After a half day trip from Si Racha we arrived here in Ayutthya, the capital of the ancient Siamese Kingdom, about 1 1/2 hour North of Bangkok.  We were tired as hell, but this time we seemed to be a bit better about which bus to catch when, and we made sure to keep our bellies full on the way so it wasn’t as bad as Disaster House.  We weren’t particularly impressed when we first arrived.  It seemed like a small city with a few uninteresting streets, and none of the food was catching our eyes at first.  Plus the room at the U-Thong Hotel (pronounced oo-tong, named after some ancient King) was just so-so, but at 300 baht a night we couldn’t turn it down. -More on our experience at the U-Thong later.

Things changed once we found a cheap motorbike (200 baht for the day) and started finding our way around.  There are dozens of wats (Buddhist temples) scattered throughout the city from the 14th – 16th century that we spent the day exploring.  Most of them were free to wander throughout, and the ones with the majority of the buildings still standing cost a mere 50 baht (a little under 2 bucks).  The ruins were simply massive, towering above the city’s skyline.  Every one had some sort of moat surrounding in, usually connected to a massive lake, which in turn connects to the huge man-made canal (it’s referred to here as ‘the river’) that surrounds the entire city itself.  Water is central to Buddhist culture, and Ayutthaya is a prime example.

Aside from the actual wats, ruins are also scattered all throughout the city itself.  On the side of a the street next to an internet cafe, for example, you will see the bases of what used to be huge towers displaying the image of Buddha.  In people’s backyards there are giant chedis (a tower shaped like an upside down ice cream cone containing the remains of  princes and holy fathers) from the 14th century, and right next to brand new office buildings you can spot walls hundreds of years old surrounding mounds that used to be gathering places for royalty.  It’s all a really insane juxtaposition.

The nice thing about exploring this place is you can pretty much go anywhere.  There are no ropes keeping you out of the ancient crypts underneath wats where the various kings of Siam were interred, and theres nothing that says you can’t walk right up to ancient statues of mythical creatures and touch them with your own hands.  However, it’s also kind of sad.  Because there is little protecting these ruins as you would see in the States, everything is falling apart.  We couldn’t help but wonder, because of these lack of rules how long with these beautiful monuments to Ancient Siam be around for future generations to enjoy?  I suppose we tried to be thankful they are still here while we’re here, and left it at that.

While we were motorbiking around from wat to wat, we stumbled upon a non profit (www.elephantstay.com) that saves and retires working or sick elephants.  Evidently for hundreds, if not thousands, of years elephants were used to work much like horses and donkeys were used in the states. Long LONG ago they were also used on the Siamese battlefield.  Unfortunately, once the elephants become sick or too old to continue working, they are put down and their meat sold off.  The ElephantStay team aims to change this.  They buy old and sick elephants and bring them to this corral where they bathe them, give them the space to play and wander, and keep them occupied with simple little tasks (like gathering tree branches to feed each other) as many of them are used to working.  The entire place is a little village where the workers live full time, and the elephants simply wander happily all over the place taking turns being fed and hosed down. We got to feed them and David even gave one of the little ones a kiss (which I thought was gross, but whatever).  We did not ride them like you see in other parts of this area because it was obvious these elephants were not there for the tourists.  We did see a couple of those places with Western tourists spending exorbitant amounts of money to sit on sad, sick looking elephants all dolled up in some terrible jewelry with their trainers whipping them to do something ‘cute’.  Shame on them.

Back to the happy elephants:

Our favorite part, though, is two-fold.  On our last day here we decided to just sort of wander around the town neighborhoods while we wait for our train North.  We came upon a small bridge that spans the canal which surrounds the city and found about a dozen youngins jumping in to the river.  When they saw us taking pictures, they got so excited.  They showed us the back flips they can do, and all started jumping in at the same time.  Each time they would get ready to jump they looked to us to make sure we were ready to snap a photo, and off they went.  They then all would swim excitedly over to the shore and come racing back up to the bridge to see the pictures we took, which then would make them squeal and laugh and start the whole process over again.  None of them spoke English, but we were able to give them our website as they seemed to understand the word Internet (ALL the Thai kids hang out in internet cafes for hours!).  So, we played charades, and they are going to come to this site to check out their photos tonight.  We had a wonderful time with them, and them with us, and we felt so grateful when we said goodbye.  Leave it to the kids to make us feel welcome.

The other half of this ‘favorite’ part was when we left the bridge, wandered around the corner to some random back alley, and came upon a Thai woman who spoke beautiful English.  She pulled up chairs in the shade, which we were thankful for, and asked us where we were from and where we were going.  Evidently she ran a guest house here in Ayutthaya for many years (she’s even featured in Lonely Planet, P.S. Guesthouse) until her husband passed away and it became too much work.  She had a small, beautiful home surrounded by other houses her extended family lives in. She was excited to show her home, and her TWO PET MONKEYS, which we promptly took photos of her feeding tea to.  She is considering reopening her guesthouse, which we nearly begged her to do, and she said if we come back we are welcome to stay with her anytime and enjoy a good home cooked meal.  I can’t say enough about this woman.  There was something about her kindness and warmth, and the way she seemed so concerned about whether we were comfortable and enjoying her homeland.  She spoke openly about her husband and his passing.  He was a good man, from Missouri actually, and they met when he came as a young guy to visit Thailand, much like us, and stayed in her guest house.  We can only hope she does indeed reopen that guesthouse, and what an honor it would be to stay there with her and enjoy a meal.  Thank you, Pon Pen, for your time and generosity.  You get that guest house up and running and we will send every able American we can find to come visit you, thats our promise.

Lessons Learned:

1) Take the time to walk slower and really look around and you will see more and meet better people than any entrance fee to any museum or wat will ever get you.

2)  Keep yourself in a place of gratitude, and the rewards of travel will only grow.  It’s the Buddhist way, and maybe we will be lucky enough to make it our way, too.

3) When you’re 6ft 1 in, DUCK!  Yes I have put that on this blog twice, and for good reason…

Take a look at the Ayutthaya photos: