Day 15 - its Temple Time...in Ayutthaya

Taking a bit of a gamble on a directions from the Internet, we hailed a cab to Victory Monument, which was erected in 1941 to commemorate the Thai victory in the Franco-Thai War.  It is a huge roundabout and most trains/bus/cabs/traffic wind up here to connect to major highways or toll roads.

Sweet pic of the monument I found online ;)

We were wandering the traffic circle, hoping to see a sign for the town of Ayutthaya when we spotted two fellow travelers (white people) and together, with much asking and pointing, we found the right bus.

We hopped onto the AC'd minibus for 60 baht (about $2USD each) and sweated it out for an hour and 15 minutes until we got to the bus station.  It was already at least 96 degrees at this point but we had already decided we wanted to rent bikes and cycle around the small town to see the ruins.  The problem was we didn't have Internet and we didn't know where exactly to rent bikes.

To pump up our energy we had a Krispy Kreme each (chocolate chocolate donut and a glazed) and happened upon a nearby hotel that had lunch, CNN news (Election coverage) and the Internet!  Bikes were also for rent across the street!  After celebrating the Obama win with a few beer and breakfast, we rented some bikes for 60 baht and cruised toward the action.

Ayutthaya was founded in 1350 by King U Thong, who went there to escape a smallpox outbreak in Lop Buri and proclaimed it the capital of his kingdom, often referred to as the Ayutthaya kingdom or Siam. 

The Ayutthaya historical park, where we spent most of our time, is the ruins of the former capital of the Kingdom of Siam.  It is the site of mass murder, rape and enslavement of Siamese people and the destruction of the Ayutthaya city, its art and buildings by the Burmese in 1767, is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. 

Having read that riding an elephant (especially on its back) can damage its spine and that most captive elephants are brutally tortured by their owners or mahouts, I was still a little in awe when I saw this elephant coming down the road.  It was at least 97 degrees and there were three people riding on the poor thing!  In fact my Lonely Planet Thailand (2012) book actually promotes riding an elephant as an easy way to see some of the temples, but then tries to cover its bases by encouraging tourists to make sure they don't use tours that abuse elephants.

We later learned that elephants listen not only through their enormous ears but also by picking up vibrations from their feet and the noise of the cars and motorbikes must be so overwhelming, even in a quieter town like Ayutthaya.

Ayutthaya Historical Park side entrance...

Wat Phra Sri Sanphet

 Relics that seem to have lost their heads!

Phra Mongkhon Bophit - it used to hold the Emerald Buddha!

Inside the Phra

A sweet dog with face paint!

Resident monks  

This was at a nearby Elephant camp - the adult elephants take tourists on 15 min rides around the area.  These were two fairly young babies, one was chained up. 

We decided to keep biking towards Wat Chai Wattanaram, which actually took about 20 minutes on fairly busy highway (yikes!).  We stopped at a 7-11 for a Coke Slurpee, which was heavenly in the 96 degrees temperature.  Once we got to the Wat, there were workers on the grounds actually burning some rubbish? and a sign stated the Wat was off-limits due to flooding and fires.  This Wat was the most beautiful I thought, there were so many intact chedi and buildings, we stayed for quite awhile, petting the local dog while eating some ice cream bars.

We continued our bike journey back to the main part of town, off to track down another Wat we were told was not accessible on our own (we would have to go on a boat tour to see it) but after a few days in Thailand we definitely didn't believe that!  We found a place to stop off for lunch on the river and had some stir fried veggies, rice and cashew chicken with 2 beers.  

Because of the hot temperature Ty, who was navigating using off-line Google maps, kept forgetting our tablet in the bike basket and about five minutes after we had walked away one of us would remember it and scurry back...and it was always still there!

After much cycling around asking for directions, we found a small dock with a long tail boat that was crossing the river, over to the Wat we wanted to see.  For 30 baht (1 USD) we hopped on and rode over, pulling up to Wat Phanan Choeng about 30 minutes before it was closing.

Your fat, happy Buddha

This 19 meter high Phra Phanan Cheong was created in 1325!  It was surrounded by more than 84,000 images of Buddha!

Here I am getting blessed by a temple monk.  He was splashing water at me from his stick (don't know the proper term for that) and chanting in Thai.  It was such a special moment and the water was very refreshing!

The older Chedi outside of the main temple.

Bunch of puppies in a corner of the Temple garden...

Running out of time (we were warned the last bus was at 630pm), we dropped off our bikes and got on an air conditioned Greyhound type of bus with another round of 7-11 Slurpees.  The Air-Conditioning was amazing compared to the ride we had had in the morning but soon we were stopping every 10 mins, so it took us over 2 hours to get back to Bangkok, but instead of the Monument we were dropped off at the Northern bus station.  

Thankfully we had made friends with an older couple from Belgium, who explained how we could get to the Skytrain station.  We rode the Skytrain (so convenient and fast) to the Siam Paragon Mall, which is huge and full of amazing shopping I am sure.  We had had plans to see a movie and ended up paying $10 USD for 2 tickets, 2 huge buckets of popcorn, 1 large Coke and sweet recliner theatre seats.  I had been warned by Lonely Planet that there were a ton of commercials so we were about 20 minutes late but still saw a ton of previews...and heard the National Anthem.  It was so neat, everyone in the theater stood up, hats came off and the locals were actually singing along with the video and music.  Just amazing!

We ended up seeing Skyfall, the latest James Bond and personally my new favorite!  We were surprised when the storyline took him to Macau, but we were definitely not in as nice a place as the location in the movie, no huge lizards either!

After the movie we took a cab back to Khao San Road and then walked home.
The perfect day and night!