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Other entries in Ayuthaya

The Elephant and Castle

Well the Elephants and Temples would be more apt but nowhere near as punchy a title.

Our first few days in Ayuthaya were spent getting ourselves acquainted with the local area. Ayuthaya is surrounded by a wide canal, making an almost perfect circle, and served as the Capital city for Thailand from 1350 to 1767.  Thirty three kings of various Siamese dynasties reigned in Ayuthaya until it was conquered and ransacked by the Burmese. Ayuthaya was the national centre point of Thai culture and international commerce throughout this era and for many centuries it was claimed as one of the most illustrious cities in the world.  As a result Ayuthaya has some of the most awe inspiring collection of ruined temples, ancient palaces and Buddha images in the whole of Thailand. So of course our aim here was to see as many of these ancient relics as possible but as the city is spread over a wide area you soon learn that it's almost an impossible task.  

After two days just pottering around and getting to know people in the market place and cafe areas we decided to take our first organised tour; normally we stay shy of these set ups as you're reliant on other people's interpretation of what a tourist would like to see and do. In most cases this includes seeing as many temples in quick a time as possible, the odd elephant ride thrown in and capped off with a sunset here or there.  They then take your 600 baht, throw you into a cramped mini-bus full of miserable looking travellers and drop you back at the guesthouse.  Not our cup of tea.  In this case we were persuaded as the tour was organised by our lovely guesthouse and as there were only three people on this trip (that includes ourselves) it appeared to be above the usual standard.  

Our other traveller was a Northern Irish fella called James, a very nice chap who we never saw again, ever, because as soon as we arrived at our first stop, Wat Yai Chai Mongkhon, he realised that he'd been here that morning and soon got off the tour. Apparently he had been mistaken in the set up of the tour and somehow thought he was going on a boat trip. So now it was just the two of us (plus the ever so helpful tuk-tuk driver) on our very own tour that we could do at our own pace.  As this was our first Ayuthaian temple we weren't quite sure what to expect, of course we've seen the pictures and got a glimpse of some temples when we drove in, but this was up close and in your face. These temples were nothing like the little things we'd seen in Bangkok, the scale of which these are built is immense.  Any one wanting to learn more about this temple should look here : http://thailandforvisitors.com/central/ayuthaya/chaiyai/

Well I was soon in tourist camera snapping mode, I took picture after picture and never realised that the battery was running dangerously low. What can one talk about when faced with something like this? It's alien to anything I've ever experienced or seen before.  All I can do is stare in amazement at the opulence of the buildings; Wat Yai Chai Mongkhon is gigantic and was built in 1357 by King Ramathibodi and was a famous meditation wat, it still has a community of Buddhist monks and nuns living there.  At the entrance of the Wat lies a massive reclining Buddha and behind that is a modern building which houses a museum about King Nareusan.  Cultivated gardens surround the main chedi and to the back of lies a large whitewashed sitting Buddha.  Within the internal compound of the chedi a wall of sitting buddhas sit peacefully next to each other and appear to go on forever.

Unlike some of the temples we saw later on, Wat Yai Chai Mongkhon remains almost intact, several surrounding chedi are decrepit but the main infrastructure remains active.  People are allowed to climb the main chedi and wander around the rooftops; the view for up here is outstanding but you do have to be of a certain height to appreciate it, Lindsey had no idea why I was so impressed. You can also go inside the chedi to view the ubosot (a room or building built for religious purposes), which isn't as impressive except for bat squeals that can be heard in the darkness of the eaves. Going up and down the stairs to the chedi is in itself quite a feat, the steps are bigger than your usual everyday stairway(as they were intended) for the purposes that anyone climbing them would be humbled by the size.  No man, be him King or Peasant, should be able to climb the steps without resorting to climbing on his hands and feet before Buddha.

I should note right here that Lindsey and I didn't know what we were going to do on this tour.  As (per usual) we didn't pay attention when the itinerary was explained to us; both of us had assumed the other one was listening.  So the whole evening came as a big surprise to us and only as we were walking out of Wat Yai Chai Mongkhon did we realise that we had no idea where we were going next. Back at the tuk-tuk our driver pointed to an Elephant shaped icon on his map and said 'kraal', assuming we were going to some Elephant museum or archive (the Elephant ('Chang') in Thailand is something of a national icon) we jumped on board and were off to the next destination.  After 15 minutes or so we drove up a dirt track and through a thicket of woodland to an open field where standing directly in front of us was elephant after elephant. They were everywhere and we had driven right into the middle of them all, parked up and told to get out!

Surrounding us were several fields and around 30 elephants, some of which were being ridden back and forth by the staff at the kraal.  Like so many times on these travels we stared at each other and remained dumbstruck, Elephants were by now strolling casually past us and eating huge amounts of food noisily within earshot. Our tuk-tuk driver could see that we were intimidated and rooted to the spot so he walked us around to an area where new born babies were kept with their mothers.  Some of these elephants were only a month old and they were beautiful with ears to big for their bodies and small trunks.  Their mothers appeared to be, naturally, protective of their offspring and were a little resilient when you approached but you could easily bribe them with bags of peanuts and fruit.  Feeding the elephants was great, they'd literally suck the food out of your hand and greedily stuff it into their mouth with their trunk.  The bigger elephants would do it so quickly that you'd hardly had time to get the next bag before their trunk was probing you for more.

After 20 minutes or so our driver said in his best english 'another 5 minutes, we go to river'. That sounded fine by us, we had no idea what that meant but by now we trusted this guy implicitly.  We started off on a little trek around the back of the kraal and came to a massive river, we walked onto a floating wooden raft on the river tied to a post and, following the drivers actions, sat on the raft and waited.  Within a minute 5 elephants were walking in our direction, all with riders, heading straight for the river.  It was nearing sunset and here we were, sitting on a raft (about a metre or so from these creatures), watching elephants bathe in the river right in front of us.  Before we had been intimidated by them but now we felt humbled in their presence, to think a single one of their feet would capsize our raft yet we felt so safe and relaxed as we watched these huge beasts disappear under the water. Their mahouts (the riders) were standing on their back all the time the elephants were in the river, how they never fell off is something of a miracle.  The only thing that marred this great experience was our camera dying on us, that battery had finally run out (useless bloody thing) and we had left the spare in our backpack.  So, we apologise for the lack of photos, this just means we'll have to do it all again once we get to Chiang Mai.  Ho hum, what a hard life. 

Our tour took in a couple more temples but by now it was around 6:30pm and they had closed for the day, however some of the more prominent temples are lit up at night (Wat Phra Si Sanphet, Wat Phra Mahathat and Wat Raburana) and they're a beautiful sight. We ended our tour at the night market and we spent the rest of the night talking about those elephants and the temples.  We plonked ourselves down at a river front vendor stall set up in the market and ate loads of spicy fish, rice, chicken with cashew nuts and mix vegetables.  Perfect end to a perfect day.  

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