Ayuthaya and Tiger Temple
Trip Start
May 08, 2008
1
24
25
Trip End
Ongoing
Bangkok,
Thailand
Monday, July 28, 2008
With Maria laid up I was kind of left to arrange any tours or trips I wanted but our original plan of trekking in a nearby national park was something I didn't want to do on my own, and with rainy season well and truly in situ it wasn't a very attractive proposition. Instead I booked a one day trip to Ayuthaya, former capital of Thailand which was sacked by the Burmese in 1767 and has been ruins ever since. I had a good day there and enjoyed the site, some good history and lots of interesting stuff. It was right after this that Bangkok was founded; eventually becoming the sprawling metropolis it is today. There are some large Buddhas there, one stone reclining Buddha and the biggest bronze Buddha (sitting) in Thailand. We had a very mixed crew on the bus, people from Colombia, Venezuela, Germany, South Korea and some other Asians, possibly Thais. Some of the girls were in ridiculously short dresses, almost indecent
Chedi at Ayuthaya
. Not such a good idea when you consider that there was some climbing to be done! A couple of interesting things at Ayuthaya were a Buddha head from a missing statue which has been surrounded and gradually raised from ground level by the roots of a banyan tree, and a large number of headless statues, apparently decapitated by the locals for sale to antique collectors.Tiger Temple
Our only other activity outside of Bangkok involved a day trip together to Kanchanaburi, having debated going independently and staying overnight. Thank God we didn't! It's a dead place altogether and parts of the tour were absolutely nonsense. Visiting the Kanchanaburi WWII Cemetery was interesting enough and parts of the JEATH museum too, although some of that was ridiculous. The town is famous as the site of the Bridge over the River Kwai (subject of a famous movie) which flows past the town. This was the bridge built by the Japanese to link Thailand to Burma to further their war efforts in India, having had sea access cut off by allied submarines. They used about 16,000 allied POWs and up to 100,000 people from Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia and others. Up to 60,000 are thought to have died from malnourishment, injury and disease. Interesting overall and with some harrowing details. The bridge which stands today is just a modern railway bridge although everyone seems to be fascinated with walking across it. Do they not realize that the original bridge was bombed by the allies and destroyed in WWII?
After that mixed bag of good and bad we had some lunch and then left for the Tiger Temple....home of many tigers that you can touch and get some photos
At Ayuthaya
. This was what really drove our trip to Kanchanaburi and I was very excited, Maria more nervous than excited. On arrival there was some of the usual nonsense about how women have to cover up and dress modestly, shoulders covered and skirt or shorts below the knee. Typically there was one idiot on the gate who insisted on her wearing her jumper, not just draping it around her. This nonsense would be okay if there was even a little consistency to it. For example walking around inside, there were many women with towels or shawls just wrapped around their shoulders or with skirts above the knee, while men can wear vests and whatever shorts they like? Our guide just told us that's Thai culture but it doesn't seem right. Either is disrespectful to bare your shoulders and knees or its not.Okay, my little rant is now over and with our correct attire (avoiding red, orange and pink which can provoke the tigers) we queued for our turn with the mighty cats. We had to go one at a time so I went first leaving Maria to watch and see that it was okay. It was fantastic! The tigers are very calm and really sleepy during the afternoon and having been raised around humans they don't mind people being around them. At first we were in an area with about 7 adult tigers, all of them with 2 or three familiar faces. The staff led us by the hand from one to the other to pose, while another staff member took photos. The size of the animals was amazing, with enormous paws that could do some serious harm. At one point as I sat by 3 tigers, one of them rolled over. I nearly wet myself. Maria found it fine too and we got some great photos, although it was a pity that we didn't get one together there. From there we walked up through the rest of the temple grounds and found a half-grown tiger with which we got photos together, and a beautiful 10 week old cub. They're amazing creatures.
