Don’t Show Us Your Sexy Knees

 After a lovely breakfast at the hotel, we met our tour guide and driver in the lobby at 8am for a tour of Ayutthaya, the ancient capitol of Thailand before it was moved to Bangkok. There are a cluster of UNESCO World Heritage sites there that we wants to see. We both felt great as we piled into our van named “Tarzan” for the tour, which took us an hour north of Bangkok. 

Outside of Bangkok, the rate of poverty skyrockets.  The highway was lined with half-completed but occupied buildings or apartment blocks showing obvious signs of wear. Despite that, the countryside had a distinctly Thailand architecture and visual appeal. One couldn’t forget this was Thailand confuse it with any other southeast asian country.

We started our touring at a temple in Bang Pa-In. Eighty percent of the Thai population is Buddhist, so much that they teach Buddhism in public schools, but this temple looked very much like a church in the English countryside. Apparently this king with 143 wives traveled to England and on his return divorced all wife but one and adopted English architecture. We watched very young school aged Buddhist monks caring for the grounds and walking around the grounds.

We boarded a cable car to cross the river. 

Across the river was this Buddhist temple that looks like a church. 

We were highly fascinated with this millipede. 

Our Tourguide hailed a long boat to take us 45 minutes up river. It was a fascinating and beautiful ride. Thai people appeared highly friendly, and folks of all ages stopped to wave at us on the river. Other river traffic included daisy chained barges of sand being tugged up and down the river. Local folks in canoes harvested water vegetables on the banks and fished. Temples were everywhere, as were river shanties that could look Cajun if it weren’t for the pointy rooftop styles and micro temples out front. 

All animals are protected near temples, fish included. Feeding the fish is a traditional temple activity, and our guide thought us food to join in. Jane chose to feed whole dinner rolls and I chose giant cheese-less cheetos, both a real highlight of the experience. 

This day was a Thai national holiday celebrating the Queen’s birthday. Shrines were full of but not crowded with local worshippers, which gave the whole experience a festival feel. 

Folks make wishes at temples and donate things when their wishes come true. Here is a donated dress for this goddess. 

The teak floors were flawlessly clean. Taking shoes off didn’t feel gross when everything was scrubbed and polished without a trace of grit. 

This giant Buddha was from the 1300s. The temple burned down but the Buddha remained. They rebuilt the temple around him. 

These smaller buddhas are gold and bronze. Every shape and color has some meaning, and our Tourguide Ms. Nes was patient to explain it all. She must have done well in Buddhism class. I don’t think she’s a devout believer, as she kept hedging her bets by saying “older people believe” or “we don’t know if that’s true but…”

Thailand and Burma had a long history of wars. In both countries, rules stored wealth as temples, building towers, gilding buddhas, and stuffing valuables into stone Buddha statues. Over their history, one would invade the other and burn the temples to melt down the gold. They chopped the head off the buddhas to find if there was treasure inside. Because of this, ancient sites are all burned and feature a lot of headless buddhas. 

This Buddhas was beheaded but the tree grew around the head. Now it’s a famous site. 

Mo is feed squirrels and birds everywhere. 

After some hot humid hikes, we stopped to drink fresh coconut water, a huge treat. 

While we were on our heavily air conditioned Tarzan van, others chose more natural transportation. 

There are strict and enforced rules regarding clothing at temples, even ancient ones that were not actively used. Knee exposure for women is strictly forbidden, so despite the heat we wore long clothes. 

Ms NES says they have 3 seasons, hot, hotter and hottest. We are here in low tourism rainy season, but we didn’t get a drip wet. Umbrellas are handed out for sun shades at temple sites. 

We were grateful that Mr. s kept our van icy cold and offered us iced cold water when we got back in the van. He also gave us cold disposable washcloths to refresh us after a sweaty walk. Though the temps weren’t high, the nest 100% humidity was grueling. 

After some hours of touring, we stopped for lunch along the river. The restaurant boasted being in the Michelin guide for the last 4 years. Ms. Ned says they are famous for the grilled river shrimp and folks from Bangkok find it fashionable to drive out to this restaurant just for the shrimp. 

My new favorite sparkling water. Mmmmm

They just blended a watermelon for Jane’s drink. A+

The vegetables don’t look exciting but they were out of this world. We polished off this plate. 

Jane ordered red curry with medium heat. I was scared it would be too hot, but it was just right, barely hot. 

This was Jane’s favorite dish: pork with fried garlic. She’s worried she’ll never find this dish with three seasonings ever again. 

The famous River prawn. We thought it would taste like shrimp, but it was distinctly different. We polished this off too. 

In the curry was butter eggplant of two different varieties. I worried I wouldn’t like it but wow was I wrong. I polished off every bit of eggplant before eating chicken. 

The larger bitter eggplant. 

They actually peeled the tiny shrimp legs for us. Jane found that less appealing. 

More ancient sites in the afternoon:

At this temple, Thai folks dress up for pictures in traditional clothing. 

This ancient reclining Buddha was recently repainted. 

We headed back to town with one more unscheduled stop. In Singapore we saw a character called Butter Bear on some notebooks and toys. We wanted to find Butterbear, and our guide told us that she is actually Thai. They took us to the mall in Bangkok where Butterbeer bakery started it all.  We crowded in to buy Butterbeer gear, with the rest of the Chinese tourists. After walking around the mall, we took a quick skytrain ride back to the room and crashed for the rest of the evening. The humidity really took it out of us and we wanted to be fresh for tomorrow’s Bangkok adventures.