This was another early morning for us. we were scheduled to go on a day trip to Ayutthaya Temple. We were to be picked up at 6:30 again, so we were ready and ate breakfast at 6. This time we were going with a larger group, so the van picked us up first and then made two more stops to pick up another gentleman and two ladies before taking us to the central staging area. There we got on big buses to take us on our journey.
Our first stop was the summer palace of King Rama IV. It was quite interesting and the buildings are well preserved. Before you are allowed to enter the palace grounds, they make sure you are properly dressed, that means your shoulders and knees must be covered. We walked all over the grounds with our guide telling us about the different buildings. There is a temple on the grounds and to enter it you have to take off your shoes.
We the visited another temple. (There are 450 temples in Thailand,) Again shoes had to come off to enter the temple. This temple had people praying in it. Then back on the bus to Ayutthaya Temple. Ayutthaya is 53 miles north of Bangkok and was a thriving Siamese kingdom from 1350 until 1787, when it was captured by the Burmese. Nowadays, you can visit its ruins, though some of the temples are still intact. We also saw the Reclining Buddha bronze statute. It is enormous.
After that we were taken to the pier where we boarded the boat to take us back to Bangkok. We also were served lunch on the boat, The cruise takes about three hours. After the cruise we were taken back to our hotel.
Jay decided he wanted to go to this huge mall. It was up to me to figure out how to get there. It wasn’t too difficult, we just got on the sky train at Saphan Taksin and took it to the Siam stop. The mall was huge. We ate dinner while we were there. They even have a floor where you can buy cars such as Lamborghini, Bentleys and Porches. They also had designer clothing stores. On the top floor was large movie theatre. I purchased 2 cupcakes at one of the bakeries to take back to the hotel for dessert.
