Ayutthaya, Ancient Capitol of Siam

For those of you who have been reading my blog, you will know that I do not pretend to be an experienced traveler.  I went to Thailand because I was selected by NESA to present a workshop in Bangkok.  I arrived a few days early to do some sight seeing.  My first day I toured the Grand Palace and the second day I rode an elephant, then floated down Kwai River on a bamboo boat.  Maybe not too adventurous by world class standards, but not too bad for a gal from Iowa who had barely stepped out of the Midwest before moving to Kuwait.

  

My third day in Bangkok was spent getting on and off a bus touring mostly temples in the ancient city of Ayutthaya.  Jet lag was catching up on me.  It was an hour or so flight from Kuwait to Oman and then an eight hour flight to Bangkok.  I took a lot of pictures, but I'm not altogether positive which temple was which.  We had a really nice guide who was very knowledgeable, but his voice was somewhat monotone.  Combine that with the lack of sleep and the very hot and sticky climate, you have e recipe for a severe lapse of memory.  I'll do my best to describe my pictures, but please forgive me if you have been to Thailand and are very familiar with these temples, because after a while they all started to look alike!

Our first stop was the Pa In Royal Summer Palace of King Rama IV.  Our guide told us it is a mixture of Thai, Chinese, and Gothic architecture.  

A beautiful river view on the grounds of the Pa In Royal Palace

The grounds of the palace were beautifully kept.  Notice the herd of elephant topiaries in the background.

One of the temples in the summer palace.

Our next stop was Ayutthaya. It was once the trading capital of Asia before it was ransacked and burned to the ground by Burmese invaders in 1767.  It housed three palaces and over four hundred temples.  

This sight of this Buddha head rising out of the ground really intrigues me.  When the Burmese destroyed the temples and palaces in 1767, they cut off the heads of the many Buddha statues.

To save this particular head from the looters, it was buried.  Over the years it has risen from the ground wrapped in the roots of this ancient tree.  This temple is called Wat Mahathat. This was the royal monastery, home to ancient monks.

All the buildings and statues were once completely covered in gold.  Hard to imagine.

The invaders actually melted the gold off of the statues and temples, leaving only stone and bricks.

My last glimpse of Ayutthaya.  This is one of the few Buddha heads remaining that haven't been carried off by looters over the centuries...a little eerie.

Wat Phanon Choeng.  Guided seated Buddha.  Enormous!

You could pay this monk to say a special blessing for you.  No I didn't, but a prayer for serene and uneventful flight home wouldn't have been a bad idea!

This is a reclining Buddha.  I think the orange covering is there to protect it from the elements.  It used to be in a building, but it caught fire a couple of times.

Sightseeing sadly came to an end and it was time for the conference to begin.  I finally gave my presentation the second to last day.  I was very, very nervous!  This was the end of March and I had been dealing with this presentation since about October.  I had to jump through a lot of hoops to get to this point and was anxious to be done with it!

I'm in the book.  It's official!

Kind of a fuzzy picture, but here I am, demonstrating the time-honored tradition of the ever popular rhythm band.  What four or five year-old doesn't want to be first chair jingle stick in a rhythm band!!

This was a couple of my workshop participants.  They are kindergarten teachers in Pakistan.

This was taken at our "Gala Evening at the Royal Orchid Sheraton."  I had that blouse tailored at one of the local shops.  It's Thai silk...supposed to be some of the finest silk in the world.  And it's hand washable!

Beautiful Thai dancers.  What a wonderful lasting memory of this magical country.  

I will be eternally grateful that UAS gave me this incredible opportunity to share some of my knowledge with colleagues from around the world.  It was a lot of work and certainly took me way out of my comfort zone, but it made me realize how important it is to introduce young children to music.  No other discipline engages the brain like music.  What a precious gift we can pass on to future generations. 

The simple water lilly, national flower of Thailand.