The White Elephant, a Buddha!
To the earth I fell and murmured,
“Mighty one! how blest my fate
In the forest thus to find thee—
I so low and thou so great!”~Edna Dean Proctor, In Old Siam
I really had no one to blame but myself. At least that’s what I reminded myself of when the unwelcome sound of my alarm chirped an incessantly cheerful tune, piercing the pre-dawn dark of our hotel room. After all, who was the one who thought it would be fun to stay on the most infamous party street in Bangkok? Me. And who’d picked the flight that left us with only four hours to try to cram in some jet lag-addled sleep as thumping music rattled the entire neighborhood. Yup, that was also me.
Groaning, I turned off the alarm, and tumbled out of bed, vaguely wondering why I’d even tried to sleep at all. But anticipation for the day ahead, overtook my grogginess as Vince and I prepared for our first day in Thailand.
Just by happenstance, a couple of friends of ours were also in Bangkok at the same time as us, and we’d arranged to meet up and take a tour of Ayutthaya, the old capital of Siam, together. Ashley and Nisheet retired last year, and ever since then, they’ve been traveling and trekking all over the world. Bangkok was the first stop of an extended stay in Southeast Asia for them, and a jumping off point for me and Vince before we headed to Southern Thailand.
So, just as the sun was beginning to cast cool light throughout the city, Vince and I found ourselves riding in a tuk-tuk towards the nearest subway station, where we were to meet up with Ashley and Nisheet. Thankfully for us, we had a few spare minutes to stop at a 7-Eleven (the go-to oasis when you need a break from the Thai heat), and pick up some coffee and Thai tea to help us wake up.
By the time we made it to the station, our friends had just arrived too, and they quickly showed us the ropes of riding the trains around Bangkok. We simply tapped a credit card to gain access to the platform, and tapped it again when we exited the station. No lines, no hassle, just an easy and cheap ride across the massive city.
We all used the train ride as an opportunity to catch up, since we hadn’t seen each other in a year, and when it was time, we left the train and walked over to the meet up point for our Klook tour. Our guide for the day was an energetic, and kind woman named Two. This was presumably her nickname (chûe-lên), because most Thai people have a long legal name, but a one to two syllable nickname, given to them by their parents, that they actually go by.
Two ushered everyone from our tour group onto a large bus, that would be our transportation (and our air conditioning) for the duration of the tour. As the bus ambled towards Ayutthaya, Two taught us a couple of the most useful Thai words. Hello is “Sawasdee ka” if the speaker is a woman, or “Sawasdee krap” if he is a man. Likewise, thank you is either “khàawp khun ka” or “khàawp khun krap.”
Before long, we’d arrived at our first stop of the tour, the Bang Pa-In Royal Palace, which is also known as the summer palace. This complex was originally constructed in 1632, but it fell out of use until it was eventually reconstructed in the mid 1800’s.
The palace complex is vast, with sprawling gardens, a central lake, and several ornately decorated buildings.
But to be perfectly honest, the four of us were much more interested in getting to the rest of our tour, because what we really wanted to see were the ancient stone temples of the Kingdom of Siam. Lucky for us, we didn’t have to wait long because the next site we visited was Wat Chaiwatthanaram, a beautiful temple from the Ayutthaya Period period of Thailand, an era that spanned from 1351 to 1767 AD.
Ayutthaya was the historic capital of the Kingdom of Siam until the Burmese army burned the city to the ground, forcing its citizens to flee. All that was left after the siege were the stone structures that can still be seen today.
The atmosphere felt charged with the energy of centuries worth of history, a sensation I often feel when exploring an ancient site. Most haunting were the headless Buddha statues that lined every wall of the old temple. Many of these heads were removed by Burmese soldiers during the Burmese-Siamese war in an attempt to demoralize the people of Siam. Later on, looters stole many more of the heads to sell to foreign collectors. The end result is an eerie array of sightless, stone sentinels, uniquely affronting since the eyes of Buddha carry weighty symbolism in the Buddhist religion.
But the temple’s central Prang, or spire, was in much better repair than the Buddha statues. It towered above the entire site, demanding attention, and Two made sure that anyone who wanted pictures left the site with a camera roll full of insta-worthy shots in front of it.
Our group of four got a few shots taken, and then we wandered off to see more of the ruins before our allotted time at the site ran out. I was glad that we did because we ended up finding my favorite view of the temple from a bit farther away. We found a spot with some intact Buddha statues, that stood in front of the Prang. With no other visitors nearby, I could imagine that our little group had just stumbled upon the stone temple while hiking through the forest.
After leaving Wat Chaiwatthanaram, we made a very short stop to see Phra Buddha Sai Yat, a 42 meter long reclining Buddha statue.
We snapped a few pictures of the statue, and then it was time to grab lunch at a riverside restaurant. Nisheet and Ashley had already been in Bangkok for a few days at this point, and had already tried a lot of food, but this was me and Vince’s first time trying Thai food in actual Thailand. We ended up ordering a large meal to share that came with several different dishes to try. It was altogether too much food, but we made a valiant effort at eating as much as we could.
When everyone had eaten their fill, we rode in the bus over to what is probably the most iconic site in Ayutthaya, Wat Mahathat. This temple is known mainly for the head of a Buddha statue that has become entangled in the roots of a Bodhi tree.
The sandstone head was likely removed from the rest of its statue during the Burmese invasion. In the intervening years, the tree’s roots grew around it in a gentle embrace. This poses a particularly powerful image because the Bodhi tree is the same kind of tree that Buddha meditated under to gain enlightenment. But for me, the site represented nature and human history, inextricably woven together by the passage of time.
Aside from the Buddha head, which is easily one of the most photographed spots in Thailand, Wat Mahathat offered some of the most tranquil and beautiful views that we encountered in Ayutthaya. There was a large crowd gathered to take pictures of the head, but when we ventured further into the site, we found more stone ruins and Buddha statues, all illuminated by soft light that trickled in through the canopy of shade trees that surrounded us.
This was altogether my favorite stop of our tour, although the next temple we visited gave it some stiff competition. When our time at Wat Mahathat was up, we rode over to Wat Phra Si Sanphet, which was once part of the Royal Palace complex. This was the most important temple in the Ayutthaya Kingdom, and its three prominent stone chedis hold the ashes of Siamese kings.
As we approached the temple, Two stopped to buy a couple of arrangements of lotus flowers and marigolds, a traditional offering left to honor Buddha at temples in Thailand. She gave them to me and another woman from our tour, and later had us pose for pictures with them in front of the chedis.
Chedis are Thai, Buddhist stupas. Vince and I saw countless stupas on our recent trip to Nepal, but the chedis in Thailand aren’t quite as round. Instead they are shaped more like ginormous bells. The site of the three ancient chedis all lined up was one of my favorite views of the day.
And once again, the four of us snuck away from the tour group to try to see more of the temple while everyone else continued taking pictures with Two. We ended up having time to walk around the perimeter of the chedis, and stop and watch a hoopoo having a standoff with a squirrel. We made it back to the temple entrance just in time, and our group took off for the final stop of the tour.
Wat Yai Chai Mongkhon has the tallest chedi in Ayutthaya Province, and is also known for its golden Buddha statue, and another reclining Buddha statue. The chedi was noticeable larger than the ones at Wat Phra Si Sanphet, and Vince and I began our visit by circumambulating around the chedi, which was surrounded by Buddha statues.
When we made it back to where we’d started, we climbed up a tall staircase to get a view of the surrounding area from about halfway up the chedi. The surroundings were vastly different than the ones we’d awoken to in Bangkok that morning. Without a skyscraper in site, Ayutthaya was populated with temples, a dappling of smaller buildings, and trees.
We spent the remainder of our time wandering around the temple grounds, where we managed to find the two Buddhas. There was also a pond full of large turtles, that commanded a lot of our attention once we’d discovered it. Vince practically had to drag me away from watching the turtles bob in and out of the water when it was finally time to head back to the bus.
Although I was reluctant to leave, I had to admit that the bus’s air conditioning was a welcome relief from the intense afternoon heat. Our driver took us back to Bangkok in comfort, and when we arrived, the four of us spent some time wandering around a small market that was right by the tour check-in location. We also stopped into a nearby Big C to pick up a few odds and ends. Then we took the train back to Sam Yot station, where we temporarily parted ways. We took a couple of hours to change into fresh clothes and rest for a little bit, and then we met back up to get dinner and explore Khao San Road.
The streets were already pulsing with nightlife as we stepped back out into the humid air. Throngs of partiers moved around us as vendors advertised everything from edible to scorpions to hits of laughing gas to knock-off luxury apparel. A cacophony of of songs warred with each other. Music blared from every restaurant, some live, some blasted through speakers, all trying to capture as much attention as possible.
I’ll be the first to admit that partying is not my favorite pastime, but what I could appreciate was the endless people-watching opportunities that Khao San Road provided. There was something, or someone, that looked interesting in every direction. We wandered around, just taking it all in for a while, until Vince and Nisheet finally resigned themselves to eating scorpions, something they’d been working up the nerve to do all day. So we found the nearest scorpion vendor and bought two of them.
Ashley and I were absolutely content to let the guys partake in this, but we offered moral support and took pictures and they trepidatiously counted to three before shoving the scorpions into their mouths. After a few seconds of chewing, they declared the snack “not that bad,” and Nisheet even went as far as to say that his tasted like Doritos. Somehow this didn’t tempt me into partaking in one though.
After that we got dinner, which I’m sure helped the guys wash away the lingering flavor of the scorpions. Then we wandered the streets until I was too exhausted to stay out any longer. It had been an eventful way to begin our trip through Thailand, and Vince and I were both sad to say goodbye to Ashley and Nisheet because we’d had so much fun hanging out with them. But we all had a lot of exciting travels coming up, and we made sure to stay in touch along the way as Vince and I headed south and they headed north. In fact, we’d be catching a flight to Phuket in less than 24 hours, but before then, we still had a full day to spend exploring Bangkok!
You can see more details of this amazing destination on my YouTube channel!
birdsoftheairtravel.com 