Ayutthaya, Thailand

On our last day in the Bangkok area, Tomoko arranged for us to meet with a colleague from her newspaper in Japan who is working as a foreign correspondent.  It sounds like a cool job, but also very stressful as is in charge of reporting on the whole SE Asia region.  This means that when Malaysia has elections that he will be visiting KL to report on the happenings.

He was kind enough to take us out for day of sightseeing outside the city.  First we visited Bang Pa In, the summer palace of the kings of Thailand.  It’s an interesting combination of European, Chinese, and Thai architecture and the grounds were beautifully kept.  It’s located along the banks of the Chaopraya River and you can see how they had to go to great lengths to prevent the site from being flooded last fall when many areas in and around Bangkok were inundated.

Thai-style pavilion with the rather daunting title of "The Divine Seat of Personal Freedom."

The ruins at the Ayutthaya Historical Park (UNESCO World Heritage site) were not so fortunate in terms of the floods.  As we toured around, you could see the water line on many structures that had been left as many areas were surrounded by standing water for months.  The ground had been saturated and softened under some of the temple structures so it was no longer safe to walk directly in and around them and had to be closed off only to be viewed from a distance.  Ayutthaya was the Siamese royal capital from 1250 to 1767, and a Khmer outpost before that.  The Sanskrit name means “unassailable” or “undefeatable.”   

Many areas were damaged when the Burmese ransacked the place in 1767.

Bliss.

Later that evening he took us to a German Brewery for dinner and entertainment and we met up with two other Japanese correspondents from other news agencies.  It turned out that it was HUGE!  Touted as the “world’s best Thai-German bar and restaurant,” it could probably fit 500 people on multiple levels.  It did a decent job at east-meets-west and some pretty funny performances by well known Thai singers and dancers.