A City Reopened

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  Ayutthaya, Thailand
Saturday, January 7, 2012

So today we officially ventured off on our on out of the "safety" of Bangkok. We headed to the train station early this morning so that we could make our way to Ayuthaya, the former capital of Thailand. Ayuthaya was the capital until the late 1700s when it was destroyed by the Burmese army. Ayuthaya was almost destroyed again a few months ago with the flood. I was so happy to see it had reopened a few weeks before we arrived in Thailand.

The train up here only lasted a couple of hours and after storing our bags at the station we headed across the street to rent bicycles. Yup, I actually agreed to spend the day riding around on a bike. Other than our tandem experiences around Stanley Park, I don't remember the last time I actually rode a bike. I realize it really is a skill you don’t forget, but keeping your balance can be a little bit tricky after some time. Either way, I managed to make it around the island without ever falling over.

For whatever reason the maps we were using never really seemed to match up with the roads that we were riding on, so confusion and crazy, busy traffic led to us taking a few wrong turns before finally ending up somewhere we wanted to be. Once again we were spending our day visiting different wats to see larger than life Buddahs in his many different positions.

Once we figured out where we going we went to see Wihaan Phra Mongkohon Bophit to see the giant seated Buddah…the largest seated one in the country. It is unbelievable how incredibly large these statues are. There was some kind of ceremony going on at the time so people were praying over huge yards of cloth that were going to be draped over the Buddah. Pretty cool to see. We headed over to Wat Phra Si Sanphet afterwards to see the old royal palace. Unfortunately, because of the flood a lot of the ruins have been damaged and the palace is no longer accessible to the public. We were able to walk around and see everything, but we couldn’t walk through. Most of the ruins we saw today were in a similar situation with yellow tape surrounding the structure.

We walked through a market at the end of the day again but didn’t last very long there. A lot of these local markets keep raw meats and fish outside on tables while they wait for locals to purchase items. The smell and the flies were a little too much to take so we headed across the street. Lucky we did because the woman making pad thai for a dollar out of her aquarium store wins so far for best noodles!

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Chris riding down the bridge	Giant sitting Buddah	Sitting Buddah	Dressing the Buddah
Prayers	The royal palace   Comments!	Royal Palace	Looking silly on my bike   Comments!
Giant reclining Buddah	Royal Palace	Crumbling ruins	So old there are plants growing from the top
Ruins	Another giant sitting Buddah

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