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!

Day 4 in Beijing

Today we took the subway to get to the Lama Temple, which has the largest Tibetan Buddhist monastery in the world!

Lama Temple Gate

Gorgeous grounds around the temple

Maitreya Buddha in the Hall of the Heavenly Kings

Roof of the Temple

Board of the Yonghe Temple

World's Largest Buddha in the Pavilion of Ten Thousand Happinesses

After temple-ing for a few hours we hopped back onto the subway to the Summer Palace, a UNESCO World Heritage Site and Empress Dowager Cixi's summer resort.  We had a quick, surprisingly good lunch of fried rice and noodles at a restaurant nearby and got ready to check out the goods.

The unfortunate thing is that we were both wearing jeans and short sleeved shirts, and it was only about 10 degrees Celsius.  I almost caved and bought a "I Heart Bird's Nest" hoody, for $25, but decided to buy a lot of heated beverages instead.

We walked next to an amazing man-made lake, and were too cold for a paddle boat ride so did some climbing up to the Tower of Buddhist Incense!

Kunming Lake

Amongst the lily pads!

View of the 17 Arch Bridge

Pottery and Telephone museum

View of the Tower of Buddhist Incense on the top of Longevity Hill

We paid our second entrance fee of the afternoon and climbed about 50 steps to get up to the Tower of Buddhist Incense. From there we could see almost all of Beijing, even with the smog.

One Thousand Guanyin Buddha

View of a sweet pagoda from the Tower

Unfortunately, on my way out of the Summer Palace I bumped into the rudest tourist I have ever encountered.  The line for the squat toilets was fairly long and tempers were flaring at the end of the day.  As we were waiting, an oblivious Chinese woman started cutting the line and this brunette near the front announced that she was from California and that she was going to "Elbow this woman in the face if she doesn't stop trying to get to the front of the line"!  The Chinese woman got the message and left the line entirely and at this the brunette proudly nodded her head and then was actually congratulated by two other North American tourists.  I was so embarrassed to have witnessed such bad behavior and felt like apologizing to every other Chinese person in the line.  I don't think these Americans had been in China very long because as we have observed, the concept of "a line" just doesn't compute for some cultures and its just one of those things you deal with when traveling!

We had made reservations for a Peking Duck (read: fancy) dinner at a well-reviewed restaurant in the Grand Hyatt Hotel called Made in China so we got gussied up and high tailed it over there.  We started off with a glass of red wine from their extensive collection, which included wine from St. Emilion, a wine region in France we stayed in about 3 years ago.  Our appetizers were braised bok choi with mushrooms and it was delicious!  We had pre-ordered our half duck as recommended and also ordered fried rice as a side dish but we really didn't need it. 

First sip picture...ahhh

Appetizers

Brown fried rice

Peking Duck is one of Beijing's most famous dishes and is one of China's national foods.  The chef tries to get the skin of the duck just right (thin and crispy) before it is sliced off and served to munch on.  The meat thats sliced off is eaten with Chinese pancakes, hoisin sauce, sweet bean sauce, sugar, onions and celery. 

The chef preparing the duck a few feet away

He sliced us off what seemed like a lot of skin, which had been sweetened and was crispy. Ty and I both did not like the skin; it had a very strange texture and melted in your mouth which was actually a little revolting.  We both really enjoyed the duck meat in the pancakes; I went with no sauce and just some celery to crisp it up.  Despite eating mostly vegetarian on this trip so far, I definitely felt bad eating this meat as we have seen so many ducks/chickens...etc strung up and cooked at street stalls and restaurants.  But overall it was a good experience and the meal finished with duck broth in a wood cup.

After over-eating we decided to check out the Wanfujing Night Market area, which is a pedestrian only shopping area near the hotel.  Despite it being 9:30pm we saw people square dancing/line dancing (all serious faces, no smiles), teenagers break-dancing, and of course lots of shopping!

Finally got a shot of a scooter with mitten handles!