Ayutthaya, the capital of Siam... the name of Thailand before it was Thailand... is a small but beautiful has been surrounded by 3 different rivers that create a moat around the main area. Most tourists who visit get around by tuk tuk, a private tour, or if you are me, a bicycle! Sarah Cortes and I arrived in Ayutthaya early Saturday morning by van from Victory Monument in Bangkok after having spent Friday night at the Lub D. The night before at the hostel we had met some really cool girls... one from Scotland and one from Korea... who were a lot of fun and traveling by themselves through Thailand! So brave! Anyway, we got to Ayutthaya Saturday morning, checked out a few less than stellar places to stay (beware of Tony's Place and Ayutthaya hostel)... until we found PU. It was super cute, very colorful, and the girl at the front was very nice and spoke terrific English! Amazing qualities all around. After getting a quick lunch we headed out on our bike adventure around Ayutthaya to explore the temple ruins.
In the 1960s the Burmese invaded Siam and destroyed the temples in Ayutthaya. Although this was a devastating event, the capital was moved to Bangkok where it remains today and Ayutthaya has become an easy get-away from Bangkok since it is only an hour or so north. Thailand has developed exponentially in the last 20 years or so so to imagine that only 50 years ago this little town was the capital is a crazy concept. Unfortunately, they do not have very good maps of Ayutthaya and we only were able to see the first major temple of about 5 or 6 until I got us very very lost. Between the heat, being lost in a foreign place, and the fact that there was the moat that I had to swerve to avoid on a number of occasions I was not in the happiest of places when we finally did get back to the town 3 hours later. Hmph. So disappointed in myself... I'm usually so good at directing!
Lucky for us, we had booked a boat tour to go on that afternoon to get a different perspective of the temples. We boarded a long tail boat at 4pm and were zipped through the rivers to 3 different temples/buddhas. The first was the largest Budda in Thailand. It was golden and gigantic. Really cool. The next was a place that had been used for religious purposes but had been very destroyed in the battles with the Burmese. There was one Buddha in relatively good form but it was knocked over so it was lying down while most of the others were in pieces scattered around the grounds... barely recognizable from the crumbled cement walls that also littered the area. Finally, the boat pulled up to a construction zone and we had to climb up wired rocks to get to the temples. They were beautiful and I got some really good pictures. While getting out of the boat I had stepped into a mud pit instead of the muddy rock. Oops. The long boat captain came with a little cup of water and washed me off though! So nice! Love the Thais.
On our way back to dock we saw kids popping their heads out of the water to get a better look at us, play hide and seek behind lily pads, and we even saw a huge comodo dragon in the water! If I were one of those kids there would be no way that I would ever be in that water knowing that a creature like that lived there. That night we had dinner on the water at this seafood restaurant and tuk tuked our way back to PU! Great somewhat stressed weekend with getting lost but overall awesome and I would totally love to go back sometime WITH a guide to catch the temples by land that I missed!
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