Day 23 – 25.10.2016
We headed towards Ayutthaya the seconda capital of Siam after Sukhothai, and once one of the most powerful in Asia with over 1 million residents by AD 1700.
We stopped at a rice field to see how rice is grown, and how it looks like on the actual plant.
Each of the brown little capsules contains one rice corn.
You have to break this hard capsule to reach the rice corn. Crazy to think that each individual grain is one rice corn and how much work this entails.
We reached Ayutthaya, checked into our day room and headed out straight away to another food adventure. We visited a factory that produces Roti Sai Mai, a dish synonymous with the Kingdom of Ayutthaya. It consists of a thin pancake wrapped around delicious, fine strands oft hin-spun cotton candy.
First the mixture that is added to sugar strands is made:
Then this is added to a block of still hot melted sugar. This is then pulled and stretched so long that the sugar turns into fine strands – acting like cotton candy.
To accompany the cotton candy the actual wheat pancakes are made. The combination of this more savoury pancake and the sweet sugar strands are absolutely amazing. I have been eating this for the last couple of days and it is just devine!
Rolling up the strands in the pancake:
Next up was lunch. We had a steaming bowl of guay-tieo-ruea or „boat noodles“. They are called boat noodles as they were served from floating markets from boats back in the days. Today most restaurants have boats with pots in their restaurants on land.
I chose large rice noodles – quite delicious, but you have more of the smaller noodles.
After lunch we went ahead and visitied the first temple. The temple Wat Yai Chai Mongkhon.
Here is a model of this monastery. The monastery was constructed by King U-Thong to accommodate the monks that were ordained by Phra Wanratana Mahathera Burean.
The complex also contains a large reclining buddha.
Here the large chedi.
The entrance to the ordination hall. People purchase little golden leaves and stick them to all the statues to „increase their worth“.
These statues of Buddha represent on day of the week starting with Sunday through to Saturday. According to the day you were born, a certain Buddha image applies to you. If you want to find out what yours means: http://www.phuket101.net/seven-buddha-postures/
There are two additional statues, since there is one special Buddha (far right) that can be used on all days, and the second to last from the right is one for Wednesday night (whereas the Wednesday statue from above was for the daytime.)
My image for Thursday:
“The Meditating Buddha” – Pang Samti
The Thursday Buddha image is sitting in a full lotus position with soles upward and visible, the hands resting in the lap, right above left with all fingers extended, palms upward (the dhyani mudra). After receiving bundles of grass from Sotthiya , he scattered it and made it as seat under the Banyan tree. He made a vow “ Skin , sinew and bone may dry up as they will , my flesh and blood may dry in my body , but without attaining completed enlightenment , I will not leave this seat.” With his strong determination, he achieved enlightenment.
If you were born this day: You are peaceful, calm and honest, likely to be a teacher or in the legal profession. Your lucky day is Sunday and lucky color is orange. Your unlucky day is Saturday and unlucky color is black. Read more at: http://www.phuket101.net/seven-buddha-postures/
There was a very important duel on elephants between Bhurma and Thailand in Ayutthaya.
The image that is display in several temples in Thailand. The story of the enlightment of Buddha. Here the demons come and ask Buddha why he thinks he is worthy of recieving enlightment. He answers because he as received enough merit. To prove his point, the Goddess of nature / mother nature, wrings out her each drop of water representing the merit that the Buddha has achieved. The water from her hair is enough to drown all the enemys and the demons of the Buddha.
The main chedi. (sorry, photography against the sun doesn’t always work...)
You can climb up the chedi.
The Banyan tree is allegedly the tree under which Buddha sat and received enlightment. It is therefore planted at many temples and monasteries and covered in holy cloths.
Next up we headed to Wat Phanan Choeng.
This is quite a rich monastery as a lot of foreigners, especially Chinese come here for worship.
They are currently renovating several parts, and have introduced very large stems used as columns, and even their wooden flooring is quite stunning.
Inside the temple there are 84,000 little holes in the wall, each holding a little display of Buddha.
„Because Sakyamuni Buddha taught in a very personal manner, it is said that he gave 84,000 messages during his lifetime. The number 84,000 is probably arbitrary. However, it is meant to convey the idea that the Buddha exhausted all the possible ways for humanity to reach enlightenment.“
A large statue of the Buddha, decorated with little leaflets of gold (if you look closely you can see the pattern)
It is a special custom to dress the Buddha statues with cloth. You buy a small section of this cloth, and it is said that that brings you luck. (so much so, that there are women selling lottery tickets outside of the temple...!) Then there is a whole ceremony of the „dressing of the Buddha statue“. This process is repeated every 15 minutes on a good day. (No wonder this monastery is rich!)
Here is the reason why so many Chinese come to visit this temple. It is said, that the prince of a Ayutthaya king went to China. Here he found the most beautiful princess. They were in love and chose to get married. The prince returned to Ayutthaya to prepare everything for his fiancee and their wedding. He let her know that she could come (back then by boat). She arrived and the prince had sent someone to collect her. She was sad that the prince hadnt shown up himself to come and get her and so she sent the man the prince had sent away telling him that she would only leave the boat if the prince would come himself. The messenger went back with this message and the prince got frustrated as he was busy and couldn’t come and get her. After all it was just about getting of the boat! He sent the messenger back. After this happen three times, the princess was so frustrated and heartbroken. She couldn’t go back home, it would have been to shameful and obviusly the prince didnt want her. So she committed suicide.
After that the prince was so sad to have lost her that he built her a temple and a statue which you can see below.
Another very precious image of the Buddha.
Onwards we moved to the last temple of today – the Wat Phra Mahathat.
There are many headless Buddhas at Wat Phra Mahathat that were sacked by the Burmese in the 18th century. One head was not taken with the Burmese and was left next to the side of the temple. Now a Banyan tree (Buddhas enlightment tree!) grows next to it, lifting it further and further of the ground and seemingly caressing it.
To find an ornation hall on a temple site you just have to find the slabs of stone like below. 1 slap means a normal ornation hall, two means a royal ornation hall. These slabs are arranged around the actual hall, one at each corner, and one in the North, South, East and West points of the hall.
A lot of the temples are beginning to tilt and collapse. Odd to know that this is a UNESCO site!
Here a model of the site as it would have once looked like.
Back at the hotel it was certainly time to cool off with a swim at the pool!
Before heading off to the overnight train, we had dinner close to the hotel. I still enjoy the site of the electricity poles and lines so far in all the countries I have been to...
Again we shared several dishes to try as many different flavours as possible.
We then headed for the train station and I was already hoping the train wouldn’t be like the one in Vietnam.
This train was a little different. A different kind of spacious and the direction of lieing in the train makes a huge difference in the way you sleep. My only problem was that I was sleeping on the top bunk and that bunk was only secured by two seatbelt straps that came from the ceiling and that acted as a sort of barrier to avoid you falling out. Well. That got me really paranoid in the night, as I like to sleep rolled up in a ball and that means that I would lie right between those straps. So I slept on and off but was surprisingly awake the next morning.
