Ayuthaya

This weekend, to celebrate Eid, taher and i went to Ayuthaya. we figured we couldn't spend eid the ideal way- with our family and friends- so we'd celebrate in a very unique way and make this an eid to remember... so we trooped off to the former capital of thailand to see some ruins ;)

ayuthaya is only an hour and a half by bus from bangkok. upon reaching there, we checked into a very cosy, very peaceful little hotel with a large garden. very "let's have tea on the terrace" sort of place. then we hired a tuk-tuk driver (i took a picture of a tuk-tuk which i'll be sending out soon in another album), who drove us around to several of the main ruins of palaces and temples.

these ruins were amazing. immense buddha statues, majestic old wats... everything was huge and sweeping. i had no trouble imagining ayuthaya in its heyday, in the mid-1700's, as the mighty capital of thailand. i felt the history of the place, even at some of the more crumbling ruins- everything was just very grand, very large. none of the teachers i've asked have been to ayuthaya, which taher and i have trouble understanding- not only is it very nearby, but it seems to exude a sense of history. every ruin we visited had such... presence.

we visited wat phra si sanphet, which was a sort of campus of crumbling brick buildings- but the main attraction here were these three massive chedi, or large, bell-shaped structures that rise up into the sky and, when lit up at night, are just begging to be photographed.

we also went to wat mongkhon bophit, which boasts this huge, towering bronze buddha. it reminded me, to some extent, of the lincoln memorial in D.C.- the way the visitors approached its feet and stood looking up at the buddha's face... it was larger-than-life in much the same way.

next was wat phra mahathat, another area with a lot of crumbling brick- but what was very interesting here was an ancient tree, which had a stone buddha's head in it. the roots had grown around the head, making it seem like a tree with a face. it was very old and very mysterious, since the head had once had a body that, for some inexplicable reasons, had simply disappeared.

my favorite, though, was wat yai chai mongkon. This wat, of course, had a huge buddha statue and some ruins and even a massive, white buddha lying on its side- but the best part was, within the courtyard, hundreds of buddha statues in a line encircling the courtyard. each was draped with a saffron cloth over its shoulder and chest, and the image these made, buddha after buddha, all in a line, was breathtaking. each one had a different face; different features, different expressions. the detail was amazing. some were in the attitude of dispelling fear; others preaching; and still others subduing mara.

i loved this trip to ayuthaya- i saw so much that inspired me just by its very enormity and presence. and above all i loved that among all of this stone and brick, orchids. everywhere, orchids. a bright splash of color among the gray.