel and we finally decided on Bangkok!

It's my second time visiting Bangkok this year (I also visited in May), but I don't have much to blog about it since it was just a whole lot of shopping. I'm pretty sure many Singaporean travel sites have covered enough about the night markets and cafes to visit around Bangkok, so I won't talk about that either. Instead, I'll write about how the day we decided to take the road less travelled by!

For on one of the days during our 5D4N trip, we went on a day trip to the north of Bangkok, to explore some other parts of Thailand by train!!

Since the whole day trip was kinda long with a lot of visuals, I will be splitting them up into three parts:
1. Ayutthaya Temples
2. Lopburi Sunflower Fields & Monkey Temple
3. Getting around railways in Thailand



We went to Ayutthaya and Lopburi, to visit their temples and sunflower fields. Both places took our breaths away. It was a good breather from the hustle of Bangkok city, and it wounded up being the highlight of our entire trip. We would definitely do it again next time, maybe in other parts of Thailand but this was a great head start.

If you've read some of my travel posts, you would more or less get the idea that I tend to plan my own trip itineraries (or go without a plan), rather than go on guided tours. Luckily for me, Han is exactly the same (he dislikes guided tours with a passion lol) so naturally, we kinda winged this. So many times we could have gotten lost and stranded but... The spontaneous part is what makes it fun.

If you're a low budget traveller, then this day trip could also be ideal, with some tweaking!

Hua Lamphong Railway Station

First thing's first, breakfast!! I had a friend recommend me to visit On Lok Yun, and we paid it a visit because it happens to be located not too far away from the railway station that we were going to. We had their famed kaya and butter toast, as well as milk tea and breakfast set before departing on our journey.



The day trip took us from morning 8AM to about night 9PM, and it started from Hua Lamphong Railway Station in Bangkok. Our first stop was the temples at Ayutthaya!




About the tickets and how we got around the railway, I'll talk about them in my next post! Otherwise, this post would be way too text heavy haha. So for now, just some visuals on what you could expect if you explored Ayutthaya and Lopburi!

Ayutthaya Temples

The journey from Bangkok to Ayutthaya took us about two hours, because there was a slight delay in the departing time for the train. It was about 1030am when we arrived so we began to plan which temples we wanted to visit and how.

There are a few ways to get around the beautiful temples:
1) Rent a bike
2) Rent a motor
3) Get a tuktuk/taxi
4) Walk (not the best option as the temples could be quite a distance away)

At Ayutthaya station, there will be a lot of tuktuks that will try to offer you tour packages at a rather hefty price that ranges from 300 baht (SGD$12) to 1600 baht (SGD$64). They are all very friendly so you might not be able to tell who's trying to scam you, so be cautious as you make your choices. Unlike in Bangkok, Grab and Uber does not really work here cause they don't have much drivers around the area. If you have Google Maps with you then renting a bike/motor should be the most budget option.

We chose a tuktuk cause we were rushing for time (only had two hours to go around, so no time to get lost) and paid him about 600 baht for two hours of his time, which was about SGD$12 per person. I guess we were kind of scammed?? It seems like there were other travellers who got it way cheaper.

If we had the time, we would have rented a motor (you know, those scooter kinds that aunties usually ride so it's not that dangerous) and slowly figured our way around what Ayutthaya has to offer. But we were on a tight schedule so we only went to three temples. You can probably pack more visits, but since we idled a while at each temple taking photos etc, we only covered the three that we really wanted to go.

Wat Yai Chai Mongkhon

One of the major temples in the city, Wat Yai Chai Mongkhon was also the most crowded with throngs of tourists and locals alike when we visited the old site in the morning. Apparently, the royalty used to come around this temple a lot during the Ayutthaya period.






It was a really majestic sight, seeing the ancient temple with rows of Buddha statues. There were many other garden areas and sectors as well, each with a different kind of atmosphere and setting. Never thought that I'd even find pretty gardens in temples.

Also, I suppose that you somehow need to cover up your legs while you're temple-visiting (which I forgot and didn't), so I had to buy a wrap around cloth. I got the standard elephant tribal one cause it was the cheapest, at 200 baht. Sigh talk about clashing prints.


The famous reclining Buddha statue.

Wat Phra Mahathat

For our next stop, we decided on Wat Phra Mahathat mainly because the ruins of an old temple seemed quite interesting. We later found out that this ancient site was actually what's left of the temple after the war when the Burmese Army invaded Ayutthaya. The result were missing heads from the Buddha statues, and this place was left abandoned until recently. Not what we expected when we chose this temple, but it was informative and different from the previous.

Likewise, the place was filled with tourists, though not as much. It also seem like there was some sort of construction work going on while we where there.






When the Burmese army vandalised the temple, leaving behind broken statues. It was quite eerie?


An iconic feature of this temple - the Buddha head entwined with the roots of the tree. I didn't get to find out why it was that way while I was there so I researched online. It seems like there were many theories, but there was no conclusive answer.

Wat Ratchaburana

Our last stop, Wat Ratchaburana was also our favourite stop. Also another Buddhist temple, this one was built around the 15th century and has since deteriorated. But I actually loved the way the structures turned out!







The view from above was amazing!!




After all the temple visiting in the scorching sun, we could definitely do with some good ol' milk tea!!

After our tuktuk sent us back to Ayutthaya station, we took a short breather just sippin' on the tea before we got our 1PM train tickets to Lopburi!

Till the next post where you'll see sunflowers and monkeys!!

Check out my other travel posts:
▶ A Day Trip from Bangkok (Part 1) - Ayutthaya Temples
▶ A Day Trip from Bangkok (Part 2) - Lopburi Sunflower Fields and Monkey Temple
▶ A Day Trip from Bangkok (Part 3) - Getting to Ayutthaya and Lopburi 

An almost two month long hiatus?? I didn't mean to let my social spaces die, but balancing school work and social life was near impossible so... I haven't been writing lately. ):

But as of last week, the school semester is finally over!! Ever since then, I've already went on a trip to Bangkok and came back, but I'll talk more about that later.

It seems like LASALLE's semester ended way earlier than the other universities since my modules aren't exactly examinable. Oh and, if I haven't explicitly stated yet, I'm pursuing my BA in LASALLE's Fashion Media & Industries, and I'm currently a first year. School's been... Pretty demanding, nothing like what I had expected but in a good way. I think LASALLE's curriculum differs a bit from other universities like NUS/NTU/SIM, in a sense where a lot of the work is assessed and based on the application and creative execution, rather than academic papers. I mean, you still have to write academic papers in LASALLE but it's less overwhelming, in my opinion.

One of the biggest projects we had was to conceptualise, plan and execute a photo shoot, and produce a fashion spread.

So we had to source for the clothes and location, cast and hire a model, come up with the art direction, do up the logistics and just do the whole shoot thing from start to finish. It's a group project, so my team and I really worked well together to come up with the final outcome!









Model: Zsofia Marie
Photography: Mirabelle Koh
Styling: Shermin Shu & Nalini Maheshwari
MUA: Chai Xinyi
Art Direction: Andrew Ng

Probably one of my proudest work to date, because I never really got to shoot anything as experimental and conceptual as this before. If you're interested in what the storyboard and art direction was about, you can read it up on my Behance (I'll upload it soon).

It was a crazy project that got us running without sleep for some nights but I'd say we had a lot of fun doing this. This is the only one of the projects I'm featuring, and I may just feature more in the next couple of weeks but first thing's first, the Bangkok trip!!

After my final presentation on Friday (10th Nov), I celebrated the end of it all with my classmates before flying off with Han the next day for our long awaited trip to Bangkok!!! We had a blast the whole five days, and I can't wait to write about some of the highlights. We took a day trip out of bkk to do some sight-seeing, rather than the usual shopping, night market and clubbing shenanigans so I can't wait to write about that!!

I'm sure the information will be very helpful to those who love to take the roads less traveled by, so I'll definitely write about the trip on this blog and for TripZilla too. Haha I haven't been writing for them for months due to the lack of inspirations lately, but this Bangkok trip just spurred me to.

Till then, keep your eyes peeled for it!! I know I haven't been churning out much travel content (which I'm sure it's what most people who come to this page look for) but I'll get this Thailand one out in the next few days. Promise!!

Look forward to some really awe-inspiring visuals and monkeys, heh.