Indiana Jonesing-it in Ayuthaya: Part II: A New Hope

Lady with her cocky pals

Back on the road in the decaying town of Ayuthaya I decide it's a fine idea to circle the perimeter of the town on my bike. I soon come to find that it's a bit larger then I'd imagined. Maybe I've bitten off more than I can chew? I'd sooner eat a handful of bat shit then give up! It's getting darker with each crank of the pedals and I'm not sporting any lights or reflectors. Of course I take the Ayuthaya Highway back. Cars and motorbikes whip past me, though it's more of a fast paced roadway than what I would think of as a highway. Heart thumping with adrenaline, I pedal like a maniac until I reach my next destination: the Ayuthaya Night Market.

Night sets in as I pedal on

Stalls of every variety explode with incredibly cheap goods. I bargain for some some sweet shades and stop into a riverside food operation for supper. That's where I meet Bob and Quan, a couple who own a home across the crocodile ridden waters of the river next to us. Bob comes from Holland and met Quan on a football club trip twenty odd years ago. They took a fancy to each other and the rest is history!

Thai kids watching a flick intently at a DVD stall

She's got a whole kitchen and restaurant on her shoulder!

The conversation begins when I ask the two for a food recommendation. Bob recommends the Yellow Crab Curry. It is as good as he claims! Bob tosses back a Chang, the local Thai beer, and tells me his story. He runs a screen printing store back in Rotterdam, and every chance he gets he and Quan return to Ayuthaya for a getaway. They have no internet or TV here. Sounds wonderful. Quan chips in enthusiastically every now and then. She makes up for her limited English with warmth. She's all smiles and bursting with love.

No pictures of Bob and Quan, but here's a monk watering a tree with some zebra statues in the background

Bob had a heart attack last year. He was legally dead for seventeen minutes. A friend of his, a French surgeon who just happened to be visiting the hospital he was growing cold in, performed a procedure (illegal in Holland) where he cracked open Bob's chest and hand pumped his heart back to life.

Now Bob's alive and well. He proudly sports a hefty rectangular electronic device beneath the skin over the left side of his chest. It regulates every single beat of his heart via satellite communication transmitted from doctors at some University far far away. He started at 60bpm, and now he's up to 70bpm. He informs me that when his heart rate is remotely increased a notch he feels pretty funny for a while.

Bob recounts to me what he saw when he died. Food for thought.

These gates pop up on the roads every now and again, the King's face is everywhere in Thailand and the people seem to love him like a big ol teddy bear (even if he's now too old to do much)

Later on I return the bike and head to B.J.'s guesthouse where I'm staying for the night. My room is literally upstairs from where B.J. lives with his entire family - wife, kids and grand kids. I wake up to the sound of my door handle being jiggled like a broken alarm at 5am. Rasping and wheezing follow.

I am in a haunted house in an ancient royal city in Thailand. The long dead Thai King Ramathibodi II has come back to reprimand me for disturbing his bat-kin inside his tomb. I reluctantly fall back asleep.

B.J., the dude who's house I slept in. The baby is borrowed for aesthetic purposes