Ayutthaya

Friday came early.  I had booked myself on a day trip that left downtown at 6.30 am.  This meant I had to be on the first Skytrain of the morning.  It was really weird going out at 5.45.  Still dark but the temperature was already around 30 degrees and today felt more humid than previously.  I was glad that I would spend a lot of the day in air conditioned coaches.  Stallholders were already setting up along the road to the Skytrain, preparing breakfast for whoever.  Breakfast hadnt featured on my horizon.  I had grabbed a bottle of juice and a ham sarnie from the hotel, and had yoghurt and fruit of my own.  My tum was not that receptive after the illness of earlier in the week.  I had enough with me.  I must've cut an odd sight to the locals who clearly were not used to seeing 'farang' up so early.  I arrived at the meeting point down town on time, although for the first time I had felt threatened as I walked to the meeting point, by an afro carribean looking gent who was hell bent on talking to me and even grabbed my arm at one point.  I marched on without speaking so he had no idea what my nationality was, only letting out a loud screech when he touched me, which attracted the attention of several young locals.  He disappeared. I was OK.

The target of today's expedition was the historic city of Ayutthaya, which had been the capital of Thailand in the mid 14th century for about 300yrs. Then it had a heavy Kyhmer influence as the 2 countries had been one.  There is also some Indian connection due to its founder having been born in India.  It is about 2 hrs drive due north of Bangkok along the Chao Phraya river.  Our first stop was the palace at Bang Pa-in.  Parts of it are used today as the residences of the Royal grandchildren, and other parts form part of the accommodation for international summits and entertainment of foreign dignatories.  It is a most beautiful setting, and I could have done with more time than the 75 mins allocated on our tour.  The architecture is fascinating  - here a Chinese Pagoda, there an Italianate Villa, interspersed with a Thai temple or 2.

We moved on to the more historic sites and the ruined temples which were the main objective of the day out.  This area is a UNESCO listed heritage site, and is absolutely vast.  It is characterised by the tall stupas or reliquary towers.  These towers are built to house the remains of just one person.  They are a part of Bhuddist funeral tradition.  In some cases there might be up to 4 sets of remains in one stupa. In other cases they maybe empty and are merely memorials.  They have parallels with pyramids, but are memorials rather than vehicles in which to go into another life.  Bhuddism teaches cremation at the end of this earthly life, and these days its often the case that the ashes are divided in 3 for disposal.  A third to the family for sentiment, a third to a memorial for memory and a third to the land or water to return that energy to Bhuddha.

We visited several of the ruin sites including one with Elephant rides around it.  They looked fun but were quite expensive, maybe something I can do when I am back in Thailand in March.  Many of the temples had broken statues of Bhudda.  In particular, one had his head embedded in the trunk of a tree, which to me has so much symbolism of nature entwining with spirituality.  I will up load some photos here in due course.  Most of my pics are going onto Facebook where I dont have to do much other than dump them into albums for later editing.

Having been up so early, I was ravenous by the time we got to the cruise boat to take us back to Bangkok.   A wonderful, hot, eat all you like, buffet was waiting for us.  The boat was top end luxury, and I thoroughly enjoyed the 2 hrs it took to get back to Bangkok.  I made new friends with several of the others on the tour and with one in particular with whom I sat and chatted the whole time.