Ayutthaya

Ayutthaya, the ancient city of Thailand. We were 5 of us (Durga, Chaitya, Sareena and Aashish), hired a taxi for a whole day and went to our 'adventure' of Ayuthhaya. Well I had an imagination what an ancient city would look like, from my own distant past visits to Bhaktapur and Lalitpur cities, it proved to be different. Of course, it was an ancient city but the dwellers were probably migrants. The places were so ancient that it had now the remains with brick structure depicting ancient stupas, prangs and temples. Rest of the places seem to be well developed. Better if I would have said the city had got a facelift with people living there. Probably the land development does not seem that old....or it is maintained properly...i should have asked about it....

I had heard and watched the giant buddha statues in Afghansitan destroyed by Taliban regime but I did not know people in ancient times (probably 3-12th century -Khamer age) too had problem with Buddha Statues. Hardly any Buddha statues in the ancient city had its head. It was said that these Buddha Statues were destroyed during war, and in earthquake. I got a relief when I saw a number of Buddha Heads belonging to different centuries in the National Fine Arts and Museum.

One thing that caught my attention whenever I visited WATs (temple of god Buddha).... The pasting of golden flakes to the buddha statues. It was so soft and fragile that it easily pasted on the statue surface and made it shining, giving it a look of gold color. It was really fun. While Buddha was born in Lumbini, Nepal, the tradition there worshipping Budhha is entirely different than the tradition here, except lighting the incense sticks. My mind striked hard about the tradition that we had in Nepal and I started to question myself....do ever these people know about it...have ever these followers been to the birth place of Budhha...I should have asked them but uff... i should have learnt Thai!

Fortune Teller with a vessel full of wooden sticks each having a number was something that really concluded whole day adventure. It looks like a game where one has to shake the vessel and a single stick fall, get the number it has and find the slip with that number. The first slip I tried, gave a good fortune but I did not like a statement it had and I felt if I should try one more and check if I would get the same number again. But tried 2 times, got different numbers each time I tried and of course different fortune to know about my future! I thought, what if everytime I tried, it would give different numbers....I would have different fortune?...probably the last fortune would be the one whoever tries....no this was not written there but I made it myself! funny though!