Touring
Lopburi
Central
Thailand’s Lopburi is one of the oldest cities in the country. It was within
the large Khmer empire in times gone by and was briefly the capital of the
Ayutthaya Kingdom. Today,
Lopburi is known to be the sunflower province of Thailand and home to many
temples which the country is famous for. There's also a road in Lopburi where
macaque monkeys roam and live around with the locals.
Unfortunately, the sunflowers were not yet in bloom at the time of our visit.
But the monkeys in Phra Prang Sam Yod
live among the Thais. They freely roam the street and jump onto the cars to
look for food. The locals had made it a point to leave foods or bananas for the
monkeys on top of their cars. Some locals feed them on the street.
Temples are everywhere. Even street rotundas are made of old, restored
temples. We visited Somdet Phra Narai National Museum where special, ancient
temples can be found.
King Narai the Great, King of Ayutthaya during the second half of the
17th century built his palace near the Lopburi river.
The palace was designed by French architects in a mix of Thai and European
architectural styles. Construction started in 1665 and was completed 12 years
later in 1677.
After
King Narai’s death in 1688 the palace was abandoned. It was nearly two
centuries later King Mongkut ordered restoration of the palace and the
construction of several new buildings. Nowadays, the palace buildings are in
use as exhibition halls for the Lopburi museum.
The 17
acres palace grounds, enclosed by brick walls covered with plaster, consists of
an inner courtyard, central courtyard and outer courtyard, separated from each
other by high walls.
Prutanam,
Bangkok
After four days of refreshing farm life, it was time to see the country's
capital which is Bangkok.
Of course, no trip in Thailand is complete without seeing Prutanam and doing
the rounds of its flea market, Bayoike, for quality, affordable wear, t-shirts
and souvenir items.
We rounded the touristy and highend establishments of Prutanam and caught up
with several friends on group tour who were billeted at Novotel Hotel.
The hotel district is some 10-20 minutes walk away from Bayaoike while Bayoike
is five to 10 mins away from our home away from home, at Dream Hotel,
where we stayed for two days prior to going back home.
Traffic in Bangkok is as bad as the traffic in Metro Manila. But we noticed
that the Thais are more disciplined -- even our Tuktuk driver never overtake
the cars or Tuktuk ahead of him. Thai drivers, including taxis, would wait and
queu in proper lines, thus avoiding chaos and more traffic on the road.
Thailand is
about two
times bigger than Philippines. Philippines is
approximately 300,000 sq km, while Thailand is approximately 513,120
sq km.
Thailand is famous for foodies as a street food heaven. It is
also most visited for its beaches, jungles and elephants. We wanted to see more
of Thailand and the elephants but we only have Lopburi and Bangkok in our
itinerary.
With friendly Thais who look exactly like us and more places to discover in
Thailand, we will definitely be back. Here's praying that the virus pandemic
would be eradicated the soonest so we can all travel again.
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