Last weekend Saleem, Abid and Ben all convinced me to come to Bangkok with them. I was reluctant because I was trying to save money and since it was a three-day weekend I wanted to go somewhere I hadn’t seen before. They told me they would all be my financial boyfriends for the weekend, no strings attached, so I packed my bag and hopped onto the bus with them on Friday afternoon. That night we all went out for expensive yet subpar pizza. We revived our night by finding an amazing Egyptian restaurant where we smoked hookah and sipped tea for a few hours. Around 2 a.m. went back to our hostel dorms and passed out.
The next morning we explored the Weekend Market, a part of Bangkok I immediately fell in love with two days after arriving. You can buy anything and everything there and most times I do. This time I restricted myself though; I only bought one item, a hiking backpack for Dave as a birthday gift. I probably would have bought more, but I accidentally locked myself out of my Thai bank account. I forgot the pin number I was assigned because I use it so infrequently. So the boys really were my wallets for the weekend.
That night we drank a few bottles of wine on the stoop outside our hostel and then wandered around looking for street food. After we housed our pad thai we caught a cab and headed to RCA, a nightclub district of Bangkok. We were a little put off by the 300baht cover charge, but we were getting access to three clubs and a little packet of drink tickets. Right when we got in the club we saw these enormous buckets of ice and liquor that seemed to glow bright green and pink. We immediately decided we needed to have one, so we all pulled our drink tickets together, threw in another 200 baht and bought a bucket. I can’t even explain how ridiculously large this thing was. You had to carry it with two hands and I couldn’t even lift it comfortably. Although it looked really delicious, it tasted horrible. It was a sugary mix of syrups and soda. I started to doubt there was even alcohol in it. We forced ourselves to keep drinking it since we basically wasted all our tickets on it. We carted it around for a while and then just gave up on it in exchange for gin and tonics. I think we enjoyed the ice in the bucket more than the drink itself. I would go into detail about the club and the scene, but the real party was who I was with. All the Thais were acting pretty lame and just standing around, while we were all dancing and having a great time. I think we pissed a few people off because we were moving so much. We did manage to gather a few cute Thai girls in our dance circle and we all had a blast. As for the other dudes around us, they just looked angry and uncomfortable. After a couple hours of dancing we realized it was time to get Ben to the airport. He had been in Thailand for a week and it was time for him to get back to the States to his fulltime job. We found a cab and quickly all passed out in the back. We woke up once we rolled over the airport speed bumps. It was a quick goodbye, but I know I was sad to see him leave. He brought so much laughter to Thailand in the seven days he was here. I slid into middle seat in the back, Abid on one side and Saleem on the other. We all conked out again, but this time we awoke to our taxi driver pulling over and opening the hood. I could tell none of us felt like trying to communicate or deal with the situation, but thankfully the driver was just putting oil in the car so in a couple minutes we were on our way again. We made it back to the hostel and we each stumbled into our separate dorms. We actually woke up at a decent time and made checkout before 11 a.m.
I had convinced the boys that they had to come to Ayutthaya with me since I came to Bangkok with them. They happily agreed and we made our way to Victory Monument, a huge roundabout in Bangkok, where all the buses and vans depart from. After walking about three quarters of the way around the circle we found the vans to Ayutthaya. I should explain why I want to go there in the first place: Ayutthaya was the capital of Siam from 1350-1767. It was a major trading port during that time because of its location between three rivers, the Chao Phraya, Lopburi and Pa Sak. In Lonely Planet it says, “Many traders proclaimed Ayutthaya to be the finest city they had ever seen, with towering temples and treasure laden palaces.” Apparently Ayutthaya had 33 kings who ruled through tolerance rather than violence, but in 1767 The Burmese army invaded and sacked the city. Since then the towers and formations have been crumbling year after year and especially this year because of the flood. Ayutthaya city is the capital of the province, which is home to about 137,600 people. I wanted to photograph the ruins and explore the old city, which is why I dragged Abid and Saleem along.
Back to the journey: We crammed into a van to Ayutthaya and a couple hot and sweaty hours later we were dropped off in the scorching sun. We all wiped our foreheads, put on our sunglasses and agreed we would first find a place to stay for the night. A tuktuk driver was already at our sides asking us where we wanted to go. We told him the name of the hostel and he motioned us into the back of his tuktuk that resembled a mini song tow. Once again we were speeding along, but instead of a couple hours it took only a couple minutes to reach our destination. Before we could get out of the tuktuk the driver was showing us photos of the ruins, wats and Buddha statues. We discussed prices and tour options, exchanged numbers and names, thanked him and headed into the hostel.
This hostel was definitely a step up from the night before. There were no dorm bed options, but we were all able to stay in one room for about the same price. Our room had an air conditioner, TV, free wireless and three beds. It was a pretty sweet deal since the night before we didn’t even get a towel. After cooling off in the AC for a few minutes we decided to call Manope, our driver, and schedule a tour. He gladly agreed and said he would pick us up in twenty minutes.
We had planned to go to seven different sights and spend about three hours with Manope. We really wanted to eat first though so he brought us to a little restaurant where we all had a rice dish. After lunch we went to our first site, Wat Yai Chai Mongkhon. According to Lonely Planet, King U Thong built the monastery in 1357 to house monks from Sri Lanka. On the site, there is also a twenty-foot reclining Buddha draped in a long orange robe. Actually it was draped in about fifty orange robes. I’m not exaggerating at all. There was a man that sat atop the Buddha’s feet and he was constantly pulling back one robe after another. I came back after I took photos of the entire site and counted over fifty bags with robes in them. Besides the Buddha, which was really cool and calm, the monastery was enormous and in really good condition. The stairs were starting to deteriorate from all the foot traffic, so everyone was being really cautious on the way up and down. From the top of the monastery one could look out over the grounds. I was seriously in awe of all the Buddha figures surrounding me. They were all sitting up so straight, yet they were far from tense. After I gazed down at everything for a while I descended the scary stairs and made my way to the back of the monastery. From above I saw a big white Buddha that I wanted to take a closer look at. On my way I saw a couple hanging out in the grass. I couldn’t help but feel envious of them. Even though Dave had visited me just two weeks before it seemed like forever since I saw him. I wished that I could round up Dave and my family and transport them here so we could all have a little picnic in the shade of Wat Yai Chai Mongkhon. I snapped a photo of the two and continued on to the huge Buddha I spotted from above. It really was magnificent. It was a blinding white and before it laid rows of bright green bushes. I snapped a few shots and then Saleem popped his head up to take a photo of me. I toke a couple of him too and later we found out Abid had taken one of the both of us taking photos of each other. We’re all a bunch of camera dorks. We walked around the monastery one more time and then headed out to meet Manope at the tuktuk.
Next we headed to Wat Phanan Choeng, a popular Thai-Chinese temple site. I had no idea what this Wat was hiding until I peaked into a small open doorway that everyone was gathered around and then I saw it, a 61 foot high golden Buddha. It was enormous. I can’t even explain the magnitude of this thing. There was no way for me to take a good photo of it so I just stood there in awe. I was about to leave the temple, but I had to turn around and go look at it again one last time. The Buddha was so big and all the people crowded into the room were so small. There were thousands of Buddha images on the walls in the room and everyone was just staring up at this figure like it was the most important thing they had ever seen. It was pretty powerful.
Next up was Wat Ratchaburana, a huge grassy site with hundreds of old crumbing brick structures. Everywhere you looked you could see the mud lines from the recent flooding. It bummed me out to know that the flood had taken a pretty hard toll on Ayutthaya. It was the worst flood since the 1940’s. A lot of the structures were roped off so that people wouldn’t walk on them because they were severely damaged in the flood. At Ratchaburana there were many Buddhas in a row just like at Wat Yai Chai Mongkhon, but this site was much older so the Buddhas were worn down so much that they were in pieces and almost all of them were headless. Also on this site is the Buddha head intertwined with tree roots, something I had seen so many photos of and couldn’t wait to see with my own two eyes. It is pretty amazing how the roots perfectly frame the face. After taking a bunch of photos we walked back to the tuktuk to find that Manope had bought us some fresh fruit. He was a great guy. Saleem asked him where he could get some film since his camera just ran out and Manope got in the tuktuk and took us to Seven. They didn’t have any film so he took off again and brought us to a film store. Both times we thought we were going to another site and he was taking us to find more film. We didn’t even ask, he just drove. Then we realized the next site we were going to was Wat Phra Si Sanphet, which was right across the street from the one we were just at. So Manope literally drove across town for us when he could have easily dismissed the question and drove us across the street.
Wat Phra Si Sanphet was gorgeous. It rivaled Wat Ratchaburana as my favorite site. It was built in the late 14th century and was the largest temple in Ayutthaya. Apparently there used to be a fifty-one foot high standing Buddha on the site, but it was melted down by the Burmese conquerors. The ornate tower that stood in Wat Phra Si Sanphet is what grabbed my attention the most. Saleem, Abid and I actually saw it when we were at the last site and wondered aloud if we should run over and see it quick; we should have known that Manope was going to take us there. The sun was starting to set so after spending a good half an hour staring up at the tower and actually climbing up part of the temple we headed back to the street.
We drove a little ways to Wat Lokayasutharam the 92 foot-long reclining Buddha. There is no way for words or photos to explain how enormous this Buddha was. You simply have to come to Thailand and see it for yourself one day. It was absolutely lovely. I really liked the look of the lotus pattern under its head. After taking photos, Abid, Saleem and I lit all the candles on the table where Thai people leave gifts, money, candles and flowers. Even though I’m not religious, it was nice to show some type of appreciation for such a peaceful site. By the time we stopped gazing at the enormous Buddha it was near dark. We headed to the next site, but we really just glanced at it and decided it was time to go home to our hostel and give Manope a break. We had been touring for over four hours and in the beginning we agreed on three. When we got back to the hostel we thanked Manope for showing us all Ayutthaya had to offer and slipped him some extra baht. If I ever go back to Ayutthaya, which I’m hoping to if there’s time, I will definitely call Manope again. Hopefully he isn’t already booked with a fresh group tourists, but if he is good all I can say is good for them.
