Old temples of Ayuthaya
Trip Start
Jan 08, 2005
1
111
135
Trip End
Ongoing
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Ayuthaya,
Thailand
Wednesday, May 3, 2006
A few hours later we'd made it and found an extremely hot place to stay. Nice room but it was boiling!
When David came here 6 years ago he said it was the loneliest time in his travels (ahhhhhhh). He got over it very quickly!
For an old capital, it's very small and quiet and there seemed not so many tourists (good). We were going to hire push bikes but thankfully David spotted the scooters and we shot off on one of those instead. I'm so glad he can ride a bike! I don't think I would have made it far on a push bike in the heat.
I'd picked out a few Wats that I wanted to see so we headed off to find them. The first was Wat Maha That, well known for the Buddha head nestled amongst a tangle of tree roots. Over the years as the trees have taken over the roots have embraced the statues and all that's left of this particular one is the head. It looks very comfortable there and is worshipped by the locals. It's a huge Wat, well was, and it's very well kept with loads of Buddha statues most of which have lost their heads or other parts. Not surprising given their age (14th century) and the fact that so many different countries sacked the place (Khmer, Burmese etc).
Next we went to the Wat next door, Ratchaburana. It's a steep climb but when you reach the top there is an equally steep decent to see some very old paintings inside. It also stinks of bat guano. There are some good views though.
We got lost trying to find our next desired wat but discovered the Elephant Kraal instead. A massive restored enclosure where the King used to watch elephant herding. There were two smaller elephants outside that looked very uncomfortable and hot. They kept spraying themselves with dirt, poor things. I wanted to go up and pat them but as I got closer they looked like they wanted to pat me!! We also found a huge reclining Buddha and a seated one said to be 400 years old. It wasn't the one we were actually looking for but they were impressive.
We did find the one we were after - Lokayasutharam. Another reclining Buddha but much bigger than the one we'd just seen. This one was outside and covered with a huge piece of gold cloth. It had a little place to pray in front and people were buying gold leaf and placing it on the feet.
We went out to Wat Phu Khao Thong and the King Naresuan Monument where there were statues of roosters in varying sizes covered in glittering mirrored mosaic patterns.
We continued to ride around visiting other wats but there was in particular that I wanted to see. I'd seen a picture in the Lonely Planet that looked interesting. Wat Yai Chai Mongkhon. It's a lovely, quiet, serene place and the cloth that surrounds the main bót is a different colour than I'd seen before. You can climb up and look inside but it's another one that stinks of guano. I stayed up and wandered round the outside of the bót watching monks re-painting signs underneath the seated Buddha statues. A painstaking and fiddly task. They (the statues) all had the familiar saffron coloured cloth draped over their left shoulder.
That was it for the day. There is so much more to see but it was getting close to the return time for the scooter and we still had to find our way back and fill the tank.
We saw loads of temples and getting lost was great. We stumbled across even more that we might have missed out on. Beautiful surroundings as well. It would have been good to take our time because it's a relaxing place, but the countdown is on now and there is still so much my tour-guide needs to show me.
