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Published: March 27th 2019
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Ayutthaya isn't so far away from Bangkok, but it's much more quiet. I stayed at a hostel this time, because I needed a little break and be on my own for a few days. The hostel was very nice and when I arrived I didn't do much. I actually didn't do anything. I didn't write anything, I didn't visit anything, I didn't talk to anyone, I just felt like doing nothing at all and chill.
The next day I was back on the move. I met a guy at the hostel (Max) with whom I went for a walk through the area. We went to Wat Mahathat first. After I paid the ticket, they told me I couldn't enter in shorts.. Very clever of them. Anyway, we had to go back to the hostel so I could put on my leggings. It was very hot and humid, but I had no choice. Second time they let me enter. Inside there were many ruins and Buddha statues. One of them was covered by tree branches. It was a big area, but we noticed there was no wall around it, so we could've just made pictures from the outside. After this one
that's what we did. We made pictures from temples from the outside if there was an entrance fee.
We went to a temple that had a gigantic golden buddha inside. It's almost 17m high and 10m wide. We walked around it and read about the history of the temple. It had been struck by lightning, burned down and both the statue and the building had been demolished. The last renovation took place in 1957. After this we walked to the reclined buddha, then to the other side of the river and on our way back to the hostel, we passed this place where you can ride elephants. It's so horrible! You could just see sadness in the eyes of these animals. When passing by, a man was giving mangos to one of them from the sidewalk. We stopped for a moment to look at it and then the man gave me some mangos too. I never touched an elephant before, the skin is really thick and wrinkly! These animals are so amazing. They look so friendly although they are much bigger and heavier and could kill us by just sitting down on us, haha! I don't feel good about them
being used as attractions though. Max told me he went to an elephant sanctuary in Chiang Mai and that sounded really nice (I found out it's not though, but I'll write about it in my next blog).
After this, we walked through the park back to the hostel. They were setting up for some event there, but we didn't know what. Later the girl in the hostel told us it was for a yearly Muay Thai event (type of boxing).
The next day I had booked my bus to Chiang Mai, but it would leave in the evening, so I went with someone from the hostel (Thibaut) to the event. The girl told us that the closing ceremony would take place at 16:00h. We walked around for a little bit. There were so many people from all over the world. Surprisingly, I heard a lot of spanish. Maybe this sport is big in Spain? There were merchandise stands, stands where you could get a free thai tattoo (if you participated), stands where you could get a thai massage, stands with food and many more. There was a section on the big court where you could sit if you were
a visitor, so we took place there to see the event. It took almost 2 hours before they really started though. The waiting was worth it, it was really nice to see! First, they played on drums, then they had a fighting show, where they were dressed up in typical thai war clothes, pretending to fight against the enemy. At the end Hanuman showed up and people got all excited. Then a group of women danced Khon (a classical thai dance). They wear traditional clothing and golden, pointy hats. Then all the Muay Thai masters entered the court and walked towards the stage, where they took place on wooden seats. Behind them, people with flags, flowers and elephants. Then the participants had to come forwards one by one to their masters and received a white sort of rope. We left, because that would take forever and I had to be back on time to catch the bus.
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