Somewhere in a train to Chiang Mai

"Portuguese are very good" confides the tuk-tuk driver with a big toothless smile. He is showing us around the impressive ruins of the ancient Thai capital of Ayutthaya which, like the Portuguese nation, has seen better, glorious days. He takes us to see a giant budha figure carved out in a cave of sandstone, and from there we fed some huge catfish in a tranquil pond nearby. "Portuguese and Thais are very tied together, very old friends". He continues to say he does not like americans or the burmese. The Portuguese provided weapons and military training to the Thais in the 16th century to fight off the burmese threat, which the Thais succeeded to do until the mid-1700s when the burmese conquered and destroyed Ayutthaya, and defaced all the Budha statues they could lay their hands on. A Portuguese settlement nearby, in a piece of land given as a gift by the Thai king, also fell to the same fate. The graveyard and the old church have recently been uncovered and are now one of the tourist attractions in Ayutthaya, where of course we were also led by our tuk-tuk driver.

"I know Luis Figo and Cristiano Ronaldo" he proudly announces, about the twentieth time I hear their names when I make my nationality known. They are the modern-day ambassadors of Portugal to the world, footballers taking over the brave men whose bones are neatly arranged before me in their graves buried so far from home - who introduced to the Thais a number of portuguese deserts which I recognise in the Thai stalls still today, and even bread, called "pang" in Thai, pronounced like in portuguese.

Late in the evening, we are in the Ayutthaya train station, backpags in hand, on our way North to Chiang Mai, a 12-hour overnight journey. "Hey, Luis Figo!" the stationmaster calls out to me, "your train is the next one!" We are on our way!