Ayutthaya

After spending far too many consecutive weeks (months?) in the concrete jungle of Bangkok, Sean and I decided to get away from it all for a weekend. Our destination? Ayutthaya - the ancient capital city of Siam (basically Thailand before it was called Thailand - side note - in Thai the country is not actually called Thailand. It's called Krung Thep. Why does it have a different English name? Apparently Japan isn't really called Japan in Japanese either! I find that so strange...).

We had heard that this small city was very beautiful. It's home to many very old temples that exist partially in ruin (since an attack and sacking by the Burmese in 1767) and is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. To make it even better we booked two nights at a resort and spa on the outside of town. It turned out to be perfect! Our big balcony had a jacuzzi and overlooked gorgeous rice paddy fields - definitely a perfect antidote to smog and traffic.



On Saturday morning, after eating breakfast outdoors on our balcony, we took off to explore the city. The first thing we did was rent bicycles. We'd read that it was a great way to see the city and enjoy the fresh air - so $3 later we were not-so-comfortably riding down the road on much-too-small bikes. But we got used to them quickly and had a blast.



Our first temple stop was at Wat Phra Mahathat, a complex at the center of the city that was built in the 14th century. Most of the grounds were blissfully deserted, except for the area that is home to a large tree with a Buddha head embedded into it. This combination of the sacred image and nature is considered very auspicious and thus, this site is very famous.




Afterward, we biked through a nearby park and found a place to stop for lunch. It was extremely hot and we could tell it was just getting hotter so our next adventure was to find a hat for Sean so he didn't burn his newly short-haired head.



We spent the afternoon seeing more temples and just enjoying the quiet city. Sean's favorite spot was Wat Ratburana...you could walk right to the top of the huge chedi and look down into the crypt where a family's treasure was once buried with two of their sons (much of this gold was later stolen and sold on the black market - but we did see some of it in the museum).



In the evening we rented a tuk tuk to show us around at night - many of the temple complexes are illuminated in the dark and we wanted to see the effect. At one point we could see bats flying from the towers and there was lighting striking all around...it was reeeeealy creepy.

The next morning we were booked into the spa for some massage and relaxation before the trip home. After our two hour session (ahhhhh) we took a last minute dip in the pool (anything to prolong our time in this paradise) before packing up and hitting the train station.



At one point I asked Sean if we could move to Ayutthaya - I figured he could commute to Bangkok every day, right?! It's only an hour and a half!!! He wasn't quite so enthused by the idea ;) But either way, we had a great weekend and were glad to get back to nature for just a few days.