Exploring Ayuthaya...

Ayuthaya is a historical town located 80 km from Bangkok and is very well known for ancient buddhist temples. We were hoping that we would get a chance to visit the place inspite of pretty busy schedule at work. Finally, today we didn't have much to do and so all of us (myself, Faisal, Lisa and Harvey) decided to take the one day Ayuthaya tour. The plan was to reach the place by road, see all the sites and take a boat ride back to Bangkok. Our tour guide was a pretty enthusiastic guy who gave a pretty detailed description of the past history of thailand and went to great lengths to describe how evil the burmese army was when they invaded thailand. The city apprently was the capital of thailand and has a long history dating back to the 13th century.



We reached Ayuthaya by bus in a little over one hour and our first stop was a buddhist temple (of course!!). The temple had a huge renovated buddha statue. Unlike the 'Reclining Buddha' in Bangkok, its buddha in a traditional meditating posture here..We walked around the temple ruins for a while and were ready to go to the next site. The real attraction of the place is another temple complex which is a UNESCO world heritage site with literally dozens of buddha images lined up..There were also two huge buddha statues on both sides of the entrance of the main temple. Since the statues were not renovated, it gave a more authentic look than the other buddha statues that we had seen so far. It almost seems like its Buddha everywhere in this place..Every direction you turn there is one more Buddha statue..Compare this with indian temples filled with statues of every imaginable creatures, gods, goddesses, demons etc...We spent well over an hour in the site and finally got back to join the group.





Our next stop was the King's palace which is the official residence of the king of thailand. Since the place is pretty big, they give out golf carts on rent for people who are lazy to walk..Since we fell under the category of people who were lazy to walk, we hired a cart and since Harvey had quite a lot of experience with them, he readily agreed to take the responsibility of driving us around. They gave us a map of the whole place which had numerous small places of interest marked on it. We followed the other carts and pretty much stopped wherever they stopped. After hanging out for a few minutes and the inevitable round of taking pictures, we moved on..Personally, I wasn't really impressed with the palace. Actually, the fact of the matter is that I am not a big fan of royal palaces. I am neither interested nor curious to know where a king eats or what kind of plates or spoons he uses. So I gave a very cursory look at some of the rooms and walked out. Much of the palace area had small european style statues on every corner of the roads. One of the notable things in the palace is the floating building in the middle of a small artificial pond. There is also a chinese hall that is popular among the tourists who visit the place. The building is bright red in colour and had a lot of signs posted inside preventing any tourist from taking pictures.









Our return back to bangkok was on a boat (i am not sure if it should be called a ferry or a boat) and it was quite enjoyable..The trip takes about 3 hrs and you would get to see countless temples pass by on both sides of the river. Most of the temples have similar layout and architecture and once you see a few of them, I guess you've seem them all. We also got to enjoy the buffet lunch on board the ferry on our way back to Bangkok.

Trip to the temple complex

Today is the first day where i got a chance to explore Bangkok..Having had to work all week long without any chance of doing anything else left me wondering if this is the kind of travel that i really wanted to do!!!

Harvey was pretty enthusiastic about showing me around the temple complex in bangkok although he had already been there once during his earlier trips..Our plan was to reach the nearest place from our hotel where we could catch a boat ride to the Temple complex area..We hoped to spend our day exploring the no.1 tourist spot in the city and then return back..As per plan, we took a taxi to the Sheraton hotel area which is where we could get into a boat. The river Chao phreya runs through the city and there are boats used by locals to get from one part of the city to another. Boats are one of the options available and they surprisingly cheap..We came to know that a boat trip from the hotel area to temple complex would cost us 10 baht (about 0.25$)..There are a couple of types of boats that you could take; the regular ones or the express boats; We took the express boat to the Wat Pho temple complex.
The boats are typically packed with tourists and the locals and the ride itslef is amazing..There are beautiful buddhist temples lined up on both sides of the river and they get better and better as the boat approaches the Wat Pho area..The boat stops a couple of blocks from the temple complex. We decided to walk that little distance inspite of a lot of taxi drivers offering us a drive to the place..On our way we encountered a guy who was trying to con us into thinking that today is a holiday at the temple complex and he has some other good "suggestions" to spend our time. Since we had already heard of these scams (and I happen to be from a country where these scams are not too uncommon either), we just walked not even bothering to stop and listen to him.





I have to say that I was simply spell bound by the first sight of the Wat Pho temple. It is covered with a beautiful gold coloured lining which was glittering in the sun. The beauty of the whole complex is mind-boggling and left me wondering which direction to look at. Every turn you take, you would find something that catches your attention. There were scores of tourists happily clicking their cameras away at every sight. Most of the structures on the complex had nicely decorated spires. We walked around the place for a hour or so and frankly i couldn't get enough of that place..I could've spent the whole day there without going anywhere.













Our next stop is the 'Temple of recling Buddha' which is also in the same complex. We walked around the complex and reached the temple in few minutes. The temple, as the name suggests, is known for the gigantic buddha statue in reclining posture. The gold-plated Buddha statue is around 50 m long and 15 m high..I've heard about the statue but didn't know that it was so huge. People were walking around the statue (like we do in Hindu temples) and praying at the feet of Buddha..After spending a few minutes in the temple, it was time to move on.





It was afternoon already and the sun was beating down on us. Harvey was sweating like crazy and having seen the place before, he said he can't take the heat anymore and would rather go back and take rest. I bid goodbye to him and told him that I will spend the rest of the day around Wat Arun and come back. Wat Arun is also called the temple of dawn and is probably one of the images that anyone would see on picture postcards of Bangkok. It is on the other side of the river, so I walked around to the ferry station and took the ferry to the other side of the river for a whopping 2 baht (5 US cents). The temple is nothing like i've ever seen before..I guess its the colors and all the other minor details that add up to the beauty of this place when seen from a distance..The temple is actually decorated by small bits of procelain and so is not really appealing when viewed really closely..But from a few feet away the whole appeal of the temple completely changes..I went round and round the temple and took quite a few snaps..After spending a couple of hours, took the ferry back to the hotel.

Walking in the Infamous Patpong street...

I could hardly think of anyone (I guess I should say any single guy!!!) who wouldn't go to Patpong when they are in Bangkok. Patpong is probably one of the top destinations known for its street stalls selling knock off t-shirts and watches..Ok..i will get to the point..its actually more famous for its bars and nightbazaar..The whole area has a couple of streets with a lot of bylanes connecting the streets..As Jerry had been to Bangkok quite a few times, he offered to give me a tour of the place and i readily agreed..The fact that the place itself is in walking distance from the hotel and we go to have our dinner somewhere nearby made it an obvious choice..



We walked on Silom road for a while, the street is filled with shops selling small artifacts and t-shirts mainly aimed at foreigners..not to mention the guys showing pictures to people walking on the street and offering to sell 'special DVDs'. The street is packed with foreigners..in fact you would be hard pressed to find locals on that street..There were people from all nationalities..British, german, french, Russian and americans you name it they are there. From what i could make out, it looks like there are more europeans there than anyone else....We took a turn into the Patpong street and by now my curiosity has reached its peak..In the first look, it seems pretty similar to any other street..There are stalls in the middle of the road and on both sides ofthe road selling similar stuff that you would find on Silom road..But a closer look would reveal the real activity that goes on the street..There are a lot of two storeyed buildings lined up in the street and the entrances to the buildings are typically covered by the shops on the street..But the 'inquisitive' visitors who walk in the little way in between the shops and the buildings will get to see the bars and the nightlife of patpong..All the bars typically have guys waiting outside advertising 'cheap drinks' and trying to attract customers..Additonaly there are quite a few of them who walk up to you trying to sell 'services'. I am going to leave the details of what goes on inside the bars to anyone's imagination..All i can say is that walking in the streets of Patpong is a experience in itself!!! We went into a few bylanes on the street..there seemed to be a seperate street for the rich japanese guys who visit the area..After walking for almost a couple of hours, we returned back to the hotel!!

My first work day

Our workplace is in a town called 'Ayuthaya' which is about 80 km from Bangkok. Since it is so far and is hard for us to get there on a taxi, a seperate van was arranged for all us to get there and back to hotel. Today, it took us almost an hour to reach the office. On the way I noticed that everything here looks so familiar..the traffic, the heat, the fruit sellers, the shops, the paddy fields in the outskirts of the city everything reminds me of home..only a lot cleaner!!One of the things that definitely came to my mind is the weather back in minneapolis..It feels so nice to be in a 95 F weather when you are coming from a -25 F climate..I certainly did feel lucky to have escaped the nearly polar temperatures of that city (I guess I am stretching it a little bit here...:-)). Our lunch was in a local thai restaurant and was just the food that i was hoping to have in thailand..Spicy fried rice with just the right amount of chicken with cashew nuts!!!this is definitely food heaven!!

Arrive in Bangkok

Thailand was always in my list of places to see especially having heard so many stories about the beautiful beaches, amazing buddhist temples and the infamous nightlife. The leonardo di caprio movie 'Beach' only intensified this urge even more. I particulary liked the movie for its beautiful potrayal of Phi Phi islands in Phuket. Its unfortunate, however, that the very same islands depicted as paradise in the movie were devastated by last year's tsunami. I promptly accepted when asked about the possibility of going there on a three week stint..What more could i ask for? I get to go to one of the places I always wanted to visit and also get paid for it!!!

I reached Bangkok by 11:00 in the night and the minute i stepped out of the flight, I knew i would be at home!!! The air was hot and humid andit felt like i just reached mumbai airport..There were quite a few taxi drivers waiting outside the airport eager to pick up arrving travellers..Since I was arriving so late, I had asked the hotel staff to pick me up from airport (I've had a few reallyy bad experiences in mumbai, so thoughtbetter to be safe than sorry!!!). I looked around for the driver that was supposed to pick me up but he was nowhere to be seen..I walked back and forththe arrival area a couple of times not knowing what to do..and finally i saw a guy holding a card with a name that vaguely resembled mine..I wondered if it was possible to mess up my name any further..It took us around 45 mins to reach the hotel.