Baking on Bikes to see Buddhas
26th September, Ayutthaya, Thailand
Yesterday evening I hired some bikes from the place over the road from us. We didn't use them at all yesterday, as the main reason for getting them was to use this morning. It has become very clear to us in recent days that site-seeing in the middle of the day is not the wisest of ideas. Firstly, you'll be arriving at places the same time as bus-loads of day-trippers, but more importantly, you lose all enthusiasm for seeing new things when it feels like your retinas are being burned out by the midday sun and your clothes and skin appear to be melting together into some new toxic kind of chemical. There was only one solution for this - an early start!
The theory was that by having the bikes ready, and therefore not having to wait until a hire place opens, we could make it to the various sites we wanted to see early in the day. And indeed, we were on the road just after 8am. The problem was that today, of all days, was markedly hotter than previous days. By the time we reached the first site, Wat Mahathat, we almost felt like calling it a day and leaving it until later. However, we both knew that it could only get hotter and, as such, there would be no way we'd come out again. Ideally, we would have gone there on moped but given my recent hand problems (which has almost completely fixed itself), I was not confident enough that I could handle the throttle and brake correctly, or whether it might cause damage again. So, we both worked those pedals in the early morning sun while both of us went a shade of red very close to the top that Manda had chosen that morning.
We had seen Wat Mahathat during the sunset tour a couple of days ago, but had not gone inside the grounds. Generally speaking, I find that these sites are more interesting viewed from a distance, and a tower never looks so interesting when you are standing at the base of it looking up. In the grounds of Wat Mahathat, though, is something that does warrant a closer look and is worth paying the small entry fee of 30 baht. Throughout the grounds, there are scores of Buddha statues, mostly in a very poor state and almost all of them missing a head. This is probably due to the sacking of the site in ancient times by Burmese invaders. There is one Buddha head to be seen on the site, though, and it's very famous because it has been left to the forces of nature. After the site was destroyed, it was deserted for over 100 years, and the trees took hold. This was the result:
The Lord Buddha's head, surrounded (and cradled) by tree roots.
Given that we had paid for the entrance fee, we walked around the grounds but had little in the way of shade and very soon made our way back to the bicycles. They may take human effort to get them moving, but at least when they are there's a slight breeze to be enjoyed.
We carried on riding towards the western end of the town where Maurice and Wendy had told us we would find another giant reclining Buddha. It was a little tricky to find, surprising given the size of the darn thing, but we eventually found the place, Wat Lokayasutharam; unlike most of the wats, this one was lacking any signage from the main road, or at least in English.
Check out the people by the elbow for scale.
This was the biggest one we'd seen yet at 37 metres long and 8 metres in height, but it had evidently seen better days (despite having been restored as recently as 1989).
We then made our way back, passing Wat Phra Si Sanphet once more. Again, it's a case of 'better viewed from a distance' but we were also thinking "well, as we're here ...". We didn't stay long, maybe 15 minutes - enough time to grab a few photos and fight our way through the crowds of schoolchildren who once again appeared to be taking over the site (although why they should be here in such numbers, and in school uniform, on a Sunday was not exactly clear).
All in, we used the bikes for just under two hours, and were glad to park them back outside our accommodation before cooling off with a fruit shake each. We didn't attempt to go back out on the bikes at all later that day, so I guess we didn't really get our money's worth. But then again, with the sites we'd visited this morning we really had covered pretty much everything that Ayutthaya has to offer. No point in torturing ourselves in the intense heat just to get value-for-money, eh?