Ayutthaya, Thailand by day

I must have been more tired than I thought as I woke up after ten and by the time I had had breakfast, sorted out myself for the day ahead the morning was already over and I had only the afternoon and evening left to occupy before I could check my mail and find out what time I should be meeting my other Thai friend C' tomorrow.

I had heard a lot of stories about the floating market at Damnoen Saduak, and so when I passed the hotels tour desk and saw that they did a day tour being a trip to the market and a trip to Ayutthaya in the same day I thought that this would be a good thing to book for tomorrow, however when I asked about it the clerk was a little hesitant to book for tomorrow as they were still taking trips for this afternoon and as I was travelling single they might not be able to book a trip solely for me.

Debating to just walk away or not I asked what trips they were still taking for today only to find it was the same trip I had asked about except without the floating market, which was only an hours shopping trip anyway and it took longer to get there or get back than I would be spending there, so although I still wanted to go I thought I could split it up and go myself another time to the market.

Ayutthaya is just north of Bangkok and was a place of worship and former capital of Siam before being beseiged, looted and finally burned by the Bermese a few hundred years ago, never really recovering and instead became a sort of abandoned shrine of the past but with plenty of architecture and buildings that are of the Khmer origin.

In fact it is like a very mini Ankor Wat, which does not come as a surprise once I found out that indeed it was the same race of people who built them both and it was only through the later intervention of the French occupation and final shifted of the national borders which meant that Ankor Wat itself is not still inside Thailand.

Unlike the gleaming renovated red, blue and gold of the big temples in modern Bangkok this area seems far older, as it is full of plane stone sculptures, large open brick faced temples and trees growing up all through and around the courtyard, making it look vastly more naturally beautiful to my eyes.

When the Burmese ransacked the city they did not leave much standing in tact, but what to my mind was far worse was when modern day trophy hunters came and decapitated most of the buddha statues, selling off the heads to wealthy collectors or for general sale in blackmarket auctions to the highest bidder. Such was its fate that now it is foridden to enter beyond the outer walls after dark, despite much of the taller structures being lit by colourful floodlights between the dusk hours of 7pm to 9pm.

Thus, despite not including the floating market, this trip appealed very much to me and so for 1,500 baht I eagerly signed up and was not a moment too soon as my air conditioned minivan arrived to collect me no more than five minutes later before meeting up with two sweet Czech ladies who were just on a minor holiday together away from their hunbands and kids who currently were living and working in Shanghai.

The trip out to Ayutthaya was around an little over an hour and I was very glad to see that our guide did not try and take us to any factory or market place en route to the old city, but instead just let us talk between ourselves for the most part and then every once in awhile he would turn round and drop a little more history and culture into the conversation.

What was even more of a relief was that despite there being plenty of modern Bangkok style temples in the area that they could have tried to send up to, he listened to the fact that all of us were all 'templed out' and were only interested in the oldest ruined areas of the city and it was these that he took us to and gave only once did he rush us from one to the next before allowing us to settle in and set out own time schedule of how long each stop would last.

Just when I was beginning to get a little peckish I found out that we were about to take an hour long boat ride all around the ring of rivers, which pretty much made an island out of central Ayutthaya, and that immediately afterwards we would be having lunch overlooking the riverbanks.