The mini tour bus picked me up at 6.30 am sharp; by then I had a quick breakfast from ‘The Café’ on the 1st floor.
There was a family from Chicago (Indian guy married to a Thai with a Indo-Thai 5 year old girl and on the way an American couple (didn’t look like they were married) also joined. 15 minutes later we were transferred to a bigger bus already filled with another 20 people. It had a different mix of nationalities. Our guide for the day with a long Thai name had also christened himself as ‘peter’ for the convenience of his tourists.
The bus finally set off for ‘Authaya’ (80 km from Bangkok) the ancient capital of Thailand. Initially it didn’t occur to me that the name must have come from ‘Ayodhya’ since Hinduism (they call it ‘Brahmanism’) has and continues to dominate Thai spirituality. The earlier name ' Siam' and even the name 'Thai' have all origins from Sanskrit.
As Peter started to give an introduction to the Thai Culutre and the iteninary for the day, it was raining outside the bus.
On the way we passed by several temples with multi layered roofs and intricate wood carvings embellished with glass work and gold plated finishes. Every few kilometres these decorated temple roofs were visible; even if you miss one there are plenty on the way as there are over 30,000 temples in Thailand.
In addition to the temples, numerous Stupas were seen in the temple compounds and stand alone ones too. They are called ‘Chedi’ (Spirit House) and is an integral part of Thai culture. The ashes of the dead are parted into 3 (homage to the ‘Thrimurhti’)– one part is stored in an earthern pot in the house , another part is immersed in the sea or river and the third part is kept in a ‘chedi’ – another reminder of the influence of Hinduism. The huge ‘Chedis’ are built for the royal family and the commoners get to buy ready made ones (which are very small in size – around 6 feet tall).
Incidentally the Kings’ sister had died in early January and she is yet to be cremated as her Chedi is being constructed and will be completed only in November. The cremation is set for Nov 14 th to 16th...there will not be any entertainment and thais will be wearing black during those days.
The traffic was less as all schools and universities were closed for semester break. Peter was giving some intresting info about the Bangkok and its past. Around 8000 years ago Bangkok was under the sea and it emerged over the years. As of now 1 km of Bankgkok has gone back under the sea. It’s a precarious situation for a low lying land (just 1m above sea level). Bangkok with a population of 8 million (95% of them Buddhist, 3% Muslims and the rest Hindus and Greek Orthodox Christians) stretching over 15 sq km depends heavily on Tourism and Rice farming (worlds biggest rice exporter). Both were affected with the 1995 floods.
The water never receded completely. On the way most of the land was still holding a lot of water raising its level with the tidal waves. New houses were built on wooden platforms and Peter was narrating how he was out of work during those flood days as Tourism just came to a stand still. The floods affected the Thai economy as the paddy fields were completely destroyed. Also boat trips are often interrupted as the water rises and closes the gap between the water surface and bridge making it impossible for the boats to pass under the bridge.
We reached our first stop – The Bang Pia Palace. It has a summer palace and a winter palace, the latter was built in chineese architecture by the Chineese as a gift to the royals. There’s a small lake that flows around the palace that looked very green and calm with a few venetian bridges criss-crossing them.
It was still drizzling and I loved every moment of that beautiful cool wet morning celebrating thai architecture. There was a look-out tower (called the sages look-out tower) in the middle of the compound that gave us a panoramic view of the Palace and the compound. The green lake snaked the palace surroundings and the green landscape with shrubs trimmed as lions, tigers, elephants and dears.
The next stop was at a temple that was partly destroyed by the Burmese. In the whole of the Thai history looks like the Burmese were the villains. They plundered Thailand several times. On the Burmese invasions, there’s an interesting episode were queen Suriotia (not sure of the spelling) disguised as a man went to war. She was killed by the Burmese king and years later her grandson killed the Burmese king and ousted the Burmese. This has been captured on celluloid and it runs for good 5 hours.
The temple compound had hundreds of Buddha statues and only a handful were not mutilated – complete with limbs and head. The rest were all vandalised arguably by the west (Portuguese, Dutch, and even the Japanese). An Indian toruist from Banglore told me that the Buddha sites in India (Gaya) are well kept and this vandalism for sure has to do with the Europeans. Incidentally Thailand is the only country in South East Asia that was not colonised by the West – mostly since Thailand had able rulers during the 1800s and they also exploited the rivalry between the British and French.
Back to the Buddha statues; the first Buddha statues were Burmese style – well decorated and colourful. Buddha statues over a period metamorphosed from Indian to Thai in physical traits. But still curly hair and big ears are considered lucky in Thailand (of course very rare for a Thai gene to process it).
The temple compound had a few ‘Chedi’s that belonged to the earlier kings and his brothers and their wives. The height of the pillars that ring the ‘chedi’s’ at the top end indicates the positon of the deceased in the royal hierarchy.
We moved on to another temple built in the 14th century and the Golden Buddha statue there is 400 years old. The temple compound also had a few ‘Chedi’s and I climbed the narrow steps to all the way up. At the top there was a small Buddha statue and a few dry flowers and burnt out incense sticks were seen lying there. Coming down was a bit scary. The steps were too small and too steep. May be the steps were accurately measured for a petite Thai feet.
Before getting back to the bus one of the numerous vendors selling Buddha statues and other thai artefacts pulled out a small china saucer with images of Thailand printed at the edges and a photograph of mine sticked in the middle. It was really a surpise and I thought I need to buy it even though she charged me 100 bhats for it – it was a pleasant memorabilia.
Our return from Authaya to Bangkok was via a cruise on the 365 km long Chao Praya river – the longest river in Thailand. It was a 3 hour cruise. There were 2 levels and lunch was served in the first level. The upper level was open and lot of westerners gathered there to bask in the mild sunlight.
The waters were clam. Indonesian hyacinth floated on the waters. It was interesting to know that Thai’s dried these unwanted plants, that block the water and clogging the waste, to make baskets and furniture and then export them to Indonesia – what a profitable revenge. They are also used to make fertilizer and to make flower pots and to grow mushrooms. A good learning for the Allepy Town to clean its backwaters, invent new employment opportunities and cut down on mosquito larva. The Choa Praya river banks constantly erode and get wider due to the incessant sand mining – reminded me of the dying rivers in Kerala for the same reason.
It was a good 3 hour of relaxing after witnessing the remains of the Burmese brutality, vandalised Buddha statues, exquisite temples and Chedi’s, water logged paddy fields and land and the uncompromising Thai spirit of welcoming tourists.
Later in the night I tried fried fish in thai sauce. I cant complain the food is not spicy but some how I guess I don’t really enjoy thai food.