It's so hot. It's a strange dry heat as well. I wasn't expecting that to be the case in the middle of Thailand.
I got out of the car and I was hit by the heat of the sun. It was so intense. I didn't have any sunglasses, but I had thankfully lathered myself up in sunscreen.
Ayutthaya really isn't a single place. It's more of a large compound of various ruins and temples, some still operating and some not. It reminded me a lot of Angkor Wat. Everything was spread out over quite a large area, so it wasn't possible to be merely dropped off at one location and to walk around. Instead, there was a need to be ferried around to the different spots. Some people elected to hire tuk tuks at each stop to take them onto the next, some people (like myself) had drivers or tour buses, some people took elephants! The craziest people to me were those who decided that the best way to get around would be by bicycle. On a nice and temperate day, this would indeed be quite a nice way to get around the area. On a day like this, with the sun blazing down and the dry and hot wind blowing... it seemed like a strange form of torture to inflict on yourself. I saw various groups of couples and groups of girls all struggling on their bicycles as they dragged themselves from spot to spot. I'm sure they had read about this in a travel guide and thought it the best way to go.
Each location I ended going to was surprisingly quite different from the other. I had expected many different locations, but all of relatively similar styles.
Instead, each place I went to seemed to be in varying degrees of ruin. Some places, were still very much in use. They had modern sections which housed air conditioned places of worship and they were exceptionally well maintained. These were clearly still working places of religious worship. Monks were wandering around and people were buying various pieces of cloth and paper to make their offerings.
Other places felt more like museums.
They weren't too rundown, but they were clearly not being used in any meaningful way anymore
Each building, even if it had fallen into disrepair, was well cared for. I was surprised by just how well maintained everything was. There was a small army of caretakers and gardeners, all cleaning and moving and watering the grounds.
The lawns at all of the locations were well cared for and the gardeners clearly took a great deal of pride in their work. The locals themselves seemed to love this area and at quite a few of the locations, I saw girls who had dressed in traditional Thai attire taking photos and doing little photo shoots. They all looked beautiful and it reminded me a lot of the girls in Korea and in Japan who dress in traditional clothing before they go to the palaces.
Other places definitely had the "ancient ruin" feel to them.
The famous buddha's head encased by the roots of a tree at Wat Maha That was particularly beautiful. It demonstrated clearly the power of the forrest as well as the age of these places. These ruins were the places that reminded me the most of my time at Angkor Wat. There were far more people than when I went to Angkor Wat back when I was young, but there was a real similarity in the both the way things looked and the way they had slowly crumbled.
Even with all the time it had been since I had been to Angkor Wat, I still couldn't help but feel that this was the lesser of the two. Give me the choice, and Angkor Wat is definitely the better place to visit. But I'm not sure if this is a fair comparison.
I am always thankful for the amount of traveling I get to do. I have fought hard for this ability to see different parts of the world and I've tried to arrange my life in a way that would let me do this. It does concern me when I go to new places and I don't feel the excitement I once did. It's a part of growing up. It's a part of becoming more "worldly". It's a strange paradox that the more I seek out different parts of the world, the less enthralled I become with what I find. I can't help but compare what I see with what I have already seen, and this takes away from some of the awe and surprise I would otherwise experience. I see the people around me, their faces filled with delight with what they are able to see. I don't always have that anymore. It's not something you can manufacture. You go somewhere new and you're either captivated by it, or you're not. However, I wasn't going to let this stop me. I wasn't go to stop searching for something amazing to see and I wasn't going to become jaded. Everything in front of me remained incredible. Everything I got to see was still a privilege to behold. I just had to be more appreciative of it all, even if that meant being appreciative in different ways.
I got out of the car and I was hit by the heat of the sun. It was so intense. I didn't have any sunglasses, but I had thankfully lathered myself up in sunscreen.
Ayutthaya really isn't a single place. It's more of a large compound of various ruins and temples, some still operating and some not. It reminded me a lot of Angkor Wat. Everything was spread out over quite a large area, so it wasn't possible to be merely dropped off at one location and to walk around. Instead, there was a need to be ferried around to the different spots. Some people elected to hire tuk tuks at each stop to take them onto the next, some people (like myself) had drivers or tour buses, some people took elephants! The craziest people to me were those who decided that the best way to get around would be by bicycle. On a nice and temperate day, this would indeed be quite a nice way to get around the area. On a day like this, with the sun blazing down and the dry and hot wind blowing... it seemed like a strange form of torture to inflict on yourself. I saw various groups of couples and groups of girls all struggling on their bicycles as they dragged themselves from spot to spot. I'm sure they had read about this in a travel guide and thought it the best way to go.
They weren't too rundown, but they were clearly not being used in any meaningful way anymore
I am always thankful for the amount of traveling I get to do. I have fought hard for this ability to see different parts of the world and I've tried to arrange my life in a way that would let me do this. It does concern me when I go to new places and I don't feel the excitement I once did. It's a part of growing up. It's a part of becoming more "worldly". It's a strange paradox that the more I seek out different parts of the world, the less enthralled I become with what I find. I can't help but compare what I see with what I have already seen, and this takes away from some of the awe and surprise I would otherwise experience. I see the people around me, their faces filled with delight with what they are able to see. I don't always have that anymore. It's not something you can manufacture. You go somewhere new and you're either captivated by it, or you're not. However, I wasn't going to let this stop me. I wasn't go to stop searching for something amazing to see and I wasn't going to become jaded. Everything in front of me remained incredible. Everything I got to see was still a privilege to behold. I just had to be more appreciative of it all, even if that meant being appreciative in different ways.
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