Ready to get out of the abyss of foreigners on Kaosan Rd, I threw myself on a bus destined for Ayuthaya, the ancient capital of Thailand. In a swealtering 34 degrees C, I joined a Russian economist on a Tuk Tuk and we were shuttled around the various historical ruins of interest. The most impressive was Wat Chaiwatthanaram, an ancient Buddhist monastery built during the early 17th century. Sergey, the Russian, and I climbed the steep, crumbling steps to the top of the largest structure where we were met by a tall ceiling full of nesting bats that hovered over a shrine. From the top we could see the remnants of the ancient city with temple structures poking up in various places along a vast stretch of land. I think the charm of Ayuthaya is imagining what it must have been like in its heyday, with sparkling gold temples and elephants roaming the streets.
We headed back to our tuk tuk to finish up our brief two hour tour of the city. The driver took us to see a massive reclining Buddha figure. I think I may have been as tall as its hand. Our final stop was Wat Maha That, the most sacred royal temple of Ayuthaya. The most interesting attraction here was a sandstone Buddha head that had somehow become engulfed in the trunk of a large tree, appearing to be a part of the tree itself.
By this time I was getting rather famished, so I decided to head back to the parking lot where there were several food vendors. I decided to purchase what appeared to be a couple of chicken skewers covered in Thai spices. The meat tasted a little strange and after a few bites I decided that it was definitely not chicken. Afraid that I had been eating some kind of household pet, I decided to toss the remainder of my snack. I walked back to my tuk tuk and was approached by one of the taxi drivers waiting in the parking lot. He was trying to tell me something in Thai and began laughing. I finally got what he was trying to communicate after he grabbed his crotch and pointed at the cart where I had purchased the mystery meat. I'm pretty sure I had been eating the testicles of some unfortunate, unknown creature.
Our tour had finished and we were taken to the train station to head back to Bangkok. The platform was crowded with a melange of characters: European and American tourists, Thai monks in bright orange robes, scraggly dogs, and a woman whose face I don't think I will soon forget. The top of her face was wrapped in a scarf; below the scarf she looked like some kind of mangled mummy due to her missing lips, missing nose, and disfigured skin. She looked similar to photos I've seen of Afghan girls whose faces were burnt with acid by the Taliban as punishment for attending school.
With Chang beer in hand, we boarded the noisy, old, rickety train and made our way back to Bangkok. Most of the large windows were down, so the wind provided some relief to the hot, sticky sun that had been beeming down all day. The ride showed a side of Thailand that I had never seen before. We passed by burning fields, factories, and impoverished neighborhoods built along the bank of a canal that paralleled the train tracks. Many of the houses were built on stilts over the rancid looking water. Most were patched together with various pieces of corrugated metal, wooden boards, and sometimes coca-cola signs. Many looked as if they could collapse into the water at any moment. I thought of what it must be like for a kid to grow up in such a place, surrounded by water born disease, leaky roofs, and endless mosquitos.
After a couple of hours, we arrived at the station in Bangkok. Sergey and I exchanged email addresses and he invited me to travel to Cambodia with him in his rental car. He was a nice enough guy, but I didn't really want to spend countless hours traveling with a guy who had been staying in Pattaya, a city with more go-go bars than other place on the planet, for the past three weeks. Besides, I had already bought my bus ticket for Siem Reap that would leave Bangkok the next morning. I headed back to my guest house and tried to sleep through the loud band that was playing in a bar next door. More adventures ahead!
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