For our 2nd day in Bangkok we decided to take a day trip out to see some one of the many historic sites. We wanted to go out to Ayutthaya to see the ruins there, so between our trip to the Palace and our river tour yesterday we stopped at a Tourism Authority to see what our options were.  There were several pre-packaged options, but after haggling the price a bit and evaluating the options we decided to hire a private van and driver for the day.   For 2000 Baht (about $60 US) we got an air-conditioned van and english speaking driver and could go anywhere we wanted as long as we were back by 6pm.

Our driver picked us up at 8:30 and we headed out for Ayutthaya.  The drive from Bangkok is about 1.5 hours and we settled in for our trip.  Bangkok seemed to spread out for about the first half of the trip, but once we cleared the city the smog started to thin and it was a beautifully clear day.  You don’t really realize how dirty the air is in the city until you leave and have some point of comparison, but Bangkok seemed to be fully engulfed by a reddish-brown haze as we looked behind us.

Summer Palace Bang Pa-in

Our first stop was about 1 hour outside of the city at one of the many summer palaces – this one in Bang Pa-in.  Construction at the Summer Palace was started in 1872 by King Rama V and is about 20 acres of manicured grounds, water features, residences and ceremonial buildings.  The Palace is used by the current royal family only for special occasions, so is open to tourists and visitors most of the time.

While the weather the day before seemed hot, it was only an introduction to real heat – without the protective smog layer and clear skies it felt like we were having a brief tour of the sun.  Luckily for Laurie the guards at the gate loaned her a special shirt to cover her shoulders, with the added side benefit of being able to soak up an extra gallon or so of sweat.

The Palace grounds however were so inspiring that there were times when we forgot the heat and just soaked up the beauty and tranquility of the place.  After seeing both the palace in Bangkok and the palace here we came to two conclusions: 1) it is definitely good to be the king, 2) with the palace at Bang Pa-in why would you ever want to go back to the palace in Bangkok.

Ayutthaya

Next it was off to Ayutthaya.  There are more than a dozen different temples and ruins throughout the area, and the modern city has grown up in and around the historic sites.  We clearly don’t have time to see them all (and likely not the perseverance as the small people are getting a little temple weary) but our driver takes us to the highlights.  We end up seeing 3 of the more famous spots, including the temple of the Reclining Buddha, the ‘Face Buddha’, and the ruins of the old palace.

We did stop briefly for lunch, where we had a great meal on a floating barge on the river, and then also at a little ‘safari park’ as the one thing Jackie wanted to do on here birthday was ride an elephant.  So the kids took a short ride on the elephants while I stayed back to take some photos of Mrs. Columbus (the Great Adventurer) taming a fierce jungle cat!!

The temple of the Reclining Buddha is a regular stop on many tours because the image of the Buddha in a reclining position is not very common – from what I can gather there are only a handful in all of Thailand, and coupled with the fact that the main temple here is almost completely intact, it brings a lot of people to worship as well as tourists to see the grounds.

The ‘Face Buddha’ is at the Ayutthaya heritage park, and is part of the original temple / palace complexes here that were built in the late 1300s.  The entire complex was damaged during one of the may conflicts with the neighboring regions, and the city was mostly leveled in 1767 by the Burmese army.  As part of the temple razing, the Burmese Army defaced the Buddha images, mostly by removing the Buddha’s head as sort of an Asian ‘in your face’.   At this set of ruins, one of the Buddha head statues was engulfed by the roots of a tree and has grown ‘into’ the tree over the 100s of years that it sat there.

It was a bit daunting to walk through the grounds and realize that 500+ years ago people were building these great monuments and we were able to still see today some of their efforts.  In looking at many of the ruins it seems that time will not be on their side, and even though there are ongoing restoration efforts being taken on all of these sites, the sheer forces of nature are slowly wearing things down.  I am glad we took the time to come and see it while we can, as I’m sure that it was different 10 years ago, and will be changed again 10 years from now.

After a long hot day of touring all of these sites we re-hydrated ourselves with what seemed like gallons of water and climbed back into our air-conditioned van for the trip back to Bangkok. We got in an hour or so at the hotel pool (very refreshing) and then out for dinner and into bed.  While out for dinner we encountered our first round of rainy-season weather – while searching for a place to eat, the skies literally opened up in a torrential downpour that lasted for about an hour or so before clearing off.  We did get caught in the front part of the storm while dashing for a restaurant, but even though we did not have to go far, we were well soaked by the time we got about 2 blocks – it is a good thing the rain here is warm.