Ayutthaya

We woke up bright and early on Sunday morning, stashed our luggage with the Grande Sathorn front desk, and took our overnight bags on the Skytrain to the Victory Monument where I managed to find a bathroom (5 baht), and a minibus to Ayutthaya was miraculously waiting outside.

The bus ride was about two hours, but we knew nothing about the city and looked like little lambs lost in the hot, sweaty suburbs when the driver motioned us to get out.  A tuk-tuk driver descended upon us with post cards of the sights he promised to take us to.  I was in kind of a bad mood and felt like we were being 'taken,' but we really had no idea where we were or where to go next - and the tuk-tuk promised efficiency if nothing else. 

He gave us three hours and took us to about six different ruins. 

Ayutthaya, as you will read on the Internet, was once the capital city of Thailand. 

Temples and whatnot; gold covered stupas as far as the eye could see.  Apparently it was quite breathtaking.  The ruins that remain are pretty breathtaking.

Then the Burmese sacked Ayutthaya, prying off precious materials and burning buildings to melt off the gold coverings. 

There are hundreds and hundreds of headless Buddhas. 

It is unclear to me whether the heads were knocked off by the Burmese as an act of vandalism, or whether (as I've read more recently)some of the heads were stolen by robbers, because they are prized by collectors.  Either is heartbreaking. 

I wonder, in retrospect, whether it was the heat, the feeling victimized by our guide, the time of the month, or this pervasive sense of the meanness of human beings that threw me into a terrible mood that evening.  Also, my feet were killing me, for cereal.

Toes!

We thought the Buddhas with eyes were a little spooky.

Ace was partial to the chubby Buddhas.

Eventually the tuk tuk driver took us to a guest house that was made of teak.  It wasn't exactly the sanctuary I'd been envisioning, but it did supposedly have air-conditioning.  After being dropped off on the roadside, we walked into a walled garden (scratching chickens and a gurgling rooster), where foreigners were sitting on a porch reading novels.  The proprietress was incredibly friendly, delighted to learn that Ace was an engineer, then apologetic that she was full for the night.  She managed to find us a small room with a twin bed and a fan, with a bathroom down the hall.  I don't know what we thought we were looking for, but we decided to continue on.

But where?  Ayutthaya was impenetrable to us.  Guide books are severely lacking in maps or useful directions.  We learned later that Roy (the groom) had worked on the Let's Go guides in college - if only we had known!  The kind lady called around, and found a place for us to stay that promised air conditioning (we're not usually so demanding - but like I said, I was having a crummy day) - and that place sent a car to pick us up!

Here is where we stayed.

   

See?  We're not totally unreasonable!  It was ten dollars a night, located inside of a parking garage.  For an extra three dollars they would have turned on the air conditioning, but I was being contrary and frugal and refused.  Ace moved the bed away from the wall so the trail of bugs streaming down the wall wouldn't walk onto his face as he slept.

We showered off the grime, went for $2 dinners at the Chill Out Cafe, returned and the driver took us to a place where we each got Thai massages.  And then we each got reflexology (foot) massages.  We were side by side the whole time.  The very best part was at the beginning, when our ladies washed our feet.  There was something indescribably blissful about soapy fingers between my toes.  We were freshly clean, but they gave us clean, well-worn, soft, cotton pajamas to change into for the massage, and it was a nice touch.  And tea at the end.  I felt like a new person.

The 60 minute massage was $10, the 30 minute reflexology was $5.

Can you believe?  Those are the only massages we got the whole trip.  The rest of the time we were running around like chickens, doing things.

The next day we rented bicycles, and saw sights by bike, which I liked much better.  Something about the autonomy of it suited me better than the "herded sheep" effect of the tuk tuk.  We ate breakfast at a street stall that was (again) delicious, looked at elephants, and eventually made our way back to our guesthouse. 

We had already checked out, so when we asked to use the facilities before we left, we realized quickly that we were being invited to use the managers' own home - a room in the same parking garage.  And our $10 room, with a sagging bed and bugs on the wall and no natural light, with an en suite bathroom that wasn't quite separated from the bedroom by a wall that didn't go to the ceiling and was plagued with mosquitoes, and which contained a weak shower spray that sprayed the entire "bathroom" because there was no bath other than a drain in the floor - we learned that our room might as well have been the Presidential suite.

I haven't talked much about the mind-blowing contrast between rich and poor in Thailand, because I really don't know what to say.  We have a big gap here, obviously, but I'm inclined to think that our minimum standards are way, way better than theirs, just maybe our superrich are that much more eye-popping.  I don't know.  It does seem that you can live (though not comfortably) on far less, making that subterranean level of poverty sustainable.  I don't know, I'm not trying to make a point. 

By another miracle, a bus (this time, a full-sized coach) to Bangkok was a block away.

The Bangkok bus station was rather out of town; we took a local bus to the Chatuchak BTS station, returned to our hotel, had a (delicious) meal, went for a suit fitting, then got our things and took a taxi to the hotel where we'd stay for the wedding.  Only a couple of miles from the Grande Sathorn, the trip took us about an hour in Bangkok traffic. 

The Peninsula is one of the finest hotel experiences I've had.  One pulls up to the front doors, and vases of orchids 15 feet high greet you.  Sounds are muffled by thick carpets; flowers are everywhere; multilingual reception clerks speak softly and respectfully and kindly. 

I was floored. 

Our room. 

I can't even begin. 

I'll probably go on more about the hotel when I talk about the wedding.  But let me just say that staying at that place in Ayutthaya the night before made the subsequent luxury all the sweeter and we appreciated, savored, and WALLOWED IN every single moment.

Comments

[africankelli]

I love that you were able to experience both sides of the coin. What an incredible adventure! Those ruins are something else. I have to see them one day.
And thank God Ace was there. I swear I hate staying in places like that alone and do so regularly.