Sunflower Elephant Ride

Day 3(23 Dec’08). Flower Power in the Ancient Kingdom.

This part need a liiiittle be of planning, what we did was that the day before we hunted and found a The Sun Travel located on the backpacker area (can’t remember the name of this street) whom manage to get us a car and a drive (ofcos) to take us to Lopburi. It’s the 3rd or 4th shop (memory lost here!) from the restaurant. The whole return trip cost RM140 for 2 pax all in. They also offer great soft adventure activities in Ayutthaya.. Try it! Since I can’t remember that well, I’ve include a pic of the restaurant and signage. Hemm… Am not that stupid after all I guess….. *Sweetly smile*

Reaching at 8am in front of The Sun Travel, we expected to see a middle age person whom can describe to us a little bit about Ayutthaya but err…… we saw a kid in early 20s or late in his teen WITH his MOM instead. OK! At least we felt safe ie he won’t kidnap us lar…. don’t think the Ayutthayan would do that, they so friendly and SWEET. WAIT!!!!!! Not so easy! They barely speak English…. Doomed! BUT it’s ok, as an avid traveler, we need to see past these things (ceh…wah…..)

He took us for a journey of 1.5km in his car, we were a little bit sleep thus on and off we tend to dozed off. Heard them calling someone and mentioned Lopburi, then felt as if they make a turn… Oh no!!! They don’t know how to get to the place. We continue to doze off. Then we felt the car stopped and a parked BUT we don't see NO sunflower in sight though…hemmm…. Yup! WORRIED is the word on our mind. My sis turned and looked at me wondering, as if I have any clue where we are lar… What to do but ask right?!? And his mom said “Water! Water! In front!” And I was thinking, apa? Flood ke? But it wasn’t raining the day before wor… I said “What water?” “Many water, BIG! BIG!” I go like…. “Haaa…. Lake?” She said “NO! NO! NO!” Big WATER! MANY WATER”… Hah! Sudah! Apa ler dia cakap ni… *thinking to myself* She kept pointing to a direction; we said we shall go and check out. Guess what??!!! It’s A DAM - PASAK DAM to be specific! We burst out laughing my sis and me. Hahhahhaha….. Panic aje….! BUT what she said was true, MANY WATER! BIG WATER!!! I can’t even see the other side…. GOSH! They even have this tram t take us half way…. didn’t ride ofcos as I saw a group of school field trip kids boarding it. Took a few pics and off we go to some FLOWER POWER!.

He drove on and we begin to see some fields with no flower the BUT plant is tall enough that we immediately guessed and knew it was sunflower field. The thing is that sunflower is seasonal, and the timing we were there was at the tale end…. Oh no! Would we be able to see at least something…? Sigh… Just bout then we begin to see some “light” or should I say “YELLOW”…..ahhahaha yeay! There was one field with flowers still. YEAY!!! Got down and ran it, not many flowers but this will do, abit disappointed though…sigh…

Somehow I think the family saw our disappointment (must have been too obvious) that I suspected by the intonation of their voices that they decided to ask the farm owner on other field. To our delight, there is another one that has yet been plucked for the seed. YEAY! Off we goooooo…..

DELIGHT! JOY! YELLOW!!!!! ALL OVER!!!! Need I say more!

And ofcos the cool elephant ride around the field.

We have approximately 3-4 hours to kill before our sunset city tour arranged by the auntie owner (it's around RM20); thus, we thought might as well we do a little massage (it’s cheap in Thailand after all).

At about 4ish we gather and board the Ayutthaya tuk tuk for our tour, apparently the Ayutthaya tuk tuk is slightly different from the one in Bangkok as this one can “stuff” about 6 pax.

OK! As guessed, another Wat; this time it’s Wat Yai Chaimongkhon. The intention was to create a center of Buddhist studies (Ceylonese Sect). The chedi is bell-shaped, with steps going up to the Buddhist image placed midway to the top.

As usual, I must have an animal portion in my trip (somehow lar)…. This time no different, we went to Elephant Sanctuary, everything was the same as other elephant sanctuary I’ve been but this time around I saw a WHITE ELEPHANT! Hemm… SACRED? Or am I just LUCKY?

The sun begins to set fast and we have few more temples to cover… oh no!!! We reached Wat Phu Khao Thong really late however, amazingly the pics turned out kinda nice. Hehhehe…. Anyway, this Chedi was built to celebrate the victory of King Naresuan over the Burmese. Hence, the base is in Burmese style, while the higher parts are in the style of Ayutthaya. (Yup, got all these from website!).

It was pitch dark when we arrived at Wat Chaiwatthanaram, happen to be one of the most imposing ancient Buddhist monasteries, was established by the command of King Prassatthong in 1630 A.D. Am glad my camera didn’t give up on me, and oh by the way! I was almost chased by stray dogSSSS there, so you guys be careful hor!

With that we end our day in Ayutthaya, back to Bangkok tomorrow.

Credits : Planetware, Sacred Destination, Thai Blog, Richard Barrow, Thai Websites