Wat's in Ayuthaya

I changed directions mid-air from Phuket to Bangkok yesterday. I noticed in the Lonely Planet that the airport is halfway to a town I had planned to visit, and that the train stops at the airport.

I hopped on the next train bound for Ayuthaya. In stark contrast to the Thai beaches, I was the only white person on the 27 cent 45 minute ride. The sweet Thai's that I sat with were very curious about me as we communicated in "Thailish" laughing hysterically. The hot and humid circa 1940 train car was quite a scene with people and bags everywhere, fans hanging down from the ceiling, and all sorts of scary food being sold down the aisle. The Ayuthaya station also gave me flashbacks of rural China.

The town of Ayuthaya is surrounded by three rivers. My guidebook told me to walk west from the train station to a ferry, so I followed the sun to the 3 Baht/7cent ferry (3Baht/7cents). Once on the other side, I managed to walk a few blocks through some pretty serious sights and smells to a little treehouse hotel, Tony's Place. I was greeted very warmly and within 15 minutes I was whipping along with four news friends (2 Scottish women and an English couple) in a tuk-tuk (precarious 3 wheeled mini passenger truck) on an evening wat (Buddhist temple) tour. We climbed a wat ruin at sunset and then visited several more that were lit up against the dark sky.

When we finished the surreal night temple tour, we joined some other people from the hotel at the Moon Cafe right next door. One of the guys from the hotel, Frankie from France, was playing guitar that evening. Between Frankie's flamingo music and the house band's rock and blues, we had a wonderful, very late evening.

This morning I got up early to take a private river boat wat tour. Most of the tourists in Ayuthaya come up from Bangkok for the day, so I beat the rush and had an extremely peaceful two hour cruise taking in the river lifestyle of central Thailand. Ayuthaya was the royal Siamese capital from 1350 to 1767. Thirty-three Siamese kings reigned from here for over 400 years. Today the historic wats and ruins of Ayuthaya are a Unesco World Heritage site. I will spare you the blow by blow of the eight wats and ruins I visited, but there were giant, golden, bejeweled and reclining buddhas, sacred towers to climb, and creative sculptures of elephants and demons.

I don't know what I enjoyed more about Ayuthaya, experiencing the historical splendor of the wats and ruins, or swapping travel stories with my new friends!