After a rather tiresome journey from Kanchanaburi via Bangkok, I reached Ayutthaya, the ancient capital of Thailand and traditional home of past Kings. Exhaustedly I checked myself into the first guesthouse I could find, dumped my bags, grabbed my camera and set off in search of the river encircled island on which the Ancient city sits. It was 2pm after all, and I didn't want to waste the day, so haste was a priority. What I have learned from this act of spontaneous positivism is that "reading a map" is a priority, haste should come second. Having totally miscalculated the distance from Train Station to city centre, I cut my losses and got my first Tuk Tuk of the holiday.
 |
| Headless Buddahs are scattered throughout the city. |
The scale of the ancient city is quite phenomenal. There are so many huge temples scattered across a few square kilometers that you don't have to walk too far to stumble across another Chedi or Prang jutting out of the earth in a spectacular Discovery channel style. The ruins themselves are quite eerie, having been ultimately destroyed by the Burmese, the thousands of Buddha statues that are strewn throughout the city have been decapitated. Some of the temples met their ends when they were not put to the torch accidentally by the Burmese trying to melt the gold off giant statues leaving the statue cores in situ. It all feels very ominous, with walls and pillars leaning over at alarming angles, some being supported by a few bits of flimsy wood, some totally unsupported above the unsuspecting tourists below.
 |
Enter the Breach!
The Spectacular Chedi of Wat Phra Si Samphet |
Wat Phra Si Samphet is probably the most visually stunning. It's refaced, gleaming Chedi contrast the time worn, red brick remains of the past. Some of the ancient kings remains are still interred within them, although they are now accompanied by rats and pigeons, leaving a foul stench emanating from within the tombs. The complexes individually are great fun to explore, the walls tend only to be chest high or lower, but it's enough to see corridors and rooms, the walls still covered in headless Buddhas, occasionally draped in golden cloth by the devout who have set up little shrines amongst the rubble. Wat Phra Ram was especially good to look around, but the most iconic artifact in the city is that of the head of Buddha cradled by tree roots that have grown through a wall of Wat Maha That. It's quite a surreal sight to behold.
 |
| The Head of Buddah |
In fact there were 3 statues of Buddha there that had not been defaced, one of which I saw a young man praying to, not uncommon in itself I'll admit, he was however listening to heavy rock music on his phone whilst he was doing it, and then he stopped and wandered over to a pillar where he practiced his martial arts for a while. That was a bit weirder. Nearby a couple of children were using part of the wall as a badminton net. And not far from that, two kids were play fighting, so overall, im not sure if it was a temple or a crèche, but it adds to some of the odd things I've seen in supposedly holy places in this country.
 |
| Like Jurassic Park! |
The city is littered with reflecting pools and lakes in front of some of the monuments and so I wandered over to an abandoned pagoda on a spit of land to admire the view. Little did I know I was also inhabiting this particular bit of land with a Monitor Lizard. Now, I've watched a lot of David Attenborough documentaries, but in this case, I wasn't quite sure how far along a monitor lizard sits on the danger scale between "Geko" and "Komodo Dragon" so I opted for the "Briskly walk away from it and photograph it from a distance" approach.
I could have stayed in Ayutthaya for a week looking at all of the temples and ruins, only really marred by the plethora of stray dogs that plague so many of the cities. Hunting in packs by night their howls in the dark make travelling by foot at night unnerving. One even followed me around one of the Temples for a good while, like a rabid version of Dr Who's 'weeping angels' it would stand still if I looked at it then stalk whilst my back was turned. A little disquieting, but it soon got tired of the game and found someone else to harass.
Off to Chiang Mai next, the culture capital of the north. Should be fun, although I'm oddly more excited about the 13 hour sleeper train journey there. A bed? On a train?! What will they think of next? Saying that, I've heard there are sleeper busses in Laos, I might have to hunt one down. It all feels very Michael Palin.
To the station!
 |
| Wat Phra Ram |
