Cecile and I hooked up with a group tour of 16 people with Overseas Adventures (OAT) in Bangkok. Our ever joyful and passionate tour guide Lin, is from Chiang Mai. We are currently staying at the Evergreen Laurel Hotel. This morning after breakfast we travelled north of Bangkok, past fields of rice and coconut palms to the ruins of the ancient city of Ayutthaya. It was a kingdom of enormous wealth that existed from 1350-1767. The name means “undefeatable,” in Sanskrit. That all changed when the Burmese army reduced it to rubble and made off with more than 170 kilos of gold. Only a few temples survived the attack and the rest are remnants of its former glory that are preserved at Ayutthaya Historical Park, that has been designated a Unesco World Heritage site. Ironically, even in its brokenness it has an ephemeral beauty and peace about it. We saw the stone head of a Buddha ensconced firmly in the roots of a Bodhi tree and Buddha statues that were cut in half as modern day looters searched for more gold artifacts that is believed to be still hidden within statues. In the area there were elephant taxis which is a controversial subject these days as animal rights groups claim in order to make it possible for people to ride elephants they have to be trained and the taming process is not the same as with a wild horse, it is much more brutal and needs to be done when the elephants are very young.
After getting back to the hotel we rested up, enjoyed dinner outdoors at a local Thai Restaurant near the hotel.
