So said the sign outside one of the numerous wats I perused today. An Aussie guy and I had rented a couple bicycles, rusty rattletraps reminiscent of my Italian ride, and spent the day touring around the city of Ayutthaya. This place was the ancient capital of the kingdom of Siam, but was effectively destroyed by the Burmese in the late 1700s. Since then a modern city has grown up around the wats (temples), so that you'll turn a corner in town and suddenly be face to torso with a headless buddha or crumbling brick tower. Some have been renovated, patched up with concrete and decorated in gold leaf, while others are simply sprawling ruins in manicured lawns.
Midway through the morning huge black clouds rolled in and we snuck into a museum just as the heavens opened. After perusing the exhibits of golden icons and buddha heads (so that's where they all went), I had had my historical culture fix and headed to some of the markets to wake myself up. You can get pretty much anything you want from the street stalls (except peanut butter - 63 baht for a serving-size jar at a department store, ridiculous!), from hair ties to Abercrombie and Fitch shirts to jeweled nail clippers. I even found the corner where they keep buckets of live eels, toads, and turtles. I can't say I've extended my carnivorous tendencies that far, but there's still plenty of time.
It's still hot, still humid, and I've got a bus tonight north to Chiang Mai. I've heard it's cooler up there - maybe I can find another snowstorm.
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