AYUTTHAYA - THE OLD CAPITAL OF THAILAND

Ayutthaya is placed 85 km northern from Bangkok and is accessible by road, river and railway. It is historical city with magnificent ruins of principal temple and palaces.

From 1350 until 1767 Ayutthaya was the capital of Thailand and that was one of the golden eras of Thai history. The former capital was founded in 1350 by King Uthong, later crowned King Ramathibodi I, who led his man's from Uthong where they had problem with cholera. The city was named Ayutthaya, the home of Rama in the Indian epic Ramayana which means " Undefeatable ". Before the arrival of Thais, the area was occupied by the Khmers (Cambodians). The city was situated on an island, surrounded by three rivers: the Chao Phraya, the Pa Sak and the Lopburi. It was the center of trade and communications.
The Kingdom was well known to Europeans during the period when Europeans began to wander East, and many of them came to Ayutthaya. I heard that a lot of Portuguese people were lived there and Ayutthaya have a Portuguese village to open for the tourists who come to visit. During that time Thai culture and international communications flourished in the Kingdom. This period has been the culmination of Thai history.
Ayutthaya was capital 417 years, had 33 kings of the five Siamese dynasties until it was captivate by Burmese, but later Thai people brought it back.
Burmese army destroys all Thai temples because Thai people hide a lot of gold's inside. You can see it in Ayutthaya Historical Park (UNESCO World Heritage - from 1991.). 

Admission fee is 50 bath for foreigners (less than 2 US dollars) and for Thai people is 10 bath.

If you visit Ayutthaya you must see the Bang Pa-in Palace. 

 It was built in 17th century. Similar to most Thai royal palaces, is divided into two sections, the Outer (consists of buildings for public and ceremonial uses) and the Inner Palace (reserved for the King and his immediate family). Formerly the inner Palace was forbidden to male members of the court.

As you can see from the pictures, European had big influence.
The Bang Pa-in Palace is open from 8.00-15.30, everyday, including weekends and public holidays.

In Ayutthaya I find Christian - Catholic Church. It is a beautiful.

So if you want to learn about history of Thailand you can do it very easy, visiting the old capital of Thailand.

KHAO YAI KNATIONAL PARK

If you like adventure, nature, animals, fresh air, camping etc. you can fall in love Khao Yai National Park. I went there for the weekend with two friends of mine and we had very nice time. 

In the entrance, foreigners need to pay 400 baths, for adults (around 13 dollars or 10 euros) and 200 Thai baths for a child, Thai or Thai resident have to pay 40 baths, for vehicles you need 50 baths more.
Since we came inside I was fascinated by the nature, just one road leading in and out of the jungle gives you a trace of civilization and nothing else but a thick forest which is a very big area of 2168 square km, and it has been declare as a "UNESCO World Heritage Site". You can hear many sounds there, plenty of birds and other animals and I must say I was little bit afraid when I saw this sign:

                                         Little bit scary


In the national park they also have wild elephants, sambar deers, barking deers (I don't believe that they are really barking :-) ), monkeys, bears, tigers, leopards, crocodiles...
You can do jungle tracking, kayaking and rafting, a lot of people like to drive bicycles there.

 
We stop few times to take a pictures on view points. It was kind of late when we arrived (around 5 pm) so we wanted to set up the tent before dark, but we were late :-). Camping is permitted only in camping areas.

 

We rented the tent and blankets, something to sleep on and all of that was 530 baths plus 30 baths per person for overnight in camping area.

 Actually, we are not professional campers and we had some problems with setting up the tent in the dark, but we were in luck, two guys helped us and they were very swift. After that we had dinner (food that we brought) and the garbage from the food we placed in the plastic bag in front of the tent. BIG MISTAKE. The sambar deers (two of them) came after we slept and they take out all garbage that we had in that bag, garbage was everywhere and two of them are fighting for the food. We heard the noise and we woke up.

 I was thinking maybe they can have problems if they eat a plastic and I tried to make them scare away, but the deer was very brave and he looked me like "what do you want I'm hungry" and he didn't want to move. I was little bit afraid and I just waited them to finish it and I clean up the garbage. By the way, it is not allowed to give food to the animals.

                Our tent (big enough for 3 persons)
Next day, we woke up at 5:30 am, we took a shower and we went to the waterfall, but we decided to walk 3 km trough the jungle to reach that waterfall. We could go with the car but adventure has advantage :-).

It was easy when we started but later... It was very muddy inside the jungle and we didn't have equipment that we needed to do the tracking ( two of us had flip-flops - BIG MISTAKE). 

It was slippery and two of us fell down one time :-) and we had lot of leeches on our legs and we had to take them off every few minutes. After that we saw the sign:

                                            Very scary

We needed around two hours to finish and the jungle tracking was good experience. I steal feel itchy, next time I will cover my legs better :-) (no flip-flop and no shorts). After that we had lunch in the restaurant, coffee and I felt fresh again.
This is one of the few waterfalls:

This is my story about Khao Yai, very interesting for me. I'm sure that in this National Park, you can have your adventure in the wild which I'm sure will be an unforgettable experience.   

SONGKRAN FESTIVAL / WATER FESTIVAL

Don't be surprised if you walking down the street and somebody throw the water  on you, just like that :-). You should accept the game and grab some water too. They are usually use the water guns, but somebody can use big basket and make you wet immediately :-). Songkran is a Thai word which means "move" or "change place" as it is the day when the sun changes its position in the zodiac. It is also known as the "Water Festival", as people believe that water will wash away bad luck.

Songkran is the Thai traditional New Year and begins in the morning with offering food to Buddhists monks and releasing caged birds to fly freely into the sky. The festival starts on April 13 and last usually 3 days. I said usually, because somewhere it last longer. The longest and the biggest celebration is in Pattaya and Chiang Mai.
 

I stayed in Bangkok before one year and I wanted to see how that look likes in the really big city. I went to Khaosan road (walking street, cheap area, very attractive for backpackers from all over the world) and Silom street (they close the street for traffic during Songkran) It is amazing. The street is incredibly crowded, you cant move so easily, eveeybody are wet and have some white color on their faces, because they also use some kind of white powder. They play music and dance all day. The foreigners enjoying Songkran Festival too. But the throwing of the water is throwing the water on the cars that they passing away and on the people too. Lot of them uses open tracks. One guy drive the track and few of them throwing the water on everybody around them.

 I dont know about you, but I love Songkran Festival and I eel lie a child who wants to play games all they. You should try, maybe you will like it too :-).

DEATH RAILWAY BRIDGE OVER THE RIVER KWAI

When I was in primary school I learned about the bridge over river Kwai. Also, I watched the movie and I still can remember the melody from the movie. After many years I decide to see it with my own eyes. I'm going to remind you about history.

         

Railway bridge over the river Kwai is located in Kanchanaburi Province about 130 km west of Bangkok.
The construction began on September 16, 1942. Materials for the bridge have been brought from Java (Indonesia). It was estimated that the construction would take five years to link Thailand and Burma by rail, but the Japanese army forced the Allied POW-s (Prisoners Of War) to complete 415 km railway in just 16 months. So, you can imagine what a brutality was engaged in this project. About 16.000 Allied POW-s died during construction and about 100.000 laborers from Thailand, Burma, Malaysia and Indonesia also lost their lives. Bridge was in use for only 20 months before the Allies bombed it in 1945.
After the end of World War II, the Allied forces placed the remains of the dead people in the two war cemeteries near the bridge. Every year during the first week of December, there is a light and sound presentation detailing the construction and the bombing of the historic railway bridge by the Allied forces.

              restaurants on the river (photo taken from the bridge)



                

This is very interesting place for Thai people and for tourists from all over the world. Plenty of people waiting to take a ride over the bridge with a small train and of course me :-). The train start very slow because a lot of them walking on the bridge, but later on when we almost cross the river, it start to go quite fast. In one moment I had feeling that something is going to be broken :-). Train is all the time rock left and right, but finally everything was absolutely fine. We went forward and back and that was my unforgettable ride on famous railway bridge over the river Kwai. 

                  war museum (it is not allowed to take photo inside) 


Near the bridge is Museum dedicated to the people that they lost their life's during construction. The Museum was not so impressive for me (to be honest). It is composed of the plenty of photos and articles from newspapers, that shows you how terrible life they had and how terrified was behavior of the Japanese Army.
Death railway bridge over the river Kwai was very impressive for me. It is a part of the history, not just Thailand's   history, it is a part of the Worlds history.

BUDDHISM IN THAILAND

When you come to Thailand one of the first things that you can notice is Buddhism. You can see temples and monks everywhere. Every house and every building have their own house spirit, where the people pray and show their respect to Buda.

 Sometimes Thai people wake up early in the morning to give some food, flowers and water to the monks. They give the food because they will have that food in the next life, flowers to have beautiful skin in the next life and water because everything should go smoothly and they will also have water in the next life. If somebody cooks the food for the monks nobody can eat food before they give one portion to the monk.

The monks help to the people of Thailand when they need it. I remember, the flooding problem in 2011., one Sunday 12.000 monks came to the center of Bangkok to collect the food and money to help to the people whose houses are under the water. Actually they do many good things for the people all the time. That is why the monks have big respect from the Thai people. They are also highly respected for their chaste life, self-restraint, social benevolence and knowledge of spiritual practice.

 About 95% of the people in the Kingdom of Thailand are Buddhists and Buddhism involves almost every occasion such as birthdays, marriages, moving to the new house, funerals, opening business offices...

It is presumed that Buddhism was first brought to the country during the 3rd century B.C.

                                    Grand Palace in Bangkok

There are about 27.000 Buddhists temples across the Thailand. I would like to mention that there is just one White Temple in Thailand placed in Chiang Rai (northern province) and I like it a lot it is beautiful, isn't it? 

 

                                      White Temple (Chiang Rai)


It is a custom for Buddhist males over twenty years old to be monks from a few days to three months. There is a believe that is good to learn how to be good man i the Buddhism way. Every King did this even presently King Bhumibol Who is highly respected from the people of Thailand. 

I will write more about Grand Palace and White Temple in the some of the next articles.