Thailand-Days 20-21: Ayuthaya

Ayuthaya was the capital of a Thai kingdom from the 14th to 18th century, and thus is full of ruins. We rented bicycles from a travel agency around the corner, and after denying all her offers for excursions, we were on our way. The bikes were a great way to get around town, it’s incredibly flat as it is surrounded by rivers. We even had to stop twice for lines of elephants to cross the street. It was a bit hot out during our day and half in Ayuthaya, but the perfect antidote to the heat were the incredibly delicious fresh fruit shakes that are about as common as pictures of the king in Thailand. I made it a habit to order two or three with most meals, I’m sure the wait staff was a bit surprised, but then again Thailand gets lots of tourism, so maybe all of us coming from colder, temperate climates go overboard.

As you can see from the pictures in this post, the ruins in Ayuthaya were truly gorgeous and very well preserved. I also love that you can walk among many of the ruins, apparently they don’t think there will be enough tourism to do too much wear and tear to statues that have lasted for 500 years already. I enjoy going to ruins and other historical places a lot. I think I can gain a small (very small) amount of insight about how a people lived, how they thought by their major monuments, places of worship, government buildings, and so on. Going to, from, and all around the ruins (almost all of which were images of Buddha) and a visit to a temple that had (gasp) a giant gold statue of Buddha got me to thinking. It just seems like all the concrete, real money, time, and effort that goes into building and maintaining the idolatry in order to maintain their place in a not so secure afterlife.

We had a nice dinner one night at a restaurant owned by a guy from Pittsburgh. He was very friendly, and almost seemed excited to have some American customers to talk to. He had traveled to Thailand to study or experience something related to Buddhism and at some point “fell in love” and was now running this restaurant. It was nice to meet a bit more personally one of the many Westerners (mostly men) that have settled in Thailand.