Sunday, November 24, 2013

IN RUINS. LIFE AE.

Ayutthaya, Thailand
June 2 – June 3, 2013

Life AE. Life After Elephants. 
My dream had officially come true and then, in the blink of an eye, it was over. Throughout the week I had kept my emotions in check, having one ah-ha moment with my elephant, Yitor, on day three that brought tears to my eyes, but for the most part, I worked hard and enjoyed every second. Then the last day came. And I cried the whole day. I cried secretly in the shower, not so secretly with the staff and my fellow Stayers, and while taking my last ride on Yitor.
And then it was time to officially say goodbye. We got our certificates of recognition for the work we did, hugged all our new friends goodbye, packed our belongings into the back of our waiting tuk-tuk, and waved goodbye to all the people and the elephants as we drove down the driveway.
I, of course, wept the entire time. Miriam, who rarely cries, confessed to getting choked up as we left. ElephantStay had touched her life, too. There’s nothing better than making your dream come true than sharing it with someone who is just as affected as you are by the experience.
But it was time to press onward and see what else the beautiful country of Thailand had to offer. We decided to spend one extra day in Ayutthaya, since the village is a UNESCO World Heritage site, meaning there was a lot of history to behold within its borders. Ayutthaya was once the capital of Siam before it was attacked and destroyed by the Burmese, so there are a number of ancient ruins to visit, and I couldn’t wait to see them!
Our first stop was our home for the next two nights, the Luang Chumni Village, a cute bed and breakfast in the middle of town that was very close to the Historical Park. Luang Chumni Village houses 6 rooms total, in the traditional Thai teak house style. The entire building is surrounded by a lovely moat, and the lobby is an open-air lobby, providing a lovely view of the environs.
They had three different types of rooms—two of each style—providing three different price points. When I originally emailed the B&B about rooms, I attempted to book the cheapest of the rooms, an Inter-Connecting room, which meant we would have to share a hallway and balcony with another couple, if need be, but I was informed that both the IC rooms were booked for our dates. So we paid a little more and got the Standard Room, which provided us with a decent sized room, our own private balcony, and a private bathroom down the stairs, below the room. I was a little disappointed to pay extra, but in reality it was still only $35 a night, so in the grand scheme of things, it wasn’t bad at all. And it was absolutely adorable—we loved it. However, we did notice that we seemed to be the only people there…and come breakfast the next day, we learned we WERE the only people there. So much for the IC rooms being booked…
The view from our room

Our Thai entrance
Stairs to our private bathroom




Anyways, the owner, Ake, was very helpful and provided us with a map of Ayutthaya, circling the most popular areas to visit, and told us about the local night market right down the street and how we were a short walk away from a lot of great restaurants.
After we dropped our bags off, looked around our new little home, sat on the balcony, and had a little cry over the elephants (okay, I confess…I was the only one crying…), we headed out beyond the garden walls and took a stroll around the village.
The restaurant sign
We stopped first at the 7 Eleven at the end of the block (I swear, 7 Elevens are as popular in Thailand as Starbucks and banks are in NYC—they are EVERYWHERE), bought some beverages, and then meandered through the night market. The night market ended up being a bunch of food stalls, where locals were grabbing a bite to eat. No one really spoke any English and we weren’t sure what we were in the mood for, so we moved on.
We trekked all the way down to the river, where Ake suggested we go for dinner. There were a bunch of restaurants to choose from, and we ended up at a Thai restaurant called Sai-Thong, which was built around a giant tree. So, yes, that means there was a giant tree trunk growing through the middle of the restaurant. It was a pretty neat sight.

We were seated on the back balcony with a splendid view of one of the temples across the river. They had a guy playing his guitar and singing classic American/British rock songs, which added a nice and amusing ambience (Thai accents mixed with English lyrics provides some funny moments…). The menu didn’t offer a lot of descriptions to the dishes, so we chose a few and hoped for the best. 


The tree trunk in the restaurant
Then, out of the blue, the power went out. Not just in the restaurant, but on both sides of the river. Suddenly it was just us and the moonlight and all of our new friends. It was very entertaining. And, amazingly, that didn’t stop the staff from working. 
The lights were out for at least ten minutes, and in that time the kitchen staff made our food and delivered it to our table! We used the flashlight apps on our iPhones and my camera flash to check out our food, which all looked delicious.
Miriam got a salad and the chicken and cashews entrée, while I got a Thai salad and pineapple and chicken fried rice, served in a hollowed pineapple. It looked like my Thai salad had little tiny shrimp in it, so I had to work my way around those, but otherwise the salad was yummy.
The power came back on for our side of the river while we were eating, and soon our ambience and music were back in full swing. Our food was quite tasty, even the strange rope-like substance on top of my fried rice that melted away in my mouth like cotton candy. Still not sure if I was supposed to eat it, but it tasted like peanuts! At the end of the meal, Miriam put my pineapple back together, which then reminded us of the treats we fed the elephants we had just left behind, causing me to fight back tears…unsuccessfully…
The strange "dancing" from the street
After dinner we started our walk back to our B&B, walking along a pretty popular stretch of road, when we heard loud, club-like music blaring from what looked like a school auditorium. We looked through the fence and saw a bunch of scantily clad girls lined up next to each other on a stage, “dancing” to the music, while people milled around in the audience. I say “dancing” because these girls were barely moving at all and looked rather bored. We are still unsure what was happening. A beauty contest, maybe? Strange times in Ayutthaya. 
Our walk took us back through the local night market where we encountered two little, curious girls who wanted to perform for us so that I could take their picture. They couldn’t speak a lick of English but they sure loved seeing their photo on my camera! We also stopped at the 7 Eleven again to pick up some snacks and drinks for our room. Then we headed back to the B&B, said goodnight to Ake, and got cozy in our room, watching really bad movies (like Brittany Murphy’s The Ramen Girl) because we were limited to one or two channels in English.
The B&B, being of the Thai teak style, was very creaky, since the whole place is made of teak wood, but, luckily, we had no neighbors to disturb with our late night treks to the bathroom and our early morning to get our sight-seeing going.
Breakfast on the deck
We were up at our usual ElephantStay time and went to the lobby area for breakfast. Fresh fruit and bread for toasting was waiting for us, and as soon as we arrived, a sweet, older woman who spoke no English provided us with a hand-written menu of egg and meat options (I’m still amused that the Thai idea of sausage is simply a cut up hot dog). The open-air lobby overlooking the moat provided a very lovely setting for breakfast, and watching the two cats resting nearby made me happy. 
As soon as breakfast was done, Ake came out to give us the bikes we were renting for the day ($1.50 each…for the whole day…amazing) and told us she would arrange the sunset boat tour we were interested in. And then off we went to see some ruins!
Biking around Ayutthaya was the ideal way to go. Ayutthaya is just a little too big to walk around, and hiring a tuk-tuk for the day seemed an expensive waste, but for $3 US we were able to visit the sites we wanted, stay for as little or long as we wanted, and change our plans at the drop of a hat. Not to mention we got to see the beautiful village with a nice breeze blowing through our hair! 
Our first stop was Wat Mahathat, one of the most important monasteries of the ancient Ayutthaya kingdom. All of the buildings, statues, and monuments were so neat, but the big highlight was the Buddha head in the tree. It was really cool to see how the tree grew around the Buddha head over the years so perfectly.


Wat Mahathat







Our next stop was right down the road at Wat Ratchaburana. It was similar in style to Wat Mahathat but offered some beautiful views of ancient chedis and prangs. At one point Miriam decided to climb up some stairs of the main prang to get a good photo op, only to discover there was a stray dog up there that was very wary of having a visitor. 

Wat Ratchaburana

Wat Phra Ram

After Rachaburana, we made our way around the park to Wat Phra Ram, a smaller wat located near the water. It was here that we caught our first glimpse of the elephants…the worker elephants we had watched return from work just a few days prior, giving rides to the tourists around the temples. I saw them and immediately got choked up (again), so we decided that once we were done at Phra Ram that we’d take a pit stop to visit the elephants at the Elephant Palace and Royal Kraal. 
I don’t know if it was the early morning, that it was a Monday, or that it was at the start of rainy season, but the sites were practically empty. Very few people were around us at almost all of the locations, which was great for us!




Once at the Elephant Palace, we bought some ice cream and sodas and sat to watch the big bulls lounging in the shade. We then bought a basket of food to feed to a few of the bulls, which we had intended to share, but while Miriam was taking pictures of me feeding the boys, they ended up taking every last bit from the basket! Sorry, Miriam… We then stopped in the gift shop to pick up a few little trinkets that we hadn’t seen in the ElephantStay gift shop before we headed back to collect our bikes. And, of course, upon saying goodbye to the eles, I broke down crying. Not surprising, I know. 
Our next stop was at Wihan Phra Mongkhon Bophit, an active temple with one of the largest bronze Buddha statues in the country. It also had a great market and public restrooms. The bronze Buddha was really cool and it was nice to get out of the hot sun for a moment. It was also one of the few places that didn’t require an entrance fee (granted, the entrance fees were only around 50Baht/$1.60US at each place, but still…). It was, however, the first place that had a ton of tourists milling around. Attached to Phra Mongkhon Bophit was a very large parking lot that held a lot of tour busses, most likely day tours from Bangkok, so there were a lot of people shopping in the market and visiting the bronze Buddha. 

Wihan Phra Mongkhon Bophit


Shopping in the market
Right next door to the Phra Mongkhon Bophit was Wat Phra Si Sanphet, a stunning ancient site with three large chedis gracing the entrance. I spent a lot of time here taking a bunch of photos, wishing I could come back at night to see them all lit up. But the thunder started rolling in, so we headed to the covered market in the hopes of waiting out the impending rain.

Wat Phra Si Sanphet
The market had a lot of great stuff but we didn’t want to buy a lot since we were limited with our bags and bikes. We bought some postcards and a couple elephant pillows but figured we could wait until either later that day (if we came across another market) or Phuket to pick up the rest of our souvenirs.
A big windstorm blew through, knocking a bunch of the market trinkets around, but no rain came with it, so we decided to brave the weather and keep moving.
Wat Lokkayasatha
Our next stop was a quick jaunt to Wat Lokkayasatha, the reclining Buddha. That was all it was. A large reclining Buddha. It was really cool, but a little out of the way, and we were getting hungry and thirsty. They had a few shops, maybe to make up for the fact that there wasn’t much to see at this site, so we grabbed some Gatorade and water and browsed the stalls. Most of the stuff was really over-priced and the people weren’t in a bargaining mood, so we left empty-handed.
We then made our way off the main island to Wat Chaiwatthanaram, the most spectacular of all the sites we would visit that day. The grounds were massive and the main prang complex was gorgeous. We had a lot of fun taking self-timed photos here until another couple from the US came along and we took pictures for them. We spent a bit of time wandering the grounds and getting as close as we were allowed to get (a lot of the main complex was roped off), and then the rain started moving in.


Wat Chaiwatthanaram 


We collected our bikes and made our way back to the main island, trying to see if we had time to hit up one last site—but it was another wat located off the main island and could potentially take a long time to find. We got about half way there and decided we wouldn’t have time to make it all the way out there and back in time to freshen up before our sunset tour, so we opted to grab lunch at an air conditioned restaurant in the same area we ate the night before. Our meal was simple, delicious, and Thai, and we were one of the only people in the restaurant (apparently we were eating lunch really late). As soon as we finished we biked the short distance back to our B&B, turned in our bikes, and freshened up for our afternoon boat ride.
On the boat!
The boat tour came with a complimentary tuk-tuk pick-up at our B&B, and our driver was there right at the appointed time. We waved goodbye to Ake, hopped in the tuk-tuk, and went off to other B&B’s in the area to collect other farang, the generic Thai word for white people. The driver collected our money and dropped us off at the pier right next to the local night market we had visited a couple nights prior with our ElephantStay comrades. We jumped into the long boat and got comfortable, along with the Brits, Irish, and German folks who were taking the tour with us. And then off we went!
The boat ride provided a nice breeze and a lovely view of the main island. We got to see the local fishermen at work, young kids playing in the river, and strange beasts, like the monitor lizard, crawling along the shores. We also passed by Sai-Thong, the restaurant we visited the night prior, and got to see what it looks like with the tree growing out of it! Pretty spectacular! 


The tree goes right through the building!
Our first stop was Wat Phanan Choeng, a wat that houses a large gilded Buddha in the main wihan. There was also a lovely shrine to Ganesha, the elephant god that is the remover of obstacles and lord of beginnings, and a large carved jade ship that was very impressive. A little farther along in the complex was a temple with strong Chinese influence, and it was interesting seeing the statues and carvings that were obviously Chinese when we had been surrounded by the Thai influence for a week and a half. 
Ganesha at Wat Phanan Choeng


The Chinese influence
We only had 20 minutes per stop, so we quickly made our way back to the boat and made our way to the next stop: Wat Phutthai Sawan.
We were all a little confused on where to go for this one, as everything seemed really spread out, and our boat guide, seeing our confusion, pointed the way and waved us off. Wat Phutthay Sawan is an active monastery on one end with ruins located at the other end. We quickly glanced around the active monastery, taking fun pictures with the rooster statues that were everywhere, and then hiked over to the ruins.
There were beautiful Buddha images lining the walls of the courtyard and a big, white prang in the middle. A sign for the reclining Buddha pointed in the direction of the prang stairs, so we climbed up and into a dark room. Miriam was nervous about entering so I went in with another person on our tour. I noticed there were strange black things all over the ground that kind of looked like mouse poop, and hearing squeaking coming from the ceiling, I looked up and saw a ton of bats hanging above us. We didn’t last long in there!
Apparently, the sign for the reclining Buddha was actually pointing at a large reclining Buddha located on the other side of the courtyard wall, but having no idea it was there, we never even saw it! Oh well…
Our last stop was at Wat Chaiwatthanaram, where we had visited earlier. The difference now was that we were seeing it at sunset, and it was just as stunning. We spent a little extra time here, watching the sun setting behind the prang and chedis. Absolutely beautiful. 

Wat Chaiwatthanaram at sunset

Our little tour boats
Our tour finished the loop around the island and dropped us back at the local night market, which was just starting to get in full swing. I stopped by the drink stall from the other night and grabbed a Thai milk iced tea, and then we hailed a tuk-tuk, telling him to take us to Tony’s Place. We learned from Katie at ElephantStay that any time you want to go to the street with the bars and restaurants, just tell the drivers to take you to Tony’s Place. They all know where that is and understand it when you say it, so it makes things easier. 


We weren’t sure if we were going to eat there or not, but once we were dropped off, we took a look at the menu and decided to give it a shot. Tony’s Place is an English owned B&B in central Ayutthaya with a restaurant and bar attached to it. After a week and a half of Thai food, Miriam and I were really craving western food, and cheeseburgers and fries were right up our alley. They weren’t the greatest burgers we’ve ever eaten (I think burgers can only be properly done in North America, to be truthfully honest), but they sure hit the spot. And we topped off our meal with watermelon smoothies and sodas.
Once we were done with dinner, we hopped in a tuk-tuk and headed back to Luang Chumni Village to pack up our things. We had a car coming early in the morning to take us to the airport in the Bangkok. It was time for the beach!
Ayutthaya was a beautiful place and definitely worth the visit. Staying a week with the elephants right outside the village was totally the highlight, but biking and boating around the island, visiting ancient ruins, was a spectacular way to finish out our stay there.
I can’t wait to go back—and believe me, I will be back. My elephants are there, after all.