Ayutthaya, Thailand by night

Around 6:30 the sun was just setting and it was now that the final part of our guided tour took place, back at a couple of the stops we mae earlier in the day but then time with the buildings and structures lit by powerful lights that made things look either a eerie yellowey orange colour, or a deeper red if you caught it just right.

I have never been too happy with my cameras ability to take photos at night, even when the subject was lit by floodlights, but today as the tour guide was making a special effort and it was part of the organised trip to do so, I felt almost obliged to get out and snap away despite not having much faith in any of them coming out too good.

Thankfully however, the lights were very powerful, the time was not so late that it was pitch black and having brought along my tripod, I was able to take a few that I thougtht were passable by setting up using a timer delay to further reduce camera movement thus allowing a longer exposure shot to still be reasonably clear and not all fuzzy as hell.

This worked a few times but with the dark came a host of mosquitoes that were not out and biting during the day and before long we were all diving for the safety of the minivan, not really caring if the next place we passed was lit up like a football pitch or as dark as an underwater cave.

All in all it was a grand half day out and I am glad that I chose it as now I feel that visiting Ankor Wat is no longer a make or break part of my trip and should anything force me to skip or cut short my time in Cambodia or the far east I can still feel and say in all honesty that I saw plenty of ancient remains from the Khmer empire, even some that although it less large overall still slightly predates the main attraction by a few years.

Fed, tired and in darkness we all sat peacefully, wrapped up in our own little worlds til we arrived back at our hotel around 8:30pm, where I just had enough time to upload and sort out the photos plus do todays blog entries before I went to sleep at around 2am ... how time flies when you are sorting out photos !?!