Wat-seeing and first katoy sighting

Another hot and humid day in Ayuthaya. I witnessed my first afternoon downpour during this rainy season here – luckily from the dry and cool comfort of our hotel room. It POURED for about 2 hours straight. And I do mean an absolute torrential sheets-of-rain downpour. We had been taking a break from a morning of wat (or temple) seeing. Just a brief outline of what we saw:

Wat Mongkhon Bophit – home of one of Thailand’s largest Buddha images, a 15th century bronze casting
Wat Phra Si Sanphet – known mainly for the line of 3 large stuppas
Wat Phra Ram
Wat Ratburana
Wat Phra Mahathat

Most of the temple ruins date back to the 14th century. Not to say that we paid the 30 Baht (about 75 cents) fee to get into each one of them – we paid for one and looked at the rest from the road. Well I am on a tight budget so hey.

Anyway after seeing the ruins we were so hot that we rode our bikes back through town to an internet caf? and took a break with a soda and email check. Then we decided to seek shelter from the heat in our air-con room for awhile and it was a good thing because that’s when the monsoon rain hit.

A funny thing happened when we went out for dinner – towards the end of our meal Kathy leans in and says to me “Jen I think our waitress is a man” and it turned out she was! A “katoy” they call it here, when a man gets “the operation.” Apparently Kathy told me (from her 2 brothers that live in Bangkok) that a lot of men especially in Bangkok become women and that it’s not uncommon at all to see a katoy. I would have NEVER noticed if she hadn’t pointed it out! Well, until he said “Thank You” in a very deep male voice that is! So I saw my first katoy today.

Tomorrow we will attempt to put some real miles in and begin the journey north to Chang Mai. That’s the plan anyway. Kathy’s brother told her that the riding would be more scenic going north than south so we pretty much decided when we got here that we were going to cycle to Chang Mai and then take it from there. I think it’s something like 600 or 800 km from Bangkok. We both have road maps and the route looks very flat until we get more north so at least we will have a few days to ease into the cycling bit.

Miles biked today: 8.0

Add comment October 18th, 2001