Ayutthaya

When traveling in foreign lands, there is always a trade off between wandering by yourself to see some sites or being guided by some locals. If I’m alone, I can wander a city for hours, skipping meals, walking for miles, maybe getting lost, but really covering a lot of ground and seeing lots of things that I find interesting. With a guide, I may not get to wander aimlessly or see exactly what I want to see, but I’m usually forced to do something that I normally would not do, or get to do, if I was by myself. Such was the case with my Sunday visit to Ayutthaya, north of Bangkok. This once-capital is an island surrounded by three rivers and full of ancient temples. I originally wanted to just spend the day wandering around the hundreds of temple ruins, but I accepted the invitation of those that I am here working with to be shown the city.
After an hour long ride in a tricked-out van, our first stop was a somewhat modern and still in-use temple. It also happens that it’s a big Buddhist holiday weekend in Thailand, so the temple is packed. I was able to see a giant Buddha, feed swarms of catfish in the river, and ring some really loud bells. We then walked around some ruins (just a 300-plus year old temple and big reclining Buddha) and sweated a whole bunch as it turns into the warmest day of the year so far. Next stop was a museum with lots and lots of Buddha and gold artifacts.
Now it was lunch time, so we headed to an awesome market area that had large containers of live seafood. We sat down, picked out our favorite prawns, and had a great seafood lunch - fried fish, grilled prawns, prawn soup, prawn noodles, and prawns with vegetables. I was stuffed but it was excellent. After lunch, we headed to more temples and, yippee, elephant rides. I almost balked at the ride, but what the heck, no one else was getting trampled. A quick walk up the ladder, hop onto the bench on its back, and away the huge beast went. It was interesting riding along streets, avoiding cars ,and viewing ancient temples from the back of a big critter. After that we watched the dancing elephant show and then headed onto a boat ride around the island city. The boat ride was probably my favorite part of the day – it offered nice views of the temples, was miuch cooler that walkign around temples, and was a good break from the crowds. I’ll get some pictures up one of these days, but haven’t had a chance at the moment.
We then relaxed with a leisurely dinner at a little restaurant along the river, and once again it was some of the best seafood that I have ever had. In particular there was a fried fish dish – covered with a mixture of ginger, thai peppers, lime, peanuts, lemongrass, onion, and mint. It was awesome. I also finally learned the words for ‘cheers’ in Thai , ‘chon gow’, and for ‘bottoms up’, ‘mot gow’. Mission complete.