Field Trip to Ayutthaya

Saturday, 21 August 2004

After a restless sleep, with no air-condition, the dog barking and yelping at 3 am, people arising and chatting at some crazy hour, I finally decided to just wake up at 4 am. We had to be outside at 5 am anyway, as the upper elementary students (about 200 of them) and staff, were gathering for a social studies field trip to Ayutthaya (pronounced "Ah-you-tee-ah"), a city a couple hours north of Nakhon Pathom and north of Bangkok. Of course, we didn’t end up leaving until about 6:30 am, but we boarded an air conditioned bus with a TV and rode in style, watching Thai entertainment game shows, and me trying to catch up on my sleep most of the way. We arrived at the first wat at 8:30 am. Students had their notebook of questions ready, and people baby powdered up for what turned out to be a horrifically humid day. (And, as a follower of Thai culture, I wore my long pants - I had changed out of my black pants into jeans, figuring they would both be hot, but I’d rather be comfortable, and the entire day I envied those tourists who were in tank tops and shorts). Today was actually the first time I’ve seen foreign tourists since I’ve been here, as Nakhon Pathom does not have a big expat or tourist community.

The first temple we explored was the Royal Palace. It was built around 400 years ago, and one of the teachers told me that the Burmese destroyed it when they wanted to take control of the country. Wat Pha Si Sanphet, an outstanding monastery in the grand palace compound, was where King Ramathibodi I lived. When King Borom Thi Lokhanat commanded that the new living quarters be built, this palace was dedicated as the royal chapel.

We went to Bang Pa-In Palace, where the 7th king of Thailand got married. Long ago, the queen of Thailand died here in a tragic boating accident, which stirred a lot of controversy. We took many pictures, walked through the Royal Palace (and we had to put on traditional Thai silk skirts before we walked in barefoot). I practiced different Thai words again – gai (my friend’s name), grai (near), grai (far), khao (knee), khao (his/hers), khao (rice), khao (used), and suay (beautiful) or suay (unlucky, very impolite to use this word). The tones are so difficult and confusing to my English ear, but I am trying!

Anything goes in Thailand - from listing full biographical information on the teachers, from an individual’s weight, height, credentials, and picture – which is then posted in the halls for everyone to see, and then to Jill and I dancing in a moving bus, with all the students dancing in the aisles to their favorite pop star (Bird) and the live video concert we watched on the drive home. Not to worry about kids standing on chairs and dancing while the bus is moving! I am learning that Thais love to have a good time, and they love to buy you treats and food (we are given spending money for snacks when we are on school trips, and people always offer to buy all sorts of funky things from the street vendors - desserts and ice cream and fried snacks - anyway) and make sure that you are happy. And, I come home and all my laundry is done! (The workers here do our laundry and iron them every Saturday and clean our house for a few hundred baht a month.)