Ayuttayah

Every morning a monk from a temple across the river from the hotel makes his rounds to collect alms for the day.  One of his stops is at our hotel, so we were ready by 6:20 to give alms to the monk.  Each student was provided with a bag of food and some flowers to give to him.  The monk then said some prayers, blessing us all.  Afterwards, we loaded into the vans and drove ~2 hrs north of Bangkok to Ayuttayah, the ancient capital that was destroyed by the Burmese in the middle 1700s.  Many ruins of temples of the ancient capital have been preserved and collectively are a UNESCO World Heritage Site.  We visited two of them today.

The monk paddling upstream at sunrise.

Each student took a turn giving alms to the monk.  Here is Jake.

Maggie.

Carlie.

Anna.

Jess.

Kelly.

Gabi.

Alysa.

Sara.

After breakfast, we are gathering at the vans getting ready to head north to see the ruins.

The Burmese cut off the heads of the Buddha statues at the ruins. In Buddhism, the head is considered sacred, so this was an extreme form of disrespect.

Here's the whole group at Wat Chai Watthanaram.

At Wat Mahathat, one of the severed heads rolled up against a fig tree.  Over the years, roots grew around it and it has become one of the most revered artifacts from the ruins.  You must remain low at this site in respect of the Buddha head.

There are many images of Buddha at Wat Mahathat, all making great photo opportunities.

Late lunch at the Lampang restaurant before heading to the hotel.

We went to the night market in Ayuttayah for dinner.  There were lots of scrumptious things to eat... like this meat on a stick.

This was less scrumptious.

Insects!

Jake decided to buy a bag of silkworm pupae.

He and most of the students tried them.

Carley and Maggie.

Kelly enjoying meat on a stick.

Here are Gabi, Hally, Carlie, and Alysa buying Thai waffles.