From Bangkok we took a tour to the ruins of Ayuthuya, the Thai capital from 1359 to 1767, before Thonburi (briefly) and then Bangkok (to this day) took over.

The ruins are about two hours by car north of Bangkok, though it should probably take longer but Bangkok drivers are insane and like to use all available parts of the road to save time, including the pavement.

Our first stop was Wat Yai Chai Mongkol. The wat dates back to the mid-14th century, when Thai king U Thong constructed a small monastery here for personal meditation. Over the centuries, the wat was expanded to include a massive stone stupa that rises 200 feet into the air. The stupa is surrounded by over a hundred stone Buddha statues, each one of them wrapped in shiny saffron robes, as is the custom in much of southeast Asia.  There is also a large reclining buddha nearby.  (Yes I did just copy that from someone else's website).

When we arrived there was a ceremony taking place, which we think was like an ordaining ceremony, with young boys in white robes walking around the ruins with freshly-shaved heads to the sound of music, tailed by a large crowd of people carrying orange robes.  After the parade we saw them again, kneeling in a small temple mid-ceremony as they were being presented with their robes.

This temple was probably the highlight of the day, as the Boulevard of Buddhas was fantastic and it was great to see the ceremony taking place.  There were even some bats living at the top of the main stupa, which we climbed to get good views of the nearby ruins, though just passed that all you could see was traffic and the modern city of Ayuthuya.

Next stop was the temple of Wat Mahathat, which itself was pretty uninteresting ruins, but it's famous for the Buddha's head encased in tree roots.  Apparently the heads of the Buddha's at the temple were chopped off by Burmese invaders, and the tree grew up around one of them. 

At the temple we were asked not to put our heads on the Buddha's body for pictures, which we respected, but I couldn't resist lining up Allison's head with one of the decapitated bodies from a far.  I hope Buddha has a sense of humour and doesn't pay me back with some bad karma.

Next we stopped at another large temple, similar in size to Chichen Itza, though this one we were allowed to climb.  At the top was a small, dark cave going inside the middle of the temple.  At the bottom we got roped into buying a couple of hammocks, before we headed off to the next stop, another huge reclining Buddha, which signifies the Buddha's death.  Each different position has a different meaning.

Our last stop of the day was Wat Phra Si Sanphet, three soaring Ceylonese stupas that stand near the ruins of the royal palace (which is now just foundations).  We walked around for about an hour before the heat got the better of us, so we walked back towards the minivan and the elephant show going on nearby.

The elephant show has elephants with their 'mahouts' (trainers) performing tricks, such as kicking footballs, dancing, sitting, standing on two legs, and taking money from tourists with their trunks.  We watched intrigued by it all, though not sure we agreed with the whole idea of performing elephants and unsure how well captive animals would be treated out here.