Ayutthaya, Another UNESCO Heritage Site (checked)

My sister's life long ambition is to tick off every single UNESCO Heritage Sites in the world. This is why we are not going to Bangkok without visiting this ancient city, and take a picture in front of the UNESCO sign. She will not let us skip this part of the itinerary! :P

The ruins

It reminds me so much of Siem Reap, the temples and ruins, the colors of the bricks, the headless Buddha statues... This place was destroyed by the Burmese back in 18th century and Siamese Kingdom has moved out from there ever since. And never rebuilt.

Buddha head in the tree

This Buddha head is said to be found from the ground in one of the excavating events. It is so precious because there are only a few left in the ruins now, the archeologist placed this at the tree and the tree grows around it, protecting it ever since.

Headless statues

The complete statue at far

Tourists and the ruins

The ruins (waited so long for it to be cleared from crowds)

It is said that each of the deceased King of the kingdom is buried under a stupa. So each stupa you see in the site, representing one deceased King from the past. At least that is what we heard from the tour guide from Taiwan tour group.

Much to my sister's disappointment, there is no UNESCO sign, anywhere in the ruins, not outside the ruins, nor the entrance. No where to be found. That makes her collections incomplete. Visiting is one thing, keeping a copy of evidence is another. Maybe she will have to be back when they finally put up a sign.

I am slightly disappointed too, because Ayutthaya is one of the most mentioned attractions, one of the most recommended, but the restoration and preservation of the site is not as well done as Siem Reap. Maybe that is why the entrance ticket for foreigners are only 50baht.

After the fruitful sunflower farm trip and ancient city, we're all hungry. It's been hours since we first had a proper meal in our stomach so my sister told the driver we want to have boat noodle.

The name of boat noodle comes from the time when vendors are selling them in the boat along the canals and rivers. Along with the development in modern days, the boat noodles move to the land.

Boat noodle

The serving of boat noodle is so small, we all had two bowls each. Like any other Thai food, it is sour and spicy, always appetizing! I've ran some checks, it seems like there is cinnamon in the soup too.

Our driver also taught us the Thai way of eating the noodle, which is to go with the deep fried pork skin! Healthy eater might be turned off by this, but our family adore this so much, my parents have to buy one pack to snack along the way.

Boat noodle with deep fried pork skin

Ayutthaya is our last stop of the day. Our driver wanted to buy Roti Sai Mai home for his kids, he told us his kids love it. We've heard about it too, so we decided to try them as well!

Roti Sai Mai

The skin and the fillings are sold in separate packet (50baht a set that can feed more than 6 person). The skin, which is very similar to our Poh Piah skin is slightly salted in taste. While the fillings, resemblance of Long Xu Tang is extremely sweet. They are not delicious to eat separately, but when paired up, they're just nice and fragrant. There must be santan in it too.

This concludes our day trip out of Bangkok.

Chinggis Khan Statue

No icon represents Mongolia better than Chinggis Khan. Mongolia is what he (Mongolia must be a he, if there's ever a gender for this tough and manly country!) is today because of Chinggis Khan!

It's not a wonder to see a humongous Chinggis Khan statue here! But it is a wonder that this statue was only built in recent years, completed in year 2008. Considering the people had worshiped Chinggis Khan for centuries, this almost real Khan really came a bit too late. But it's better late than never!

The stainless steel statue is standing 40m high at the historical place where Chinggis Khan found his golden whip. Chinggis Khan is symbolically poiting towards the east, his birthday place.

Humongous Chinggis Khan Equestrian Statue

The visitor center and museum are located at the base of the statue, which takes up 10m of the architecture. Visitors can climb up to the head of the horse, via escalators and stairs from the back of the horse. In other words, you have to climb up through the a**.

View of Chinggis Khan from the head of the horse

Honestly speaking, after a few days in Mongolia, I think I have enough of Chinggis Khan. Everything is Chinggis Khan here.

Chinggis Khan Airport
Chinggis Khan beer
Chinggis Khan Vodka
Chinggis Khan wine
Chinggis Khan Chocolates
Chinggis Khan ...
...
..
.

And the list goes on and on. During my last day, I couldn't take it anymore and I asked a waitress in Ulaanbaatar, if all the Chinggis Khan brands belong to a same company. The answer is no, they are apparently different companies but decided to use the same name. Brilliant!

The statue was located 54km away from UB, in Mongolia standard, this is pretty near. I can't recall what is the ticket price of this enormous statue. We got a bundle ticket for visiting the statue and 13th Century Theme Park (which I will blog about later on) for USD75. It can easily be a day trip, as long as you get a guide to drive you along.

Worth a visit for a day tour.

Monastery in Kharym Khiid

As mentioned earlier, Buddhism in Mongolia is very closed to what I've seen in Yunnan and Sichuan's Tibetans before. The monastery and stupas are exactly what I've seen in the past few years. I bet the Man will say the same for Nepal as well.

Praying

Even though the architecture of the monastery is very similar, but the way the people pay respect is slightly different. After praying, we're supposed to touch the cloth with our forehead. As seen in the picture above.

Besides, we're not supposed to exit the temple by showing our back to the god.

The hall displaying stories of different gods

Made of goat bones

Lucky for me, I have a local friend whom brought us around. I was clueless of what the people were doing with the goat bones initially. They kept tossing the 7 bones and seem to be counting something too. According to my friend, each face of the bones represent goat, horse, sheep and cow. We're supposed to toss them 13 times and count how many times the horse appeared. If it appears more than 7 times, you're lucky this year. If it appears more than 13 times, you're very very lucky this year.  I got 10, not bad :)

Wonderful weather when we exit the hall

From far

Weather in desert is as unpredictable as usual. Within a short moment, the weather changed from cloudy to sunny.

After the visit to monastery, we're back to our ger for a few hours to rest and to have some light meals. We ordered some noodles and bao zi from the owner of the gers. After meal, the weather outside the ger was simply too hot to be out. I imagined myself evaporated once I stepped out of the ger!

So, we waited around in the ger, eat, sleep, writing diary, reading etc.... Until the guide came to us when the weather has already changed to slightly more bearable.

Van Gogh at Hermitage Museum

You should not miss Van Gogh if you're visiting Amsterdam. You will probably miss the tulips season (like I did!!), you will probably skip some museums (there are plenty, it's simply impossible to visit all), you will probably skip eating herrings (something like our "kiam hu") etc, you MUST NOT miss Van Gogh!

When I was doing research on my Amsterdam itinerary, to my "horror" Van Gogh Museum was closed for renovation. I was really disappointed. However, Van Gogh is one of the most important icon in Amsterdam, sure they will house Van Gogh's paintings somewhere temporarily.

Well, the answer was Hermitage Museum, the museum I didn't really put into plan had just made its way back into the itinerary again.

The back door of Hermitage Museum when we're done visiting

I was not very diligent in making the ticket booking of museums as I thought it shall be fine. But yet... when we joined the queue, we were exactly in front of this sign.

Torturous one hour waiting time

Only visitors with their own print out tickets can queue at the fast lane. The rest of us had to join the normal queue.

Slowly we were here.

Half an hour more!!!

When we're finally here, it started to snow. Yes, snowing in spring, that's how weird the weather was when we were there. Global warming is real! The colder it got, the stronger I wish I would be in the warm museum as soon as possible.

Some snow on the ground

Just to show you the snow on our head, that's the Man's head

Finally we got in. It's nice and warm inside. Like most of the museums we went, you're required to leave your bags and/or winter jackets in the locker. Hence, if it's possible keep your things as simple as possible.

It's prohibited to take any photos of Van Gogh's work. So there will be no photos sharing.

I can't describe how it feels when we're finally standing in front of the paintings. Every single stroke was clearly seen. I was imagining Van Gogh painting crazily when he had his panic attack. We saw the  Sunflowers, Almond blossoms, Irises, Potato eaters (I don't fancy this one), and a lot more that I just can't name them. Too plenty of them.

But then, I realized there's no Starry Night. My favourite. So I went to ask the security. The answer I got was:"I am really sorry, but we do not own Starry Night. It's currently in museum in New York."

:(

Still, it's really wonderful to being able to see Van Gogh's painting so closely. To observe every stroke. If you're going to Amsterdam, and not wanting to miss Van Gogh, one important thing, book your ticket early! Don't end up in the long queue like we did.

Ticket to Hermitage Museum for Van Gogh's painting, was 15Euro per pax. Since Van Gogh Museum has reopened now, please visit the page for more updated details.

Atomium

Atomium wasn't in my planning initially. However, after I knew that it's built in year of 1958, I became interested in it. I didn't expect this building to be this old, even though not as old as all the other attractions which were there since a few centuries ago. However, I expect this Atomium to be fairly recent!

The Atomium

Closer look

The Atomium is a "body centered cubic", crystal structure of iron. It's built in year of 1958 for Expo. And was meant to be demolished after Expo. However, it got so popular, eventually it was kept until today.

If you purchase a ticket for entrance, you'll enter from the atom from ground, and like any other tall building in the world, you'll take a lift that goes straight up to the highest level to enjoy the view of the city.

Realize there's only a little skyscrapper in the city that stood out among the buildings

Very gloomy day, nothing much to view actually

After viewing from top, you can go back down to ground floor, and take escalator or stairs to other "atoms" for some other exhibitions. However, to our experience, that's really redundant. The exhibition was so boring and totally waste of time. We simply walked a round because we have to get to the other side to get down.

Stairs to another atom

The entrance is 11Euro per person. In my opinion that was a bit expensive because the view was just okie. Maybe the weather wasn't very good. Besides, the exhibition was very badly done. However, I wouldn't say it's not worth to visit at all, at least I admire the engineering that was done back in 1958. It's still amazing even for today's standard. (sorry, I'm a nerd)

Maybe another better way for visiting the Atomium is to make reservation for dinner at the highest level . I think it'll be great to enjoy night view while having dinner. It should be romantic. We didn't make reservation because our itinerary was not fixed entirely. It's a shame.

How to go?
With Metro, everything and everywhere is accessible. Atomium can be reached by Metro, simply alight at Heysel station, Atomium is just a few minutes away.

Musical Instruments Museum (MIM)

Musical Instruments Museum is the only museum we visited in Brussels when we were there. We spent a long time in the museum, longer than we expected, almost half a day there. And I thought, it was one of the coolest museum that I've ever been.

Building opposite the back of MIM

MIM

MIM

I took this picture in the middle of the road

MIM is easily accessible. To go to MIM, you can either take metro to Troon station. Or, you could chose to walk from Grand Palace. We chose to take metro to MIM, and walked our way back to Grand Palace.

The reason I said MIM is only of the coolest museum I've ever been, is the audio guide, the abundance of musical instruments that you've never ever heard of, and the value of the ticket.

Some certain musical instruments have had some recordings. There is an audio sign on the floor for these instruments and all the visitors have to do is just to stand in front of the instruments with a guide, the guide will play the music from that particular instruments automatically. Besides, the screen of the audio guide will show the picture of that instruments too, so that you can be sure you're listening to the correct one.

There are total 10 levels in the building, and total 4 levels with display of musical instruments. I've learned a lot of funny looking/weird/interesting instruments, i.e. Jew's harp which makes funny sound, glass harmonica which was invented by Benjamin Franklin, Bible regal which is an instrument that looks like a thick bible etc. I also learned that saxophone was invented in Brussels, by a guy called Adolphe Sax. Because there are just too many things that were not explained in the museum, I bought a book in MIM, titled "50 Unusual Instruments", featuring the most unusual and popular instruments in MIM collections.

The ticket was only 8Euro per person, with an audio guide for each. With the abundance of instruments shown, I would say this 8Euro is really worth it.

After hours spent in the levels looking at the instruments, we decided to have our lunch at the top level of MIM to enjoy the view of Brussels.

From our table

Other side of the restaurant

From the outdoor seating which nobody wants to sit as it's too cold

Interior of the restaurant, it's simply packed with tourists

The food in MIM was actually good. I ordered a MIM salad, while the Man ordered Fish of the Day. As our bags were kept in the locker, I could not change my wide angle lens with a normal kit or my 60mm, I didn't take any photo of the lunch.

After the lunch, we made our way to Brussels Central Station which was only walking distance from MIM to get our train tickets to Amsterdam. And we enjoyed the walk back to Grand Palace.

For a moment I thought it feels a bit like San Francisco

Slanted street like SF

A building opposite MIM

Just like the contrast of that van

A park near MIM

View from the park to where I was at MIM

How to go?
Nearest metro station: Troon
Or you can walk from Grand Palace

How much is the ticket?
8Euro per pax

Windmills at Zaanse Schans

Ever see a Netherlands poster without windmills? If there's no windmills, there must be tulips!

No trip to Netherlands can ever be completed without a trip to see windmills, no matter how touristy the place is. But yet, I almost forgotten to plan this into my itinerary until the Man reminded me by asking, "Are we going to see any windmills there?".

Windmills used to be very important. It was used to mill food productions, for example rice, soy, mustard seeds etc. Then, the development of windmills went on to heavy duty job like sawing. However, when modern industrial was introduced to the world, windmills were slowly taken down. Everybody wants efficiency. 

That is the reason till date, there wasn't many windmills around. When windmills almost went to extinction, a group of windmills lovers tried their very best to protect and conserve windmills. That is how we got Zaanse Schans, this touristy place which acts as a open air museums.

A small welcoming town

Walking into Zaanse Schans.

I wish I can stay here too.

Peaceful town.

Finally, windmills!

Actual working windmills

Windmills... again...

There are total 6 windmills in this area. There are 5 in my picture. The windmills are very beautiful in this very scenic place. The only problem you will have is that you can't stop taking pictures. I think I have most photos of windmills over my one week of trip.

The roaming ducks from the farm next door

I just love the colours

I love the sun too!

I just like how the ray of lights shine on the windmill :)

The windmills are actual working windmills which you can visit them. We only went into one that is free admission, which was milling mustard seed. I remember there are also one that is milling paint dye, another one sawing. The rest, I can't recall. But they are about 2-3Euro per admission.

There's a small farm with some ducks, goats and chickens running around just next to where the windmills are.

The farm next door

Only the ducks can swim pass the canals and roam around the windmills.

The weather was a bit crazy when we were there. It was sunny, then cloudy, then sunny, then cloudy, then snowing, then sunny.... You can see that from my pictures.

There are also a Zaanse Schans Museum which we didn't visit, a cheese shop which also demonstrates how a cheese is being made, a clog shop which we were too lazy to visit, and two restaurants. We went into one that serves pancakes because it's already planned in my itinerary that I will eat pancake at Zaanse Schans :P

On our way back to train station

We spent almost 3-4hours here in Zaanse Schans and love every minute of it.

How to go?
You can either take train or bus to Zaanse Schans. We waited for bus on Saturday morning, but a kind man told us there was no bus on that day. Therefore, we took a train. Take train Amsterdam Centraal to Koog Zandijk, the return ticket is 5.80Euro per pax. The train journey was only 20minutes. When you reach Koog Zandijk, you will have to walk about 10-15minutes to reach Zaanse Schans. 

If unfortunately you forgot to purchase a return ticket when you're in Amsterdam, and you happened to need to purchase from Koog Zandijk, please remember to prepare coins. There are only machines, no counter. And the machines only accept debit card from Netherlands or coins. 

Worth to go?
Very! 

How long should you spend your time there?
If you plan to visit all the windmills, and the museums, I am suggesting you to spend morning till evening in Zaanse Schans. If you're like me, just want to enjoy the scenic view, half a day is good enough. 

Tips:
If you have I amsterdam City Card, you will get free admissions or discounts to certain museums. You can always check the promotion here.