Ayuthaya and Beyond

At the Marble Temple, the announcement that I was headed out alone to the provinces for a little trip was received by the monks with puzzlement and trepidation. As Thai, they don't do much alone, always preferring to do things in groups. On the other hand, as monks I think they viewed the outside world as dangerous and unpredictable and were extremely worried I would be tricked, robbed, lost or left for dead. I was accompanied to the bus station by five people. I'm not kidding- we were absolutely packed into a taxi, four in the back and three up front including the driver and me.

For a city that until very recently was five feet underwater Ayuthaya didn't look too bad, although there was a lingering scent around the place which made me want to open a window, even when I was outside. The recent flood is just one indignity suffered by a city which was once so grand that in the 1500s it was called the Venice of the East. However, it is now a scrappy, tertiary town whose nighttime streets are patrolled by packs of aggressive stray dogs, and is more of a waypoint than a destination.

(It seems to be a truism of place names that any halfway decent city with a few canals will be called a Venice, while any city on a river where good coffee may be had will be called a Paris.)

Anyway, once the Burmese sacked and looted the city a few hundred years ago, it was demoted, stripped of its status as capital of Siam and entered a long period of decay. Thanks to an official UN designation as an important historical site, that trend was ended and has even been partially reversed. Well, until the flood. Unlucky Ayuthaya has somehow managed to maintain a hint of her former regal splendor. The ruins are extensive and with a bit of imagination it's not hard to see a city which at its height awed traders and diplomats from the all great colonial powers of Europe and Asia.

My internal clock still being in synch with the monastery, I awoke the next morning at around 5:30 AM and went out to watch the town wake up. Barefoot monks plied the early morning streets, carrying their bowls through the clouds of smoke raised by street vendors kindling their cooking fires. Sleepy-eyed schoolchildren in their neatly pressed uniforms trudged to the route vans which would carry them to their sometimes distant schools. Even very young students use mass transportation, which is pretty good here. There is an extensive route network serviced by both public and private vehicles. An hour long trip costs about two dollars, and most of the private vehicles are clean and relatively new.

I had a quick breakfast on the street, grabbed a little bag of sticky rice for a snack and went down to the area where the transports congregate. These places are a chaotic jumble of uniformed operators and drivers bustling around. The inter-provincial route vans I prefer don't operate on a fixed schedule, but instead just depart when they are more or less full. I'm pretty used to all plans and intentions being strictly provisional, but it was a bit of a surprise to me that there was no direct transport linking Ayuthaya to Lopburi, the city I next wanted to visit. After consulting with my map, I chose a van headed in the general direction I wanted to go and hoped for the best, which is why I now find myself on the road to Saraburi which, according to my guidebook, does not exist.

Having already visited a number of places here which could have been dreamed up by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, I'm ready for anything, but I definitely could use a cup of coffee. Maybe they even have a river in Saraburi.