Ayuthaya

This is a short entry...im melting....tooo humid for an irish girl!





Seriously pimped up busses in Thailand! I sat at the back of a plush mini van which crused along a smooth road in silence...definately not in india anymore...i didnt become airborne not even once! Found myself a super guesthouse, i had my own balcony looking onto a garden with nice fountains etc. I was the only person staying here.


This place is FULL of temples, back in the day this place used to be the capital of Thailand but the Burmese army wrecked it leaving it to decay in the jungle so most of the temples are just bundles of bricks with plants growing out of them but some built more recently are still in great condition. I took a bike and went sight-seing! Thailand is very bike friendly, flat, evenly paved roads that takes no effort to cycle...little bit unlike india's pot-holed dirt-tracks with cows in the way...ahhh but i still miss indian craziness!


Very very beautiful temples, and a VERY VERY hot steamy humid day probably about mid thirtees degrees and about 90% humidity. Oh i was melting after 5 minutes on the bike too much for an irish girl.. come on the rain!! This place had yellow silky cloth wrapped around the temple and the stone Buddhas that where outside around it, quite a nice decoration but it must have some meaning. The poor girl at the front desk was utterly confused by my charades trying to find out about why the yellow silk! Well good old google, it means there is some active worshipping taking place.


When i was cycling around the grounds of the temple i turned a corner and ohmygod the biggest collection of rooster statues ive ever seen! Hundreds of statues of them in all sizes from actual size to enormous. I later found a few shops in the little town that sold them...even the huge ones! This is because the king who had the temple built, according to google 'had a passion for roosters'. How funny if his passion had been pints of beer or prostitutes!!

I was tempted to steal one of the little ones for memorabilia not worth lugging it around for the next few months though!! Already lugged around a frying pan for a while (with some stuff written and a face painted on it) as memorabilia from a very, very funny night/day with couchsurfer Julie in Lyon many months ago! Ha ha i even got the frying pan through the airport hand luggage come to think of it...and im sure they took my bottle of water off me....makes perfect sence...isnt the frying the classic comidy weapon?

Huge!

After hiding in the shadows for a bit i headed on again on the bike to a more ruined temple. Just bundles of bricks but really spectacular stuff.

The buddhas sitting around this temple were all headless

One of the monks asked could he take a picture of me when i was sitting at the top of the steps...yes no problem sure its a monk...they take an oath of chastity dont they? cant be like the young indian boys reason for wanting 'one snap'! can it? Im sure ill find out in due time!

I figured since i was the only person in my guesthouse no harm in going to eat in the place lonely planet recommended as the most popular traveller 'hangout' . It was a lovely looking bar for sure, but i think i was the only tourist in the town! I had the worst most expensive watery and way too spicy at the same time food! I think from now on i'll definately stick to the street food in thailand so with that i headed off on the bike to find the night market.

Really excellent food here i bought loads of fresh fruit and sushi so cheap and sooo good! Loads of mad food on sale here though that i had absolutely no idea what it could be...oh ill get around to trying it sometime!

Next day it rained pretty early which was nice as it cleared the humidity for a while. I find that during the monsoon it seems to rain heavily at least once a day and maybe another shower or two later. Its not that big of a problem travelling during the monsoon apart from more mosquitos i really like the rain! And ive seen some amazing thunder and lightning storms.

So anyway, just after some heavy rain i cycled through this park and found another few ruined temples. This one was so gorgeous the setting sun turned it an orangy brown.

A little past this as i was cycling a CROCODILE ran across the path into the pond! He was very heavy and you could hear his feet slapping against the wet concrete. How cool!!

The last place that i visited was this palace maybe? (didnt do a lot of research just a lot of cycling!) Very fancy, ornate, chinese style place with a massive gold buddha inside.

Off to mountains i think to escape this heat!