We're up again for another 7am start joking about getting our first unintelligible guide from yesterday when, lo!, the man turns up looking as surprised as we are. We follow him out and pick up, amongst others, three heavily hung over Aussies who've clearly made a sales pitch for Australian culture last night.
We head off to Ayutthaya, one of Thailand's several ancient capitals which all seem to lie a bit further away from Burma as the centuries add up, for a day of culture. Ayutthaya lies 82km west of Bangkok but it still takes an hour and a half. In a practiced fashion I go to sleep straight away only awoken by the enthusiastic driving over the African-style road-bridge joins.
Ayutthaya is a funny place, two rivers meet and form two or three sides with a canal or something dug to create an island. Lots of other canals have been dug making it a bit messy but broadly there's a rectangular island with dozens of temples, royal palaces etc. and "off island" urban sprawl. Our guide takes a different tack today, at the start of each temple visit he gathers us all together and in his faltering stuttering self congratulatory bad English style describes the temple, its history and something about temple styles and function. At least we think he does. I did glean that around the temple main building they built a ring of standing stones -- like gravestones. If they were single stones it was a public temple, if there were pairs of stones it was a royal temple. Ditto for a two and three tiered roof on the temple.
There's a strong emphasis in some of the temples on one of the kings, the guy who overthrew the Burmese invaders. It was hard to tell but a giant painting of a elephant-backed duel gave the impression it was the same guy as from Chiang Rai and surrounds. [He famously, sent the Burmese packing after killing the Burmese king in the duel on elephant back.] The first temple was splendidly maintained and over the canal there was another temple but marble and glass and air conditioned containing a large bronze statue of the king in question. Sadly his name escapes me. After that, though, the temples were ruins and not, if I understood correctly, particularly old ruins, maybe 400-600 years old. They're all built in a Roman style with flat bricks and cement though there is a striking feature of all the ruins: that they lean. There's barely a straight wall or column amongst them. [Which may explain a lot.]
We have a jolly spin around the island in a long-tail boat which always gives a good picture of life as you see both affluence and poverty on the waterline as well as some huge barges being towed by a tiny tug. The tug and each barge had a whole family living on them. We pass a large ruined Khmer style temple which reminds us it's a shame we haven't made it into Cambodia (nor Laos or Vietnam) to see some of the great monuments there.
Lunch is at a small restaurant that appears to specialise in tours as the only customers are tours! Another slightly different system, though the food is identical to yesterday, sweet and sour chicken, veg, omelette and rice, in that I grabbed a can of coke for the wilting Helen (Benadryl having produced migraine symptoms) and stood like a lemon for several minutes with money in hand as people passed me by before our man stepped in to say you paid after the meal. One of the Aussies is a shambling wreck, hardly surprising as it's another strinkingly hot day and he was a bit dehydrated to start with. No sympathy from his mates who hardly look in top form themselves.
We go to the victory [over the Burmese] memorial after lunch where the Burmese base sags a little and the Thai top (the Burmese weren't in control for long enough to complete their monument) wobbles uncertainly into the sky, swaying [curving rather than literally swaying] to the left then the right.
At the next Wat there's lots of confusion as the Aussies disappear to find some non-alcoholic beverages and some of our group wander off waiting. Those of us (me and three Japanese) who dutifully wait for the briefing then endure it three times as wanderers return. This Wat is notable for a single brick wall covered in the roots of an ancient tree, the roots enveloping the head of a Buddha image in a Lara Croft fashion [the temples in Lara Croft rather than Lara Croft herself enveloping a head...]. But that's a single point [of interest]. We sneak off for a drink and an ice cream and, wondering why the others haven't joined us at the van, stand out from behind a tree to see the whole group patiently waiting for us elsewhere.
A final trip to a really big ruin where they have, in the replacement new temple, a 12m high by 10m wide bronze Buddha. That's a big bronze Buddha!
I eloquently comment on tape. Back on the bus everyone was asleep pretty quickly -- well, I was -- only to awake in a Bangkok traffic jam. These are big things so like yesterday we're dropped off on a roundabout and skip across the road to Khoo San Road.
Another shower and we head out to eat. Helen's keen on some fibre and so wants a pizza. The recommended Gulliver's Travellers pub at the end of the road is a hideous noisy smoky young person's pub (I suppose we could have guessed) and we troop back up to an expensive Italian where we spend as much money again as we have all day. We then go to the "quiet" pub which we mistakenly named it as it was obviously during a quiet bit during one of the back-to-back films that we passed. Still, it's better than nothing. We scribble away during Resident Evil. I was going to finish my current film with a minute of Khao San Road at night but after two beers I'm so drunk I fall asleep almost straight away refusing Helen's usrges to go to the toilet or clean my tetth. Must sleep!
Sawasdee Woraburi Khao San Inn, Bangkok N13.75837 E100.49728 Elev. 22m
Copyright 2003 Ian Fitchet. All rights reserved.