Rockin’ the New Year In Ayuthaya–Dec. 31-Jan 1

After spending nearly three weeks on the beaches of Thailand, it was time for Sarah and I to move north again, and we wanted to be sure to hit the ancient former capital city of Ayuthaya on our way.  Ayuthaya is about an hour north of Bangkok, which we reached just before sunrise after a very uncomfortable “VIP” tourist night bus ride–the government buses are much better value but almost impossible to find from the islands.  Anyway, we had a quick breakfast before setting out to find the bus station that services all northern destinations (Bangkok has separtate stations for the North and the South).

Finding the North bus station turnd in to a mini-adventure in itself.  Our cab driver didn’t know where it was and dropped us at the Sky Train station giving u some semblance of a gesture that the bus station was not far away; since it had been pretty obvious that his meter was doctored, we had no problem getting out of the cab.  The only problem was that the Bangkok map wasn’t so good for this area because it isn’t really very touristy, and not many people spoke English here either.  We walked close to a mile in flip-flops and heavy packs in one direction beside a lovely park that we would have liked to hang out in with more time, and then we walked close to another mile in another direction before finally confirming from a combination of directions between Thai-speaking vendors and English-speaking Thai park-goers that we were still…um…a mile away.  Enter cab number two.

Actually, cab number two was a lot more helpful and got us to the very crowded bus terminal with no issues.  Luckily, most of the Thai people were waiting in line to go to other places, and we found ourselves on a “local” bus within 20 minutes.  As far as the local buses have gone for us the past few months, this was luxury–it was about like riding the city bus at home.  As always, the Thai passengers and employees were all very welcoming and helpful, and I found myself actually enjoying sitting on a bus.

Ayuthaya is actually a fairly populated modern city, but we spent most of our time in the smaller “old city” near many of the ancient temples.  After the long night’s travel, we lucked out and got one of the best values for guest houses during our time in Thailand–don’t let the name fool you, the PU Guesthouse didn’t stink!

As I have already mentioned, the main attraction in Ayuthaya (besides trying to figure out how to pronounce its name) is the large array of temples from its heyday between the 13th and 18th century, when it was the most powerful city-state in what is now Thailand.  Like most ancient powers, life here revolved (and still does) around the river, so we decided to combine the two attractions by taking a boat ride to visit the temples…pure genius, I know.

The boat ride itself was a pretty neat experience; we got to see a ton of Thai people fishing from their backyards, doing dishes in the river, or just cooling off with their families in the shade of the trees beside the banks of the water.  The river was still quite swollen from the flooding in November, and debris and water marks left evidence of the flood’s power–it was obvious why all of the houses along the river were built on stilts.

Our longboat tour took us to three temples along the river, two of which are still in use.  One had a 19 m high sitting Buddha, and it was sort of neat to see people changing it’s robes for the New Year; also, Sarah and I kneeled in a monk’s line of fire as he used a whisk and cold water to bless some Buddhists entering the temple, and man, did that guy have a good arm!  The last temple was mostly in ruins, and it was also temporarily closed because of flood damage, but the large number of impressive chedis (the things that look like bells or towers) gave it an impressive silhouette against the waning afternoon sun.

After the boat let us off, we cruised around the night market and sort of snacked our way through dinner before getting lost on the way back because our hotel’s handwritten map had the wrong dock highlighted on it.  Come to think of it, we spent a good deal of New Year’s Eve wandering around unfamiliar streets; good thing we were going to celebrate one block from our guesthouse!

Anyway, we finally found our way back and got a table at the little bar next to our guesthouse.  They were set to have a free buffet and live music, and their family had been really nice when he had eaten lunch there earlier in the day; neither Sarah nor I figured that we would make it until midnight, but we thought that we would at least celebrate a little.  It ended up being a very good decision!

The band was named after its singer, Mr. Nin, who was tall for a Thai man and wore a long ponytail and goatee.  He belted out “Stand By Me” and a couple of Stones songs in his gravelly Thenglish while we sat at a sidewalk table below the countdown clock posted on the roof of the bar. There were a lot of ex-pats showing up, high-fiving and hugging each other between smokes.  There were also a good number of foreign tourists like us and a surprising number of Thai people, considering that the three main budget guesthouses in Ayuthaya were within two blocks of us.  One older Thai man drank a lot of whiskey and danced with all of the waitresses, and a tiny teenage boy who looked a lot like Long Duck Dong from Sixteen Candles (if he were a light-skinned Thai) stood beside me at the bar and gave a hearty giggle for some reason after looking up to see some goofy white dude (me) before he gathered himself and wished me a “happy new rear.”

All kidding aside, it was a great mix of people, and I had a wonderful time taking it all in with Sarah; it was a much needed change to the way that we saw tourists acting around the locals down on the beaches.  Mr. Nin soon gave way to karaoke, and eventually the entire band was beer-bellied ex-pats while Mr. Nin and his band sat in the audience getting paid to drink.  Drunk Dancing Thai Guy began dancing with Long Duck Dong, and a really drunk European guy in a fedora.  Young and old Thai women decked out in pretty dresses also danced but sort of separate from those other three dudes.

It was all so entertaining that we decided to stay, and our new friends from our boat ride, Ross and Bonnie, showed up and joined us–the four of us rang in 2012 together while the party around us grew rowdier, and the little waitress surprised everyone by belting out “These Boots” in a voice that would have raised the eyebrows of both Janis Joplin and Joan Jett together.  At midnight, Sarah and I shared a kiss, people in the street raised their glasses, and then the four of us slept-walked back to the guesthouse.  I will never forget New Year’s at a Thai bar!

After sleeping in a little, we rented bikes and spent the morning riding around to some of the different temples.  Luckily, the temples are pretty close together, and the traffic in this area is not too heavy to make biking a stressful event; on the contrary, we really enjoyed riding around to the wats.

The three wats that we visited were all very old, the oldest being built sometime in the early to mid-1400’s. Mostly in ruins from a combination of war damage and time, they were a stark contrast to the glitzy temples that we had seen in Bangkok and even the day before along the river.  We saw some interesting things, though, such as the Buddha head surrounded by giant tree roots at the second temple, Wat Phra Mahathat, that we visited.  The final temple featured three giant bell-shaped chedis towering over toppled ruins of ancient walls.

On a side note, one thing that is very interesting about Thai people is their insane passion for plastic bags.  If you buy one piece of fruit, for example, you get a plastic bag.  Buy a soda, and you get one bag for the bottle and one bag for the straw; I’m actually pretty sure that you can buy plastic bags that come in their own special plastic bag.  So, we weren’t altogether surprised when we ordered two sodas that the vendor handed to us in plastic cups wrapped in plastic bag holders with handles to keep the cups from sweating on us.  Ingenius, but also bad for the environment; I tried to refuse it on purely moral grounds, but Sarah hit me and stuff, so I drank it with only modest enjoyment.  🙂

After touring several temples (six in two days), we were tired and hot, so we rode our bikes back, stopping at a noodle soup place where no one really spoke English, but they showed us stuff while we shook our heads yes or no.  We ended up having noodle soup with mint, cilantro, some type of meatball that we thoroughly examined before consuming, and some of the most mouth-watering braised pork that I have ever tasted.  It was delicious, fun, and cost less than $3.00 all together!

We spent the rest of the day trying to catch up on stuff while escaping the heat.  Our trip to Ayuthaya had been brief but eventful, and 2012 was off to a great start!  With one week to go in Thailand, we hopped on to our second long night bus in three days and headed up to a very popular city for both Thais and foreignors called Chang Mai.