Auyuthaya

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We jumped in the car and went on a quick roadtrip today to Ayuthaya.

Ayuthaya is about 50 miles north of Bangkok. It was the ancient captial of Siam, until it was completely sacked after a 2 year battle to gain the city in 1765. The population of Ayuthaya before the battle was over a million people (which was more than the capitals of Europe during the same timeframe), after the battle there were less than 10,000 inhabitants remaining. The Burmese completely sacked the city, their goal was to make the city uninhabitable.

Its a truly amazing and beautiful place. I could spend days here exploring the ruins. It truly must have been one of the great cities of the world before it was destroyed.


We had lunch at a great place on the river. The food was very good, and it was nice and cool and breezy (for once). The boys really enjoyed watching the ferry go back and forth across the river along with the traffic up and down the waterway. It was an excellent place to eat. Very relaxing and yummy.

Around and in Ayuthaya we couldn't help but notice roadside hawker after roadside hawker all selling the same thing. It looked like pastel colored noodles in a bag. It seemed especially odd considering the number of hawkers and the lack of variety. So, of course, we had to stop and check it out.

It is a variant of "Roti", the hawkers have what is basically a crepe pan, and they make these sweet crepes. The pastel stuff is similar to a spun sugar product, but it has a bit of a corny or grainy taste to it. Weird, but really quite good. The kids loved it (but then, what kids wouldn't love a sugar taco?)


On the other hand, on our way out of town, we saw a couple of other hawkers selling something else. The conversation in the car went something like this.

Robin: NO! Oh gross.
Jim: What?
Robin: I swear that hawker had grilled rats for sale.
Jim: Oh, no way, that is disgusting, I've never seen anything like that here.
(several hundred metres go by)
R: Oh, look, here's another stall.
Jim: Ewwwww! Those WERE rats!

Sorry folks, I didn't get a picture!

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