adventures in Ayutthaya & Lopburri

    Just three weeks into living in Bangkok and two weeks into teaching, we were rewarded with a long weekend. Thai's hold their monarchy in very high regard, and as such the Queen and King's birthday are what designate Mother and Father's day. They are also a national holidays... I can and did get on board with that.

I think this is a good time for a mother/grandmother/godmother shout out...  Mom, Nanny and Colleen - Happy belated Thai Mother's Day! I'm blessed to have such amazingly strong women in my life and I miss you all dearly!!

Mom, Nanny & I on Canadian Mother's Day 2012

    Expats are wanderlusts so it wasn't difficult to get a group together and head north for a couple days to celebrate the holiday properly. After school on Friday, Kels and I headed out with two other teachers  to check out the ancient capital and location of the former Siamese kingdom, Ayutthaya. We spent the night Friday and most of Saturday there, and then continued on to Lopburri  for the night Saturday and Sunday morning.

You can see Ayutthaya north of Bangkok, but Lopburri's
too small to be included on the map - We covered it pretty well
on foot Sunday morning. Worth the trip to see
the Land of the Monkeys!

    For a history geek, this trip was heaven. Both locations have ancient ruins scattered amongst and across the city, buildings and temples that were nearly annihilated during the 18th century Burmese invasion. Half-standing structures and decimated statues symbolize the destruction (burning, bombings, ransacking) and terror (mass murders, rape and enslavement) the invasion brought upon the city and its people. A particularly striking characteristic of the temple grounds were the beheaded statues of Buddha, a tragic target of the Burmese soldiers who knew how deeply religious the Thai people were, and still are today.

Beheaded Buddhas

Love this picture with the roomie.

Seeing a historical landmark in person that I recognize from various
textbooks/online articles took my breath away.

    For anyone who has studied history or is simply a historical enthusiast, this may seem par for the course when it comes to wars, even in modern times. However, as someone who grew up in Canada (a young nation with a short history) and has done almost zilch traveling in my life (its embarrassing, really) being able to visit the grounds where these types of atrocities took place was a phenomenal experience.

    Plus, in Ayutthaya, there were elephants. In Lopburri, monkeys. Everywhere.

Dumbo?

Watch out for elephant dung, you won't get rid of
the stench for the  rest of the bike trip.
This was probably a dangerous picture to take
while biking, but sooo worth it.

Jumanji!

    Double plus, this trip was CHEAP. From the onset, we all pooled 1000 baht ($30) with one of the trip-goers. He was responsible for paying for transportation, meals and lodging from this collection, so that we wouldn't all have to be searching for our wallets constantly and splitting bills wasn't always a hassle. $120 covered:

1. Four 3rd class (no air con but open windows and fans, wooden seats, many stops along the way as locals use the train for their commute) train tickets to Ayutthaya from Bangkok (15 baht/ticket = 40ish cents)
2. Four 3rd class train tickets to Lopburri from Ayutthaya (12 baht/ticket = 35ish cents)
3. All of our meals. All of them. We ate breakfast and dinner together and snacked throughout the day.
4. Hour-long cab ride to see the Ayutthaya grounds at night - all of the buildings are lit up (I *think* it was 400 baht for the trip total)
5. Two nights in hotels for four people (2/room, no air con but a fan, each room was 250 baht = $7). They weren't the Hilton but they were clean and protected us from monkeys.
6. Four bike rentals for a day (40 baht/bike = $1.33)

    We paid for our own snacks, water, alcohol, and any other necessities we found out we needed (always bring your own toilet paper and soap. Full bath towels are for the highly maintenanced, but a hand towel at least is recommended), and for our last train ride back to Bangkok, we decided to spring on 2nd class tickets (comfy seats, leg room, air con) for 154 baht or $5.13 each.

Kelsey, Justin and one of the Ayutthaya temples seen on
our night tour - This is a favourite shot of mine.

Floating in market in Ayutthaya that we
checked out before we headed to Lopburri.

    And that was my first Thailand travel adventure! But certainly not the last. Pay day comes at the end of the month (Thank. Christ. Moving overseas is expensive. Write that tip down so you don't forget it). Another long weekend coming up in the next few weeks and a week break in October... Stay tuned kids.

 


PS - Getting home Sunday afternoon of a long weekend means you can still head out for some more Bangkok evening adventures...

Khoasan road, popular with backpacking tourists.

<3

A few new friends. Plus the guy on the right... I have no idea who that is.

Don't ask me what the song was.

worst blogger ever.

     I know, I know. My blogging of late has been less-than-stellar. In teacher talk, you could say that I'm not meeting expectations. We did just get our internet set up in our new place, and by the end of the day I will have finished my first full week of teaching. A yeah wah hoooooo.

   This post is just to offer my apologies and to get out my excitement about being Ayutthaya (an ancient capital north of Bangkok)-bound for some Temple exploration this weekend. Monday is the Queen's birthday, and it is celebrated as Mother's Day and a National Holiday in Thailand. Two days of travel, one to finally wrap my head around my courses' syllabi...

   So hopefully some more posts soon about our trip, how the new job is and the like. 

    Oh and a quick note- If you're friends with me on Facebook I finally posted our new mailing address... My eternal love to those that send me postcards! They're good decoration for a Geography classroom!

Temples in Ayutthaya