Ayutthaya

 Visited several very old temples and the summer palace here.

Old temple complex 
Display in airport
Spirit house at home in Bangkok - these are placed outdoors in a corner of a property, some are quite elaborate others simple, they keep peace with the sprits of prior inhabitants of the property, offerings of food and drink plus incense are added daily. Homes commonly also have a spot indoors where relatives are remembered, small containers of their ashes are included with pictures and treasured possessions.
Toilet.
Roof of a building at the Summer Palace.
Old temple building
Temple across the river from where we ate dinner one night.
Elephant topiary at Summer Palace
Fancy architecture at Summer Palace. There were a variety of architectural styles within the Summer Palace grounds - this is Chinese, there was also French and classical, a wired mix I thought.
Within an old temple area was a Buddha head that had been enveloped in tree roots. Lots of people there for pictures, the rule is that you must sit on the ground so your head is no higher than Buddha, older people get dispensation to sit so we did.
Rice patty- we saw many of these.
Grounds of spot where we ate lunch.


Old temple.


They said the Buddha head (they don’t know what became of the balance of the statue) for some reason got placed at the base of the tree and forgotten for many years - later found embedded.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

South America 1

Image
 Departed Atlanta for Viking S. American cruise Jan 30 arriving Santiago Chile early the next morning, weather there was warm, sunny and dry in the 90’s. After an early check in we joined up with a walking tour via Uber. The group, Americans mostly visited a few public buildings and churches, we were running on fumes having slept little on the flight. As usual, pictures are not in chronological order, I have not mastered this program so I’ll just deal with it. This post covers departure thru day 3 of our cruise. The day after arriving Santiago we explored on our own before heading to Valparaiso where we boarded Viking Jupiter. Santiago is nestled between to mountain ranges, Andes to the east and Coastal Range to the west, it’s hilly, on the largest hill is a statue of the Virgin Mary, we went up via funicular, great views of the city. Early afternoon we took a van to Valparaiso, about two hours and boarded Jupiter. Hotel in Santiago. Feb 4 was our 47th anniversary, had a nice dinne...
Read more

South America 3

Image
 After three sea days we stopped at Puerto Madryn, Argentina and saw lots of penguins. We are heading north in the south Atlantic having rounded the horn. We were originally scheduled to stop at the Falkland Islands where there are many penguin colonies but high winds made tendering impossible so we passed the islands by and stopped at Puerto Madryn further north. Puerto Madryn was founded by Welsh settlers - South America has encouraged groups from Europe to settle, there are areas with Germans (well before the Nazis), Bosnians and others - the Welsh wanted a separate state but settled on a remote colony to limit influence of other cultures. Today mining Bauxite for aluminum, fishing and sheep ranches are the main industries. Unlike the west coast of S. America it’s very flat and dry, windy too. The bus trip to the Punta Tomba penguin colony took 2 1/2 hours but it was worth it - the colony has 18,000 pairs of Majalantic penguins, there are 18 species, all south of the equator exc...
Read more

South America 2

Image
 We are cruising south, after several sea days stopped in Punta Arenas Chile, a small town on the mainland. Originally a penal colony but since so remote that did not work well so immigration offers were extended, Croatians accepted so many of them here. Along the way we got close to a glacier. J Glacier up ahead. Glacier is about 200 feet tall, two miles wide. Monument in the center of Punta Arenas commemorates Magellan and native peoples. One native group had big feet, Patagonia means big foot in Spanish, thus the name of this area of Chile/Argentina. Roast piglet for dinner.  View from upper area of Ushuaia, the southern most city in the southern hemisphere. We are now in Argentina. Ushuaia is the departure point for many Antarctica expeditions.  Panorama from view spot. In Ushuaia we visited an outdoor museum with old farm and construction equipment as well as houses, shops etc. Another shot from view point. Note the collection of locks left by lovers.
Read more