A haphazard chronicle of my inevitable misadventures during a year in Vietnam and points east.

p.s. I'll be pitifully grateful if you send me email during my exile: TravelerKaty@hotmail.com

October 2002 November 2002 December 2002 January 2003 February 2003 March 2003 April 2003 May 2003 June 2003 July 2003 August 2003 September 2003 October 2003 November 2003 February 2006 March 2006 May 2006

 
Ayuthaya, Thailand

Ayuthaya is Thailand's other major ruin site, like Sukhothai a UNESCO World Heritage site, but in general is far more visited as it is within day-trip distance of Bangkok.

Our arrival in Ayuthaya was somewhat inauspicious in a completely different way than Sukhothai. Somehow we had been finagled in to buying a ticket on a private bus that claimed to be visiting Ayuthaya, but in actuality was only planning to wave hello from a safe distance. Perhaps not so safe for us however, as we were essentially dropped off on the side of the freeway with a remarkably speedy offloading of our luggage. On one side of us there were cars and trucks screaming by, on the other a small platoon of motorbike drivers in numbered vest lounging in a large wooden kiosk.

Now, I may have expressed a rather cavalier attitude regarding riding on the back of motorbikes (apart from the accident, of course), but I had two good reasons for wanting to avoid this particular motorbike trip. First, we were all carrying overloaded backpacks and daypacks (or at least mine was overloaded) and even in Saigon where the motorbike drivers usually keep the speed down under 25 mph I call cabs in these situations. Keeping one's balance on the back of these things is challenging enough without the added dimension of holding one bag in front of you while carrying 25 pounds on your back. The other reason was the whole reporting-back-to-mom-and-dad issue. I had been making an extra special effort to make my travelling style look somewhat respectable during Amanda and Geoff's visit, with the hope that they would be able to reassure the parents that I was conscientiously avoiding dangers, was staying in clean hotels, and wasn't in danger of contracting any tropical diseases. And so far I think it was working -- I found a hotel in Chang Mai with air-conditioning, and Amanda had only felt her life threatened on two occasions during her first 5 days in Thailand, once with the demented raft pilot (clearly unjustified fears on her part) and once with some understandable concerns about the driving style of one of our bus drivers who managed to get the Thai passengers gasping. I was sure Amanda getting on the back of a motorbike was a bad idea, as it would pretty much torpedo the idea I had been trying to promote that living in Saigon and/or travelling in Asia were both eminently safe enterprises. Unfortunately for my master plan, there were no other options available, so we each climbed aboard, bags in hand and on back.

The ride was, if anything, worse than I imagined possible. Whereas motorbike drivers in most southeast Asian urban settings move at a fairly decorous pace, if for no other reason than to maintain their vehicles in their uncrashed conditions, I neglected to factor in the fact that we were located on the freeway. Really it's a miracle I didn't just topple right off the back at the speed we set off, particularly considering I'm not exactly graceful and well-balanced with a backpack on. You wouldn't have guessed it from the way they were loitering and smoking on the side of the road, but these guys drove like they were the subjects of a police chase, alternating terrifying speeds with reckless weaving around more law-abiding traffic. We arrived at the guesthouse pale and slightly shaky, committed to avoiding any and all future motorbike trips in Thailand.

The PS Guesthouse, I must say, was not reassuring. It wasn't so much the rooms themselves, which were spartan but adequate, but the atmosphere of the place was just plain weird. From the outside it looked perfectly normal, a large converted family home on a sidestreet with a big yard. It was managed by a retired Thai schoolteacher who was helpful, if not friendly, and who gave Amanda an impressive rundown of potential routes and sights complete with numerically coded postcards and multiple colors and lines drawn on a city map. I think even Powerpoint and a laser pointer couldn't have improved this presentation.

There were several other people who haunted the place, all of whom seemed to work there but none of whom did any actual work while in view. There was a Chinese Thai fellow who liked to talk about his Japanese girlfriend (possibly fictional), an older Thai man who owned the place and whose practical function was to make change, and a 50ish foreigner of undefinable English-speaking origin who floated though in a drug-addled haze. Clearly he had been in Thailand way too long.

In the foyer there was a large black and white photo of a smiling 70's era foreigner with his name and dates of birth and death below it. The odd thing about it (in addition to its very presence) was that the month of death was covered by a big piece of tape with "April" written over it, so clearly there had been some confusion surrounding the matter.

In the communal bathrooms (which were not as clean or mosquito-free as one would have wished for) helpful signs had been posted instructing visitors to "Pour Water in Toilet After You Shit", and that the deep water reservior was not for bathing. We were informed that we could not order pancakes for breakfast because she (the ex-teacher) didn't feel like cooking them that day. All in all, a substantial downgrade from our previous lodgings in Sukhothai. Fortunately we had already decided to spend only one night in Ayuthaya.

The most noticeable difference between Sukhothai and Ayuthaya was that rather than an open park-like setting for the ruins, Ayuthaya remains a thriving city with over 60,000 residents, and the ruins just form part of the cityscape. Ayuthaya as a capital of Thailand lasted for longer than Sukhothai and the kimgdom controlled from there stretched across Asia. From 1350 to 1767 it was the capital of Siam, held sovereignty over present-day Laos, Cambodia and Myanmar in addition to Thailand, and at one point boasted a million inhabitants. Alas, 400 years of art and culture went up in smoke in 1765 when the loathed Burmese waged a two-year battle for Ayuthaya, systematically destroying everything of value -- temples, manuscripts, sculptures, and more. This ruthless destruction was almost painfully pointless, as the Burmese were unable to maintain control and a new Thai king took over just two years after the city fell.

The Thais are not exactly known for their subtlety in designing and decorating religious edifices. Temples and chedis (pointy memorial monuments) in current use are wildly detailed, with loads of gold and silver and other shiny stuff, intricate decoration on eaves and all surfaces, relief carvings, mosaics, flowers, and religous murals, most using combinations of colors that no self- respecting interior designer would even use in the same building, let alone the same surface.

Thai ruins, then, which have been burned and hammered and looted within an inch of their lives, are something of a welcome contrast, if not a relief, from the impressive eye-searing gaudiness to which tourists become accustomed. Most buildings in Ayuthaya were built with brick covered by some form of plaster then gilded or decorated according to the fashion of the day. What remains today are the bare bones of these gigantic structures -- brick pillars and crumbling walls enlivened by long stone carvings, enormous domed or conical chedis with various architectur4al details and gargoyles, and lots and lots of buddhas. As the Burmese hordes were rather overly thorough in their sacking of the Siamese capital, there are even more numerous parts of buddhas, so you will periodically walk around a temple to find a low wall topped by tens of torsos, with arms and heads observing from the floor below.

The three of us spent an afternoon and morning wandering around town, first on foot then, foolishly, on bicycles. We determined quickly that biking around a protected parkland is a completely different proposition from the stress of riding crappy bikes with bad brakes in semi-urban traffic. After we felt sufficiently templed out, we packed up and headed to Bangkok.

Copyright 2003 Katy Warren


posted by Katy at 2:48 AM