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I love ruins! It's funny...I've never much been into fossils - the concept of millions of years is just too unfathomable. But hundreds of years ago...when civilization throbbed to a completely different beat, and then left it's bricks to quietly watch us buzzing through time...I get that. And it's quietly thrilling. Alot of the temples in Ayuttaya were built in the 1300s. And around the 1670s, Ayuttaya was the biggest city in the world, with a population of over one million people, while London at the time was only half that size. A hundred years later, it was sacked by the Burmese and never recovered. Giant temples and statues were half-destroyed and countless stone buddhas were beheaded to retreive the jewels that were buried inside. Amazingly this violent act did little to diminish the power of the statues themselves. Hundreds of years later, their hands still rest in peaceful submission. Our guidebook called the beheading eerie, we found it quite the opposite. We spent three days in Ayuttaya, poking around the vast ruins spread throughout the city. Day One we wandered around the ruins closest to our hotel, taking in what was once the royal palace, and where the head of a statue sits peacefully nestled within the roots of an old Banyen tree. In the evening we joined a small long-tail boat tour to see the temples along the river lit up at night (breathtaking...and loud). Day Two we rented bikes and visited a variety of ancient sites and active temples. We most enjoyed descending deep inside the crypt of a chedi (cone-like towers used to house important royal or religious relics) to see the old murals, imagine monks placing the ashes of the Buddha, and breathe in its sacredness (and the powerful scent of bat guano) (mmm guano). Day Three we tuk-tukked from place to place, stopping first at an active Chinese temple that protected a particularly powerful giant gold buddha. We fed the masses of catfish surrounding a small nearby pier, and then spotted an air-conditioned cafe on the other side of the river, and ferried across to have lunch. It was terribly hot and muggy the whole time we were in Ayuttaya. Standing still required you to be in shade and drinking constantly. After lunch we zipped over to a temple that had captured us during our night boat tour - aglow and looming powerfully over the river. Still beautiful but somehow not quite as impressive in the daytime, the temple simply could not compete with the oppressive midday sun. Since our first hotel could only accommodate us for two nights, we picked a hotel at random and ended up spending our third night in possibly our most basic room the whole trip. No A/C meant the room was a good few degrees hotter than the hallway outside. We sweated out the night while bugs dropped from the ceiling above us. In this way, we were given the chance to appreciate the luxury we had recently become accustomed to :) The next morning we packed up, walked round the corner, and hopped on a bus heading back to Bangkok. Two more nights and one full day of market shopping (for me, and a mall escape for Mike and Abbey), and then we're up at 3am for our flight back to Bali. And here I am now, writing this on the plane. It's so strange to be going back to Bali, having left it behind six weeks ago. In fact, going back anywhere feels odd when you're always pushing onward. Still, it also feels more real to look at a place without the rose colouring of first eyes; when you're dazzled by fleeting moments before passing on to the next town. And anyway, we're looking forward to the ever-present incense, offerings and sense of quiet celebration that is unique to Bali. So now we can spend our last two weeks just relaxing and being. A great way to end the trip. Maybe I can even pull out my hammock again. And, of course,...do a little more shopping on the side ;)
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