Layered Lemon Pie: -Sat.- 27 June 2009g.

*Nothin', chillin' at the Holidae Inn* --Chingy, Snoopy Dogg, Ludacris

After we finished sightseeing in Sukhothai, we loaded up in the vans and headed out to Ayutthaya which is about ten hours from Chiang Mai (about an hour north of Bangkok). We got in pretty late...somewhere between 7 and 8 p.m. We stayed at this hotel. It was pretty nice. Warm shower. A/C. Cable TV--and I watched Michael Jackson music videos and told Chelsea every five minutes that Michael Jackson had died.

When Chelsea went downstairs to check her email and read Chase's letter a hundred times to memorize it and repeat to herself so she could fall asleep...well, I was gettin' out of the shower...and our door only had a stick to put through the two door handles to "lock" the door. So I did that...and then this guy tried to come up in my room. He was jerkin' it pretty hard and it almost flew open all the way. But I went and opened it...thinkin' maybe it was room service or somethin'. No! It was some crackhead dude tryin' to come up in our room to do I don't know what! And then he had the audacity to yell at me and tell me to "Lock your room!" What? Nigga no! You don't try to come up into rooms that ain't your's! How about that?!?! I'd like to go off. Tryin' to come up in here and steal somethin' or rape somebody. Oh heck nah. It ain't goin' down like that. He didn't know. Michael Jackson just died and I was devastated...then here came this fool tryin' to break into my room! (I hope Kimi reads this and she can laugh the whole time 'cause she can here my accent when I get "intense" as she calls me!)

Anyhow, I liked bein' roommates with Chelsea because she didn't try to freeze me out of house and home. We also had some extra travelers with us for the end of June/beginning of July. There was an ex-student from one of Ralph's classes, Hella. She's a grown up and she's Danish. Anyhow, she always wanted to go on the study abroad...but it was always inconvenient or too long or too much money, etc. So she decided to come out for only three weeks (the rest of us were there for three months). Then there was a group of kids who were interns two years ago...well, at least two of them were: Annie and McKenzie. McKenzie got married--so her husband, Lad, and little sister, Jessica, tagged along. They were fun. Chelsea and I rode in their van all over south Thailand.

I'm in a towel. haha. That's what I get for takin' a picture in front of the mirror!

The bathroom door was made of glass...so you could see through it. Chelsea was usin' the facilities and I wanted to get a picture of her...but I was too slow.

The next mornin' we hit up the market for breakfast. The market is #1-cheaper than any restaurant and #2-yummier because you can pick every little thing that you want instead of some jumbo meal that already comes together. So if I want a fried egg, some coconut pancakes, and mangos with sticky rice...then that's my choice.

I think those are bees on the cream. That cream goes on the pancake/shell things that they fold up and put stuff on. Kinda looks like a taco.

I wanted the picture of the monk in the wheelchair.

Yummy pork on a stick for 5 baht a stick!

My favorite fruit: mangosteen!

The coveted mangos with sticky rice. Now THIS is the breakfast of champions.

This picture is blurry, but I like how it turned out.

The ancient Thai capital of Sukhothai, a name meaning dawn of happiness, was founded in the 13th century and became the kingdom's first capital -- existing between the years of 1238 and 1438. During that time, the Sukhothai Dynasty saw nine Kings reign, the best known of whom was the third, King Ramkhamhaeng, who has been credited with both the creation of the modern-day Thai alphabet and the introduction of Theravada Buddhism to Thailand.

If you click on this map it will open up in another window and be bigger and more focused...then you can see where Sukhothai is. It is just south-east of Chiang Mai about six hours. The next day we went to Ayutthaya. On our way home we went to Lopburi: Monkey City!

At its apex, the Sukhothai Kingdom stretched over much of modern-day Thailand (excepting the northeast, which remained under the control of the Khmers). The territory was gained both by military campaigns as well as diplomacy -- the latter of which King Ramkhamhaeng was seen to be a master of. This period is seen as a Thai golden age where the Thai arts and culture prospered under the reign of a series of benevolent rulers. Trade flourished, and, in a step that had important ramifications in Thailand's future development, trading relations with China opened.

Gradual decline began following King Ramkhamhaeng's death -- he was succeeded by his son, Lo Thai, a leader considered to have been ineffectual and who oversaw significant territorial losses. By the sixth reign, King Thammaracha I, Sukhothai was in a state of decline. In the year 1438, less than a century after King Ramkhamhaeng's death, the Sukhothai Empire was incorporated into the new rising star -- Ayutthaya.

Buddha...lots and lots of Buddha.

I liked taking these kind of pictures.

Stucco with fingerprints still visible. Perfect fit.

I love the timer on my camera.

Buddha got back.

I absolutely adore pigeons. At this exact moment I wished I had some of those yummy crackers from Russia and a better zoom on my camera!

This Buddha was pimpin'. Look at the bling!

This is the "famous" Buddha motif which is haled all over Southeast Asia. One of the queens modeled for this sculpture...supposedly. He does look a bit effeminate to me.

Ah ha! Now we are gettin' to the fun story part. You see that gianormous Buddha down there that Chelsea's takin' a picture of? Well, back in the '70's there were some missionaries who climbed up on that Buddha. Not only did they climb up in his hand and take a fun picture (which I must admit was terribly tempting...but I didn't do it. I refrained!) but they shimmied up between the back of the Buddha and the wall and they sat on his shoulder like little parrots! Well, you can guess it--that's basically the worst thing you could possibly do in Thailand not to mention a federal offense or something. Well, the missionaries were pretty dumb and went to develop their film...and the film developer person turned them into Thai police. Those suckers spent about six (or was it eighteen?) months in jail. There was nothing the Church could do about it either. I'm not sure the Church even wanted to do anything for them either. They almost got the missionaries and the Church kicked out of Thailand. Period. So we got all of these lectures about "don't climb on Buddhas, blah, blah, blah..." And everytime someone found out that I was LDS (Mormon) they would ask me if I knew about those missionaries that climbed on the Buddha in Sukhothai. We even had a lesson on it at Church one Sunday! And what's even more...the missionaries get it all the time! Poor babies!

This Buddha was honkin'. No lie. Look at the hand in his lap which tempted me so.

So fly.

This is multilingual for "DO NOT CLIMB ON THE HONKIN' BUDDHA!"
It's almost the only reason why I didn't get up in his enormous hand...

Yea for meditation! The moss was so awesome. I'm not sure if sittin' here was kosher or not. But that's why the world went digital, huh?

Lots of headless Buddha.
I can't find the story online right now. So I might end up tellin' ya'll lies. Forgive me. But what I was told by Alex, our facillator who served a two year mission in Thailand, was that there was a war with Laos(?)...either way, there was a war with somebody. And in Thailand, the head is the most sacred part of the body (the feet the most defiled). The Kings had power through the religion and obviously in Theravada Buddhism, the Buddha is most sacred...and his head would be the sacred of sacredest things. Therefore, when an army rolled through the capital of Sukhothai, they would shame and depower (wd?) the king by choppin' off the heads of the Buddhas.

Buddha Cemetary.

You know how in America they have those paintings of like farmers or families, etc. and you can stick your head through the hole and take a picture. I wanted to do this here. Again, I didn't out of respect for the people...then there was jail...and heaven forbid the bad karma!