Phra Mongkonbophit and Elephants

After Lunch, we headed off to the Phra Mongkonbophit temple. Near the temple there were also ruins and I didn't catch the name of the ruins. They were very interesting and we were able to walk around and get an idea of what these temples looked like before their destruction. Trees with white flowers were located throughout the ruins and are very common in Thailand. From the ruins we went to Phra Monkonbophit that housed a large Buddha image that many Thais would stop and pray to with incense offerings. The temple was first created in 1610 and had been moved to many locations over its history. It has been restored many times and the most recent was in 1955. Outside of the temple there are children and elder ladies selling many items like live birds in little cages and there were also people selling a large variety of knives at tables.



From the temple we made our way over to where we got to ride elephants! As we walked up to where you ride, there was a baby elephant right in front of the crowd performing tricks and posing for pictures. We got our tickets for the ride, which are higher priced for Forangs and Ning,Pum, and Yao decided to sit it out. I rode with Leanne and Jeremy got his own elephant. Do to my weight advantage the seat was tilting towards my side the whole time. It gave me the feeling of barely hanging on to the edge of a bench before falling off. The fact that it rocked back and forth tilting us didn't help mes get rid of the thoughts that I was going to fall off. You eventually get accustom to the feeling and enjoy the ride. At one point, we stopped to wait for the others and turned the elephant around to go back. While we were stopped, our elephant decided to reach into its mouth and get what I'll tell myself was water and spray it on itself. Of course this included us and so Leanne and I got a mist of some unwanted liquid. We headed back and the elephant riding concluded our stay in Ayutthaya. When we got back to the city we were hungry and we hit the BTS to a chain called the Pizza Company. We had a good old pepperoni pizza. It was only the second breakdown as we had Burger King earlier in the week. Both tasted very good and reminded us of home. I haven't tried it yet, but some of the Thais eat pizza with ketchup on it along with many different toppings. After dinner we headed home to rest for work on Monday.

Phra Mongkonbophit Pictures

Riding Elephants Pictures