After showing up with Delhi Belly, Ian and had a slow start into Thailand. We saw a few of the temples and the Grand Palace (like Thailand's Buckingham Palace) while waiting for our visa to Vietnam to be granted. The largest draw was the world's biggest reclining Buddha, so enormous that he can barely fit in the building. Bangkok was a pleasant, clean city with horrendous traffic and a pleasant backpacker's neighborhood (Banglamphu) that looked like Bourbon street with more hookers.
Our first stop out of the city was the sacked city of Ayutthaya, one hour north of Bangkok. The spiritual and political capital of Thailand was here until the 1700's when it was ravaged by the invading Burmese. Not only did they torch all the structures in the city and looted the gold, but they also went though the trouble of knocking down about half of the large brick and stone structures resulting in the still standing ones to lean as if in the middle of an earthquake. Thai archaeologists then unearthed some large vaults of gold and a relic from Buddha in the 1950's. However, the city was unable to protect itself from modern day looters and thieves who pilfered the rest of the treasures. It was a shady area to stroll through and is a UNESCO World Heritage site. The most visited area was a stone Buddha head that has been overgrown by a Banyan tree at the Wat Phra Mahathat, a very sacred sign in Buddhism. Of course Ayutthaya has their ridiculously large Golden Buddha as well. I don't understand why Buddhism here is celebrated with such opulence when the teachings of Buddha, as I understand them, shun such displays of wealth. If anyone can shed some light on this, I would be appreciative.
Our next stop, Chaing Mai..
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hope this does not come across as it is written in malice but don't you think the need to have the simple lived budha celebrated as golden in later life is similar to building opulent cathedrals and golden candelabras for jesus who lived the simplest of all lives as a carpenter's son? at least budha was the son of a king if u think about it:-) i am not sure if you follow any religion but regardless of what religion it is people seem to need such high symbols so they feel it is upto being worshipped.
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