| Submitted by: Evelyn C. LeeperUnited States |
| Submission Date: 09 February 2005 |
|
 |
|
She was carrying her
plate and the food looked good, so we pointed to that and signaled
'Three!' Success! We're still not sure if it was beef or pork, but
it was good. With sodas (Coke, Pepsi, and Sprite are cross-lingual
names), it cost us 18B (US$0.72) for dinner!
We walked around a bit more, then Mark and Steve decided they
wanted squid on a stick, which we had seen being cooked at the
entrance to the market. We couldn't find any anywhere else, so we
returned there. The squid, dipped in hot sauce, was 3B ($US0.12)
for a skewer of three squid. Sodas were also 3B, but since this was
take-away food and the bottles were the deposit kind, they served
the sodas in a small plastic bag with a straw. My bottle opener
came in handy here--the woman selling sodas had broken hers and was
trying to find another vendor who had one when I pulled mine out.
When the time came to leave we flagged down a taxi, but
couldn't make our destination understood. Even showing the hotel's
card didn't help. We tried another one. This one seemed to
understand. We had thought of taking two taxis, but no one wanted
to chance finding another taxi driver this far out of the tourist
area who would understand them, so we all piled in. It turned our
the driver understood Banglamphoo rather than the hotel name, but at
least we got within a few blocks rather than ten miles away.
After we got back I suggested we create a common money fund for
things we split evenly, such as taxis and meals. (I had read about
other people doing this on their travels.) This saves having to
collect small amounts from people many times a day. We each threw
in 200B and appointed Steve the keeper of the common fund. This
turned out to work out very well, with only a few minor difficulties
if people thought that items split evenly shouldn't be (sometimes
this happened with meals, for example).
October 15, 1990: Today Steve, Mark, and I went on an all-day
tour of Ayutthaya. Ayutthaya was the former capital, but when it
was sacked by the Burmese in 1763, the capital was moved to Bangkok.
(Though Thailand was the only Southeast Asian country to avoid being
under control of one European country or another during its history,
it was regularly invaded by the Burmese and the Cambodians, usually
in alternate centuries.) The full-day tour offered by the hotel at
550B (US$22) (including lunch) seemed to cover most of what we
wanted to see and we decided that we would rather have a guide than
do it on our own.
This, it turned out, was a wise decision since Ayutthaya is
spread out over a large area. Just getting very place to place
would have occupied most of our effort and we probably wouldn't have
been able to see as much. (This is in contrast to the New
Territories, where the getting around was part of the experience;
here the getting around was of minimal interest compared with the
sites themselves.)
On our bus were an Australian family and a New Mexico couple.
The former were in Bangkok for their fourth time in fifteen years
and were on their way ti the floating market tour, which they've
taken each time. According to the books, however, the floating
market in Bangkok is only for tourists these days--one claims it
hires little old Thai ladies to pretend to shop there! (Everything
I said about Umberto Eco's TRAVELS IN HYPERREALITY comes flooding
back here.) The real floating market is quite a ways up-river and
we haven't the time to get to it. The Australian woman also said
that English was far more common in Malaysia than in Thailand. This
was a relief as we had been expecting it the other way around. In
any case, Malaysian is written with the Roman alphabet and is *not*
a tonal language, so our phrasebook for that might be more useful
than our Thai phrasebook.
After dropping the Australians off, it was an hour and a half
to Ayutthaya. The day was overcast and a bit cooler than previous
days.
Our first stop was Wat Yai Chai Mongkol, a large, partially
ruined complex often featured in pictures for its long rows of
Buddha statues. The topless structures remaining reminded me of
Chichen Itza, and especially of El Caracol. But the ruins in
Ayutthaya were never actually deserted the way Chichen Itza was.
Even now, throughout the grounds are small signs with sayings of
Buddha (e.g., 'Contentment is the greatest wealth.'). You know that
the signs in English were not left over from before the sacking!
More likely they are put up and maintained by the monks who live in
the monastery adjoining the ruins.
The main structure here is a giant chedi up which one can
climb. We did this, but when we got to the top I got very dizzy and
had to sit down and rest. It wasn't vertigo--in fact, it came upon
me in a room at the top which didn't even open onto anything that
would show its height--but a combination of too much heat and not
enough food at breakfast (I've never been a big breakfast eater).
While the others walked around the top, I sat and regained my
strength and thought that here was another good reason for not doing
this on our own.
After descending (slowly) and seeing the remaining area, we
returned to the mini-van by way of the vendors, where I bought a can
of Sponsor, an 'electrolyte beverage.' They also had Gatorade, but
even in my weakened state I opted for the more exotic.
This first stop seemed somewhat empty, but gradually more
people (in tour buses) started arriving. I guess we just got there
early. It must be a popular tourist spot though--there were lots of
vendors around. Everyone has to make a living, of course, but one
of the annoyances of travel is the persistence of the vendors around
famous sights. Binayak says this doesn't bother him, but I think
it's quite possible that we, as obvious Westerners, are approached
more than he is. On the other hand, people wanting to strike up
conversations seem to find him more approachable, again because he
looks less foreign than we do.
Our next stop, after a fair amount of driving, was Trai Rata
Nayok, a more recent temple with a giant Buddha statue reaching
almost to the ceiling. It was as though the builders of the temple
wanted to conserve materials and so made the building just large
enough.
For a change of pace, we next saw a reclining Buddha. All the
Buddha statues in Ayutthaya seem to be either reclining or in the
'calling the earth' mudra; I suppose this is representative of the
period or of the area. This Buddha statue was in a very pastoral
setting. In fact, one book claims that sometimes cattle are grazing
in front of it, but we didn't see that.
Next was Viharn Pra Mongkol Bopit, with another large Buddha
statue. In fact, this one is the largest in Thailand, but again it
is housed in a temple just barely high enough. We arrived as they
were changing the robes on the statue. Not all statues have robes,
but people can gain merit by making a contribution to dress the
statue in saffron robes for some period of time. The statue was so
large the attendants needed to use ropes to haul the robes on and
off.
In walking around the temple I saw someone putting out an
offering. Normally people bring small offerings: a few flowers or
something like that. This one was more elaborate and had fruit,
pastries, soy milk, and two cans of Pepsi! There is something
incongruous about that, no matter how you look at it.
Our last stop before lunch was Wat Pra Ram, Ayutthaya's oldest
temple. Built in 1369, this is in the Cambodian or Khmer style with
a prang surmounting the main structure. (A prang is somewhat like a
chedi, only not tapered. There is a lot more that can be said about
Buddhist temple architecture but, as I said, I won't do it here.)
This wat, unlike the others, is abandoned and gives one more the
feeling of a lost civilization than the others. This is, of course,
an erroneous feeling; unlike the ancient ruins of the Americas or
other places, these don't represent a civilization that collapsed
but are merely an earlier stage of the current culture.
One thing that struck me in the temple was the universality of
ritual and sacrifice. All cultures seem to have them, though
perhaps 'offering' is a better word than 'sacrifice.' I'm sure many
people have already observed this and analyzed it, but I just noted
something compelling in all this, something that pulls the onlooker
in. Even in Scandinavia, there was something magnetic about hearing
about Viking rituals and religion. I suppose that us how many cults
get their followers--the draw of the ritual overcomes the rational
analysis.
Lunch was at a floating restaurant. Well, semi-floating--it
had part on land but some tables were on a boat moored there. We
ate on the boat and watched the river traffic go by. We had
expected a fairly mediocre lunch as part of this tour, but it was
actually pretty good. Food hasn't been a problem on this trip--
we've liked everything.
After lunch came the Bang Pa-In Palace, built by Rama V in an
odd mixture of European, Thai, and Chinese styles. It's not of
great historical interest, I suppose, but with its trees and ponds
it makes a nice place to relax after walking around Ayutthaya in the
heat. If it had been ten degrees cooler I would have regretted not
seeing more ruins. As it was, I was not greatly upset.
Rama V, by the way, is Chulalongkorn, best know to Americans as
the son of the King in THE KING AND I. Rama IV is Yul Brynner, so
to speak (or Rex Harrison if you prefer the stage version). THE
KING AND I is not popular in Thailand. I gather that the only
accurate part of it is that Rama IV did enlist an English teacher
for his children. Chulalongkorn's incorporation of Western
architecture and art into Ba Pa-In can probably be attributed to the
influence of this teacher. His adoption of Western ways and his
introduction of them into Thailand is probably one reason why
Thailand was not colonized the way its more 'backward' (at least by
ethnocentric European standards) neighbors were.
We returned to Bangkok, hitting more rush-hour traffic. There
was a brief stop at a lapidary, but no one was interested enough to
get out. (I had almost thought we had gotten a tour without a
scheduled shopping opportunity. This one was ill-planned by the
tour company, though--as the last stop and within a few minutes of
our hotel, it was something we could all plead exhaustion or the
lateness of the hour on. That would have been difficult earlier in
the day.)
Upon our return we ascertained that Barbara and Binayak had
been successful in getting us tickets for the sleeper to Trang at
542B each (US$22). Dinner was at the Grand Guest House, where we
had lunch the first day. (We tried for a vegetarian restaurant
mentioned in one of the books, but it was no longer in business. No
big surprise, I guess--this seems to be a trend on this trip.)
Afterwards we strolled around and did some more shopping. I
wanted to get a cotton shirt but all they had were large ones. Even
knowing they'd probably shrink didn't encourage me--with my luck
they'd shrink crooked.
October 16, 1990: Breakfast was muesli with fruit and yogurt.
This has been breakfast for at least one of us every morning--I've
nicknamed this the 'Magical Muesli Tour' of Southeast Asia. |
|
| Copyright © - "Evelyn C. Leeper" |
|
 |
| Other travelogues by the same author: |
|
|
|
