The ruins of Ayutthaya
Double rooms for less than $5, meals for less than $1, Buddha images everywhere … yeah, it must be Southeast Asia. We’re into day four of our little journey, and after a couple of days in Bangkok sleeping and buying clothes and other things, and generally doing very little, we’re now on the road and back into traveling mode.
Since we want to enter Laos from the north in 7-10 days time, we’ve headed in that direction from Bangkok and our first stop is Ayutthaya, one-and-a-half hours away by train. It’s a sizeable town which in the 16th century was the capital of an empire covering most of modern Thailand. Many relics from this era are still here scattered about the town, so we spent yesterday afternoon and this morning walking around, checking the place out. Every corner or two, you come across Buddhist temple ruins, ranging from single simple stupas to vast and impressive towering complexes. In this way, it’s a little similar to Anaradhapura in Sri Lanka – there are more sites here, but they’re probably less varied.
Needless to say, we’re not really in our usual travel condition after four months of unhealthy eating and not much exercise, so we’re pretty tired after today’s exploration – but that’s half the point, since we’re trying to become fitter as this trip goes on. To that end, we decided on a bit of a whim the day we arrived to become vegetarians for a while, and it’s been pretty easy in the first few days with plenty of pad thai, coconut milk soup and other veggie options readily available.
It’s actually not hot at all today because it’s pretty overcast, and while in general it’s obviously hotter here than in France, so far it’s been nothing like West Africa / Sri Lanka / parts of India, so that’s been a bit of a plus. Mainland Southeast Asia has just come to the end of its rainy season though so it will probably heat up a bit over the course of our time here.
Tomorrow we’ll leave Ayutthaya and head further north to the13th-14th century city of Sukhothai to discover the treasures there, and after that we’re hoping to continue our fitness/exercise campaignby doing a multi-day hike in an isolated, mountain area of western Thailand.
Tags: Asia, Ayutthaya, Buddhism, Southeast Asia, stupas, Thailand, Travel, vegetarian
Nick