Ayutthaya ruins for 300 Baht, please!

I have the luxury of NOT having class on Mondays, so Steve, Josh, and I took a day trip to Ayutthaya (an ancient city in Thailand, now a popular tourist attraction). The train ride cost us only 15 Baht (thats $0.46), but it was clearly 3rd class with no air conditioning and open windows (which I wanted to hang out of and take pictures, but the train was a bit too crowded to do so). Below is a picture of the train station in Bangkok (it took us an hour and a half to walk to the ferry, take the ferry, walk to the train station), so we caught a train at 11:20.

Here is an example of the typical train ride. Many people are sitting on the floor, some are standing, and the lucky ones have a seat. The windows are open and the train bumps and rattles and screeches, etc. I wouldnt equate this to an amtrak experience. Although, we did not hit a parked truck, so I can say that this train ride was better than my last one. Anyways, we get there around 1:00pm and try to follow the direction of the tourists. We dont want to get a tuk-tuk (3 wheeled vehicle, very popular in Thailand) at the train station because we assume they will be overpriced. So we walk. with  no idea where we are going. The boys are quite okay with doing this, as am I (for a SHORT time). They call me mom cause I try to make sure everyone is as prepared as they can be, and I like the term of endearment. So being the Mom... I go into a hotel and ask for directions and he gives me a map... EVEN BETTER! We are stoked to finally know where we are going, and so we walk more. We see this tuk-tuk on the side of the road, and he agrees to take us around for the day and show us many of the sights to see in Ayutthaya. All of this for 700 baht ($7.00 each). He first takes us to eat.

I get a dish that looks like pad Thai (it was titled shrimp fried noodle). It is pretty good, but I would have liked it to be a bit spicier. No worries though. The boys got a mangostene drink and were sourly disappointed (no pun intended). I let them finish my coke as a great act of kindness, because I think they were in actual pain.

Now we head to a wat. Our first wat in Ayutthaya. We see the reclining buddha. the second of many reclining buddhas I expect to see in Thailand. I have read that a reclining buddha is about to die and enter nirvana. I plan on learning a lot more about Buddhism while I am here, but we did not have a buddhist tour guide who was fluent in English, so we basically stood in awe of the beauty of Ayutthaya all day, without any knowledge background.

This is the view from the top of the stupa (or chedi, if you are Thai). Stupas are round, mound like structures containing Buddha relics (you can see two other large ones in the left corner of the photograph). These are EVERYWHERE in Thailand. To the point where I say, oh theres just another chedi (pronounced Keddy if youre interested). You can see the back of Buddhas head also in the left portion of the photograph). All the yellow structures at the bottom of the chedi are lots and lots of buddhas in the seated position. This position represents the time when Buddha was about to obtain his enlightenment.

Yours Truly. See how steep the steps are to these chedis? The viewing tower is only about half way up the chedi, and this particular one was the tallest chedi on this side of the river.  Wat Yai Chaimongkhon was a great find, but it was only the beginning!

more ruins, at the second wat. There are seven different types of chedis, so pretty much anything that is round and points to the sky (or cleary did point at one time in history) is a chedi. Im a natural born climber (I like to scale things), so playing on the ruins was one of the best parts of my day. It is disrespectful to climb certain things in the ruins, but we tried to be mindful of the buddha's feelings.

Steve and Josh like to take unplanned pictures (which clearly look planned to me). Sometimes they turn out quite nicely.

Look at this awesome tree! There is a buddha head carved right into the trunks! You can click on the picture to see it on a page by itself, then you can zoom in on the picture to get a better look. Quite an interesting sight :] The next place we went...

Hello Mr. elephant! Wow, it was awesome to see these guys all up close and personal! They were giving out elephant rides, but for a steep price (at least when you think in Thailand money and not in $$), so we decided to save the ride for another day. Ive got some more sweet pictures, and Ill post a picture of me with the backside of an elephant, just for a size comparison.

Notice that he is just walking around, oh it's no big deal, an elephant just crossed the street... oh my goodness I was going crazy. Thats probably the most excited Steve and Josh have ever seen me... even though I do get pretty darn excited about grilled cheeses.

Baby elephants are now my absolute favorite! hands down. It was really hairy, and I wasnt expecting that. Thanks to the smart kids who said... well duh they are mammals... but honestly, do you think of hair when you see an elephant? If you zoom in on this picture you can definitely see all the hair.

haha! this is awesome... he looks so happy :]

I look super excited. That is corn that I am feeding the elephant.

Ill post a video below, hope you enjoy!

Feeding an elephant

More ruins. Can you image what must have stood here long ago? I wish I could have seen it, the grounds looked beautiful.

Ruins and flowers. great stuff!

extra large buddha. This one is bigger than the one earlier in this post, but still smaller than the reclining buddha at Wat Pho that I visited last week. They just have a thing for big buddhas around here.

Wow! Our guide definitely saved the best place for last. The sunset made this place look amazing. Truly amazing!

There is the river behind this one! Id love to take a river cruise all the way down the Chao Praya river, it would take me all the way through Thailand, and it could drop me off at my university!

Then sings my soul, my Savior, God, to Thee
How great Thou art, How great Thou art!

on the way back to the train station, in our Tuk-Tuk. Seems pretty comfy and cozy, right? Even I bumped my head a couple of times!

Here is our Tuk-Tuk driver with Steve (left) and Josh (middle) in front of the tuk-tuk and the train station. It was a great day, and I would have loved for so many people back at home to have seen the awesome ruins of Ayutthaya with me. Love!