Day 3

Today started off a little early (6am Thia time) so that we could watch some of Hailey's soccer game before we got on the road.  I put on my Hailey shirt, a nice University of Utah red and was ready to go for the day.  We had Duong call for us, she speaks Thai, on if the Grand Palace was open due to the King's death.  We knew they transported his body from the hospital to the Grand Palace the day before.  Luckily for us Duong pointed out to us that the country was now in a state of mourning and that people were to wear black and white or at least dark colors as a sign of respect.  The colors that should NOT be worn are yellow as that is the King's color and red because that is a color for celebration.  Umm, Thảo and I were both in red, we quickly changed.

LOOK there she is! (gosh I love that headband)

As we went down on the streets to eat some breakfast, it was very apparent that the country was indeed in mourning and that they took the wearing of black and white very seriously as a people.  The few that could not wear black or white due to work uniforms wore a black ribbon as a sign or their respect.  It was amazing to see the unity of the country.  The problem for me was I specifically had chosen not to bring those two colors.  Black is too hot and white is too see through in the rainy season.  We had some blue's and grey's though so we did what we could.  We learned the Grand Palace would be closed for a week, so we changed our plans and decided to go to Ayutthaya, which is the old capital.  We ate and then got our Uber.  Well as soon as he fully realized where we wanted to go he said, no no, I cannot take you there that is outside of Uber's area.  We convinced him to drive us off of Uber's record.  He wanted 1000 baht and us to pay the tolls.  It ended up being about 1200 baht which is about ($35.00) for an hour's drive outside the city.

Jed relaxes for the drive with a little penguin neck pillow the uber driver had while he listens to the BYU game and we watch twitter for updates on Hailey's game.  During that ride she scored her 11th goal of the season!!!!

First stop, sunglasses for Jerame.

I love the beautiful vibrant colors of the temples and trees and flowers.

This place is huge and we are walking today...where do we want to go? 

Construction of the Chedis of what is now named Wat Phra Si Sanphet, started probably during the reign of King Trailok (middle period of Ayuttaya).  The three chedis are one of the landmarks of the Ayuttaya Historical Park.  

The compound was actually located within the Royal Palace grounds.  There were no residing monks, and the temple was used for royal cermonies and for storing royal relics.  The three chedis are believed to keep the ashes of three kings:  King Trailok, King Borom Ratchathirat III, and King Rama Thibodi II, as well as Buddhist relics.

The Viharn at Wat Phra Si Sanphet was built in 1499 by King Rama Thibodi II.  A large Buddha image was housed inside the viharn.  Almost 200 kg of gold was used to cover the image, which was given the name "Phra Si Sanphet".  When the Burmese sacked Ayuttaya in A.D. 1767 the gold was removed by the enemy.  The remains of the Buddha image were later moved to Wat Pho in Bangkok during the reign of Rama I.

He was trying to figure out why fiber optic cable was in this ancient city.

Jed says come on in, they have the A/C on inside.

When the Burmese came and sacked Ayuttaya they went around cutting the heads or arms off the Buddha's.

Just checking out the sights.

New Jerame meets Old Siam.

An unsuspecting Jed meets an angry Jerame who attempts to throw him over the bridge and into the water.  

Here at Ayutthaya the bathroom toilet cost 5 baht to use.  It was kept nice and clean and they had a choice of western toilet or squatters.  Notice the sign, "please take off your shoes".  (They have bathroom shoes for you to put on)

 Wat Phra Ram is a restored ruin located in the historical park of Ayutthaya situated close to the Grand Palace and Wat Phra Sri Sanphet in a swampy area called Bueng Phra Ram.  The monastery was constructed on the cremation site of the first Ayutthayan monach, King Ramathibodi I (1351-1369).

 I thought this tree was way sweet so we stopped to get a picture.  Thảo is in the background off to the left wondering what is taking so long!

Jerame found some more snake heads he liked, so more photos.  As you can tell we like taking pictures.

 We stopped for a frozen treat of a coconut Popsicle.  Glad we decided to share because it had a funky smell/taste to it.  Thảo and Jerame really like it so maybe you can't take Jed' or my word for it.  The price on the side says 12 baht, but Jed wanted to pay 10.  He seemed to agree, but when he gave the change back, it was not the right amount.  We were there for a few minutes as Jed haggled with the guy over the price.  Finally his friend came over and helped him understand better.  I think his friend whispered "look buddy, they are not going to budge, let it go."

 Wat Thammikarat is one of the lesser visited ruins in the ancient Siam capital of Ayutthaya.  It is believed that it actually predates the city of Ayutthaya, with parts of it possibly dating back to the 12 century.  Today it is actually a working temple, and several newer building have been built around the ruins.

This is a picture from the actual working temple at Wat Thammikarat.

 This is a chedi that is surrounded by a large number of lion statues, and the large viharn that still has most of it's walls and several of it's large columns still standing.  Check out the tree that is growing out of one of the walls of the viharn!

The viharn is characterized by it's tall intact columns.  

  

This is inside the viharn.

Amazing beautiful flowers that had fallen off the trees lined the path in back of the viharn. Check out the one behind Jed's ear!

There were A LOT of roosters at this ruin.  It appears that people bring them as offerings.  They also sell them on site so that you can then present them as offerings.  We learned that the Thai King Naresuan was once imprisoned in Burma in the 1500's.  He was alone and had nobody but the chickens to talk to.  Another legend is about a wager between a prince of Ayutthaya and a prince of Burma and a cock fight.  The prince's rooster won the fight, causing the Burmese prince's humiliation.

This is a new Buddha that has been added to the site.

That was our first attempt at finding the Buddha head Jed really wanted to see.  The one above wasn't it so we pulled out our little guide book.  We pointed it out to the locals asking where it was.  It was a ways away, so we went out and found an Songthaew (open aired truck) to take us there.  
When we got out of the Songthaew at What Manhathat there were a group of students and they interviewed Jed about transportation and what he thought about it and if he felt it was different compared to Bangkok.  (FYI, he said that we felt it was about the same here as in Bangkok)

Wat Mahathat (Temple of the Great Relics) is located almost right in the center of Ayutthaya.  Apart from being the symbolic center where the Buddha's relics were enshrined, Wat Mahathat was also the residence of the Supreme Patriarch of leader of the Thai Buddhist monks.  The temple is believed to be built during the 14th century A.D. (early Ayutthaya period)

The main prang collapsed during the Ayutthaya period, but was restored.  It collapsed again in 1911, so only the foundation of the main prang remains at present.

However, it can easily be judged from the size of the base, that the prang was quite tall.  As in most architecture of the early period of Ayuttaya, the main prang was the most important edifice in the temple compound.

  This is the one that Jed really wanted to see and it took us awhile to find.  We kept being pointed in the wrong direction.  Finally we were able to communicate via pointing at a picture of it, then catching a taxi (open truck) ride and we made it.

I find the root system amazing!

 We had dinner plans back towards Bangkok so we needed to get going. We headed to the street to try and find a ride.  We knew it wouldn't be easy since we had to pay our Uber driver off the books to go so far.  So we went out and the guys started talking to people.  The taxi wanted something like 3000 baht.  If we taxi'd to the bus station we could pay around 500 baht each but that was still more than we wanted to pay.  We only payed 1200 baht to get here and we are not even asking to go as far on the return.  We finally found a guy who said he would have his son take us in their personal car.  So we took his Songthaew to find his son, picked him up and then drove to his pickup truck.  It wasn't leather seats like all the Uber cars we had been riding in but it was roomy and clean and most of all we were happy with the 1000 baht price we settled on.  We tipped him two hundred extra.

We made it to the mall where we were meeting our dinner guests, this time we would be treating.  My son is serving a mission for our church in South Africa.  He has a friend that is serving in Thailand.  Typically missionaries are not allowed visitors and can only call home twice a year (Mother's day, and Christmas) and they are allowed to write (email) home once a week.  We were able to get special permission to meet Elder Hunt and his companion and take them to dinner.  Jed made the call and Elder Hunt told us later, wow that is a Utah area code - what's going on?  We were waiting for them in the mall and all the sudden they found us quite easily.

Yup two white people wearing BYU shirts were pretty easy to spot in a Thailand mall.  We asked them where they wanted to eat, saying anything was an option, it was on us.  They of course wanted American food and chose sizzler.  Elder Hunt was in shock for a bit about having us there and asked about how everyone was doing.  His mother is Thai and his father American.  His mom actually served her mission there in Thailand and it was so neat to hear of Elder Hunt's love for his mom and for her service.

After dinner we bid farewell to the Elder's who needed to get back to work and we checked out the mall.  Malls in Thailand are HUGE!  We heard this isn't even one of the biggest.  If you look at the people you can see how the predominate colors are black and white.

A snapshot inside one of the stores shows these clothes for sale.  Yup, mainly black and white as Thailand people will dress this way for a year as a show of respect.

It was 8ish and we were considering a movie but none of them started relatively soon so Thảo and I wanted to call it a night.  We were tired and the guys finally agreed so we left the mall and went to find our ride home.  This time getting an Uber was much easier to get.  Not too long of a wait and we were on our way.  As we got close to our apartment we passed a tuk tuk and Jerame said, "Has that tuk tuk been there this whole time".  The comment came out of nowhere, we looked at each other and said, "WHAT?"  He seemed confused and I what he meant by "Has that tuk tuk been there this whole time".  He was clearly tired - he didn't remember saying that. Figure that must mean one thing....

Day 3 = Success