Traveling in Thailand to Ayuttaya, and Lop Buri the Monkey City

I've been on the road since Bangkok traveling by rail north, first on a commuter train and then on the National Railways.
Transportation in Bangkok was by Taxi and Motorbike Taxi and walking. I never made it to a Sky Train station or took a city bus. Sad but true true. The motorbike taxi was an awesome ride often at breakneck speed weaving thru Bangkok traffic like a drunken cyclist!

First up was Ayutthaia, an ancient Imperial Palace city with amazing ruins- all of the ruins make me feel like I am in an Indiana Jones movie with the ancient bricks with plants growing over them and old cracked and headless Buddhas forever in their Lotus position. I've even learned the stories about the Buddha's positions in meditation and teaching like the " Subduing Mara' position with Buddha's right hand pointing at the ground to call upon Mother Earth as the witness of his worthy deeds thru his many lives.

Each image has peace and gentle wisdom within and you can feel the power of many of them given by the people who have viewed and prayed and meditated before them for centuries and make a connection of peace.

Ayutthaia is an island because of a moat that was dug around it hundreds of years ago and you take a small ferry across it for 4 Baht ( about 20 cents). I stayed at a guesthouse for 350 a night (no aircon) as it was cooling off at night because of the storms. The guesthouse had a small restaurant that the owner's wife cooked for and the tables were on a covered deck overlooking the river and the ferry stops so you could sit and have a beer and watch the boats go by. The food was authentic Thai and the best and cheapest outside of a street stall that I have had here. So I ate my fill and watched the tugboats haul cargo barges and the ferry haul passengers and the party boats with karaoke float and power by me.

My plan is to rent a bicycle tomorrow and ride around the island so I was up early and on a bike I rented by 8. Riding in morning traffic was just like being on the motorcycle in Vietnam- weave and watch and keep to the shoulder, only here they drive on the left side, like in Australia.

I passed through the busy downtown and found my first ruin with Chedis (tall, bell shaped spires) and Buddha statues. As I passed around the island and saw the scale and scope of the old city it impressed me; what an effort was required without modern machinery just to clear the land! This is a jungle and stuff grows fast here and tries to fill every crack with foliage.

Many amazing ruins later my chain broke on the bicycle and left me pushing it. I called the number of the rental agent and just got a recording o couldn't understand so I just walked and scooted the bike to the next stop- a large open park with lakes and moats and elephants! I did not ride an elephant at this time, but I hope that lies in my future. It was fun to watch the mahouts walk the gentle giants with two to three tourists on palanquins riding each elephant decked out in red and gold blankets and costumes for the drivers. The palanquins had gold fringed shade covers over the seats and under the covers were the amazed or bored faces of people from all over the world. One western man with a camera with a huge lens walked beside and patted an elephant's flank which I thought was a little too bold, but the elephant did not seem to notice him. I was thinking of a famous 'Mary Tyler Moore' TV show where Chuckles the Clown was killed while dressed as a peanut in a parade by an elephant that " tried to shell him", according to Lou Grant. I gave the elephants a wide berth!

My phone rang and it was the bike owner who saw my number on his missed calls. I gave my phone to a Tuk Tuk driver who gave the owner directions so he could come to me.

The weather was very hot with a partly cloudy blue sky and I found a shady spot to sit, eat an ice cream and wait for a new bike. It took an hour, but the owner rode up on a tandem!!! which he gave to me to ride around solo. For awhile I tried this, but it was just too much bike and I rode back to the rental shop to exchange it for another single- one problem, no owner was there and the shop wad closed. O waited and waited for over an hour and he never showed up. Besides not getting another bike so I could continue my ride he had a 500 baht deposit I wanted back. A woman at a food booth next door tried calling him and just shook her head with disgust and said he does this all the time.
My room wa close, so I went back there and took a shower to cool off, had a beer and a snack and went back in the early evening to gety deposit. To add insult to injury he wanted to chargee for a lock he hadn't provided and I had to show him all the bikes that had no lock to assure him that mine had no lock when he sente out. This he finally accepted and I got my full 500 back.

I walked around town to a favorite bakery and purchased some snacks at a little store nearby and watched TV that night and went to bed early to leave Ayutthaia for Lop Buri and the Monkey Temple early the next morning.

Lop Buri turns out to be interesting in an Archeological sense with a nice museum and easily accessible ruins, some of which are quite well preserved for 500- 300 year-old temples and statues. The town itself is forgettable and the monkeys are kind of cute and kind of scary. I witnessed a young Dutch girl getting attacked by a mother when she tried to innocently take a picture of a baby and it was scary. The girl lead scratched, but fortunately not bitten or rabies shots may have been necessary!

I caught the next train out of town after that.

written by  Mike_Veine on October 22, 2013 from Lop Buri, Thailand
from the travel blog: Laos, Thailand and Beyond!
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