February 16
The next day of Bangkok sightseeing was actually outside of Bangkok; we did an organized tour of the Royal Family’s Summer Palace and the ruins of Ayutthaya, both about an hour out of the city.
The Summer Palace, now seldom used by the Royal Family, is a hodgepodge of traditional Thai and 19th century French. Ramas IV and V were very enamored of European culture (in fact, most of the kings since have spent large chunks of their youth in Europe or the US) and rebuilt most of the grounds like a European palace. The exception is the Chinese Palace, which was built by the Chinese emperor as a gift to the Thai king. My favorite part: the Chinese Palace, like most Thai buildings, has a shrine outside built to look similar to the main buildings. So I snapped some shots of it. It was only days later that I realized that, when I zoomed way, way in, the shrine was inhabited by Precious Moments dolls. Awesome.
We then headed to Ayutthaya which was the capital of Thailand before it was sacked by the Burmese in the 18th century. The Burmese did a pretty good job of it, too, but there are some interesting ruins all over the town. We turned onto one street and saw a 30 foot chedi (Buddhist burial monument) seemingly in someone’s yard.
As I mentioned, we did this through an organized tour. So we were up by 6 to meet the bus and were schlepped around in a group of about 25. It was amazing how Maura and I instantly became soooo lazy. It was if we had instantly reverted to our junior high selves. We were hot, we were tired, we couldn’t understand the guide, he talked too much. We could barely keep ourselves upright and moving forward. It wasn’t any hotter than the day before when we happily raced through the streets of Bangkok, but something was definitely different. Mob mentality. Another reason not to do organized tours.
However, one reason to do organized tours is this: after touring the ruins, we drove to the river and had lunch on our river cruise back to Bangkok. It was a lovely way to spend the afternoon. We also got to see a slice of Thai river life, as many Thais build their houses along the river, much like the floating villages in Vietnam. I can only imagine how it goes in those houses during the rainy season.
Note about flooding.
We were in Thailand during the cool, dry season, so there wasn’t much rain to speak of. One our last afternoon in Bangkok, however, the skies opened up and released their furies for about 15 minutes. It lightened up soon after and then gently rained for maybe another 15 minutes. Of course, during the downpour was exactly the moment we wanted to go to eat, typs, which was a 15 minute walk from the hotel. Since we didn’t want to get drenched, we took a cab. Though since the streets in Bangkok are so wacky and disconnected, we had to go about a mile out of the way and, since the traffic was so bad, it still took 15 minutes. Point of all this is: even after such a brief rain, there was at least 3 to 6 inches of standing water on the street. Traffic came to a near standstill. So I wonder, what happens during the rainy season? The city must shut down!
