Ghost in the sky

Ayutthaya - more pictorials

Our arrival in Ayutthaya was a bit of a problem. Arriving late in the afternoon every decent room within the city had been taken. Remember that scene in Trainspotting where it says something like "the dirtiest toilet in Scotland" or something to that effect, this was the "the dirtiest room in Ayutthaya." At the bottom of a building, the air vents were connected to a carpark and there was an unusual odour of sewerage everywhere. Whenever anything happens, good or bad, Ruth tends to make up songs* including one about the room which goes to the theme of Spiderman:

Skanky room,
Skanky room,
We hate you,
You smell like poo.

I guess you had to be there but we sung it for days afterward. Sadly, there is no photo but the upside of this was the skanky guesthouse that provided us a skanky room organised a night tour of the wats.







I like this photo of me in the tuk tuk heading out for the night so I thought I'd include it. The highlight of the tour was that we went to this one Wat just as it was closing and it was basically just us wandering around in darkness with no one but the stray dogs that roamed the place to keep us company. Very spooky but very moving and beautiful, it was hard to take photos but here's an attempt.

The next day we tried to replicate the bike riding fun of Kanchanaburi but it was a failure because it was even hotter and I was in charge of directions. Apparently, I'm not good with directions either and when you end up on the motorway on a push bike you know its time to quit. So I came home defeated and got food poisoning. Sadly no photos of that either.


However, the next day we went biking again and Ruth was in charge of directions after my total failure. We started with this guy.


I was tempted to put my head behind a beheaded Buddha like you would those old photo boards you find at the seaside in England. However, this sign dissuaded me.


I did my best to replicate the American Music Club cover but kinda failed...








Urm, here's a bunch of pretty pictures. The last one was a pretty amazing sight as a decapitated Buddha's head was embedded in the roots of the tree that had grown around it. It was pretty cool.


Apparently a few years ago, there was a huge lightening storm and a lightening strike went through the roof of the building and decapitated this Buddha. As the Buddha's head rolled around on the ground, I'm sure a lot of people were thinking "how did we piss this guy off?" They immediately built a bigger temple and his head has stayed on ever since. I'm not much of a believer in anything but even I think that's spooky.





We ended our time there doing a boat tour of the Wats and ended up at the one we started at the beginning but this time at Sunset. It was beautiful. (heaps more photos to put up but unfortunately dial up ain't the way to do it so more later).


* Ruth recently kicked my arse in backgammon even though she couldn't remember the rules. She sang a song about how she was the backgammon queen to which responded, "I will not have my misfortune put in tune."