September 1 (Saturday)
Taking Care of Business
Having gotten in hella-late (technical term) Friday night, Saturday morning started slowly, but that was alright because our plans didn't really begin until 11am. The first order of business was getting some breakfast and the hotel's buffet was the obvious choice. The second item was laundry. In order to help travel light we each only packed enough clothes for about a week. Since we left home the previous Saturday we were pretty much running on E, clothes-wise. Our hotel would wash, dry, and fold clothes for 40 baht per kilogram (~$0.60 per pound), which is a pretty good deal if you ask me. By the time we'd eaten and dropped off our laundry it was very nearly 11am. Time to start the day in earnest.
Today Nikki and her friend John had very generously offered to take us to Ayudhya, an ancient city located a little over 50 miles outside of Bangkok. This was great because, not only would we have been unlikely to make the trek out there if someone wasn't driving us, it would also give us plenty of time to ask them stupid questions ("Who are the cardboard standees outside every 7-Eleven? Are they famous or something?" "What are seatbelt laws like?" "Can you translate this for us?")
Tigers: ✓, Elephants: ?
Once there, our first stop were the ruins of Wat Phra Mahathat. Although there isn't that much left (the wat, along with most of Ayudhya, was destroyed in 1767), you can tell that it used to be quite impressive. Besides walls and foundations, many statues of the Buddha remain, though very few are whole. They're frequently missing heads or arms and occasionally only the legs remain. There's also a fairly famous spot where a tree has grown around the head of a Buddha statue. After Wat Phra Mahathat we headed for Wat Phra Sri Sanphet.
One thing we didn't get to do in Chiang Mai was ride elephants. This was viewed as something of an omission, so one of the reasons we were stopping at this particular wat was that you can get an elephant ride just outside. After buying tickets we climbed the stairs to the...I don't know, elephant dock? The elephants have a small bench on their back that can seat two. The mahout (elephant driver) guides them right up to the platform so that you can climb aboard.
Traveling by elephant isn't the quickest or smoothest way to get around, but there is an undeniable charm to riding around on the back of a 2.5 ton animal. When we reached the end of the block the mahouts lined us up so that Nikki and John could take a picture of us on the elephant with Wat Phra Ram in the background. We then traded places and took their picture. It was also at this point that the mahouts started getting the elephants to stick their trunks up by us looking for a tip. Before we boarded there were signs that said to not tip them, but we were kind of a captive audience and, frankly, there's some novelty to handing a bill to an elephant, so I guess: well played, elephant driver. You got us. Once the elephants plodded back we dismounted and headed toward Wat Phra Sri Sanphet proper.
Along the way we bought some food from street vendors. First was some corn on the cob which we munched on immediately (you can't let it get cold, obviously) and further along Nikki bought some lotus pods which got saved for later. The main feature of Wat Phra Sri Sanphet are three intact chedis, each enshrining the ashes of an Ayutthaya king. They had been damaged in the 2011 floods and, after the subsequent restoration their clean appearance made them look like they had been built far more recently than the 15th century. Once we'd finished at the wat we headed for lunch.
Lunch Break
We ate at a restaurant on the river and in this instance I mean "on" quite literally. Although most of the place was on shore our table was actually in a section that's floating on the river itself. Nikki and John took care of ordering which guaranteed that this would be a legitimate Thai meal. We shared fried fish and a few fried rice dishes, and then each of us got a whole prawn, butterflied. "Whole" here means guts and all which is good, because they're said to be the best part. I don't know if I'd quite give them top billing, but I did enjoy the taste. If you get head-on prawns you should at least try it.
Winding Down
After lunch we wanted to make one more stop before heading back for Bangkok: Wat Khun Inthapramun. On this next stretch of driving the sky really opened up. It was quite possibly the hardest downpour we'd seen, but since we were inside a car we once again avoided getting rained on, thus keeping the streak alive. Thankfully the rain let up before we reached our destinations. The key feature of this wat is its enormous reclining Buddha statue notable not only for its size, but for being entirely uncovered. The remains of a temple surrounding the statue make it obvious that it was at one time covered, but their state makes it equally clear that that was a long time ago.
The final stop for the day was back in Bangkok for a small bite and some drinks (at Wine Connection Tapas Bar & Bistro, if memory serves). On our way out we realized that we'd ever actually gotten to the lotus pods. Nikki gave us a crash course on how to eat them, handed us each a pod, and with that we all headed for home.