Greetings followers...
Well in the blink of an eye apparently 2 weeks have passed and I haven't posted a gosh darn thing on my blog. So now I'm playing catch up. Have no fears, I have volumes 3-5 already in the works. I will be returning to Koh Tao in T-minus 3 days so I guess I better get writing!
So here we go!
Two weekends ago Carrie, Baby Abigail, our friend Elise and myself took a weekend trip to Ayutthaya about 2 hours out of Bangkok. Ayutthaya is the old capital of Thailand and is full of picture postcard views of ancient temples and Buddhas and the like. It's a tourist's photographic wet dream with crumbling monuments and time weathered statues seeping from every nook and cranny, not to mention plenty of saffron robes and lush greenery to round things out. It was nice to take a weekend away from everything and have a little holiday with some good friends and a cute little lady loo. Unfortunately there isn't much to report about Ayuttaya. I can pretty much sum out trip up in a few bullet points
- temple - take some pictures
- buddhas - take some pictures
- more temples - take some pictures
- river boat to more temples - take pictures on the boat, then take some more at the temple
- tuk tuk to more temples - yup you guessed it...take some more pictures
and it pretty much continues on like that for a day and half. Of course, being the sensitive soul that I am, I was sure to post pics up on Instagram as soon as I took them with the hopes of welling up some waves of envy and jealousy in my friends back home as well...this is of course a prerequisite when living in a tropical country while it's the middle of winter back home. For those of you who cried into your morning coffee upon opening up your FB newsfeeds on said weekend, much apologies.
Pictures are worth a thousand words so instead of rambling on, I'll just post a selection of jealousy inducing snapshots to make you all hate me.
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| This Buddha still has his head, a lot of them in Ayutthaya don't anymore. Apparently when the Burmese sacked the capital a looong looong time ago they chopped all the Buddhas' heads off looking for gold (at least that's what my Thai friend told me) Apparently this guy survived the massacre or was built after that. |
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| Canadians on a boat! Me and Elise representing the frosty North in the muggy tropics |
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| The other half of Team Canada. Abigail wasn't too happy that I distracted her from constantly yelling "BOOOAT!" in order to take this picture. |
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| No tigers were actually ridden in the making of this photo. Abigail currently has a small obsession with Tigers, you can imagine her joy at being able to ride one...even if he was made of plaster. |
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| Fish that live near temples are protected. This must be common knowledge in catfish social circles because they all seem to live right outside the temple doors. |
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| For some reason me and Elise's room was more like a treehouse than an normal room. Oh well, when in Rome.... |
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| Requisite filtered arty farty Buddha statue picture |
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| This is the most famous attraction in Ayutthaya, it's all that remains of a Buddha statue, the rest has disappeared but the head has been surrounded by the roots of a Bodhi Tree (which is pretty auspicious). As I was taking this, there were gaggles of Japanese tourists around making fobby finger pics next to it... of course. |
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| Dear stupid tourist, do not disrespect our sacred sites by acting like douchebags. Thanks |
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| I wish I was this chilled all the time.... |
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| 99 Buddha statues on the wall, 99 Buddha statues, take one down and pass it around, 98 Buddha statues on the wall... |
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| Jungle temples... |
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One of the temples is dedicated to a king (one of the Ramas...not sure which one) who apparently loved cock fighting so now the entire temple is overflowing with rooster statues of every shape and size. I nicknamed this one "disco cock"...he knows how to party indeed.
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| Abigail insisted on giving all the roosters a kiss...as you can see this was a big task. Much to her disappointment we had to tear her away from her new found friends before they could all feel the love |
Apart from a lot of templing Ayutthaya is a pretty uneventful place. I think the most exciting non-temple related moment was probably when the Tuk Tuk driver tried to rip us off by quoting us one price when we got in the car and then another when he brought us back ( note to self, always pay in advance...) and then smacked Elise's butt as punishment. Considering Elise's Thai is pretty good (being a student at a Thai university and all) it was clear that he was just looking for an excuse to touch a 21 year old blond girl's butt. Mission accomplished, he let us go after paying his original quoted price.
A two hour, 14 bht (that's about 30 cents) train ride later, we were back in the loving arms of smoggy Bangkok.
And so the sun sets yet again in the land of smiles....
Cheers from the place where Buddha heads are hard to find
J
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