thailand: the ancient kingdom of ayutthaya
thailand has had a long and storied history. since it is one of the most fertile and biodiverse areas on the planet, people have always been drawn to it. there is evidence of settlements from a few thousands of years ago.
things started to get interesting (at least for the purpose of this blog) around the 1300s when the kingdom of ayutthaya was in ascendancy. it was really the forerunner of thailand - covering a similar area. in fact though foreigners called the kingdom 'siam', they referred to themselves as 'tai, and the kingdom as 'krung tai' or 'tai country'.
anyway, to come several hundred years forward, the couple you see in the pic above are our dear friends narit and karina. we have a lot in common: they were in the sign language congregation, narit loves photography (difference between him and me is he is actually good at it - he was a fashion photographer before he came to bethel!) karina's dad came to thailand as a misisonary, and married her mom. you will see lots of them in the blogs to come.
so in the 1300s, ayutthaya came to power because of its good trading location and eventually became so powerful that it was able to challenge the great angkor kingdom (modern day cambodia). the buildings in this picture are part of the royal palace - the temple part, as a matter of fact. it is called 'wat phra si sanphet' and was not used by the general public but was just for the royal family.
incidentally you might have noticed some people dressed in orange robes (no, thats sandi and karina! the previous picture!). they are buddhist monks, and throughout our stay we would see quite a few. the majority of people in thailand are buddhists and thailand has 38,000 (!) temples.
a strange thing for us coming from africa was seeing domesticated elephants. african elephants are too crazy to be domesticated, and you do not want to see what an enraged elephant can do. actually you might want to: a quick youtube search for 'angry elephant' is very educational. that trunk is amazing...it can pick up an egg, but it can also throw a motorbike around like it was a ball. and most of those videos are of the smaller, mild-tempered indian elephant.
much of asia practises buddhism, based on what is known of the teachings of siddhārtha gautama who lived in india. thailand is no exception, and it is common for houses to have a small altar, though this is just as likely to be in worship of buddha as it is to be local traditional gods.
things started to get interesting (at least for the purpose of this blog) around the 1300s when the kingdom of ayutthaya was in ascendancy. it was really the forerunner of thailand - covering a similar area. in fact though foreigners called the kingdom 'siam', they referred to themselves as 'tai, and the kingdom as 'krung tai' or 'tai country'.
anyway, to come several hundred years forward, the couple you see in the pic above are our dear friends narit and karina. we have a lot in common: they were in the sign language congregation, narit loves photography (difference between him and me is he is actually good at it - he was a fashion photographer before he came to bethel!) karina's dad came to thailand as a misisonary, and married her mom. you will see lots of them in the blogs to come.
so in the 1300s, ayutthaya came to power because of its good trading location and eventually became so powerful that it was able to challenge the great angkor kingdom (modern day cambodia). the buildings in this picture are part of the royal palace - the temple part, as a matter of fact. it is called 'wat phra si sanphet' and was not used by the general public but was just for the royal family.
incidentally you might have noticed some people dressed in orange robes (no, thats sandi and karina! the previous picture!). they are buddhist monks, and throughout our stay we would see quite a few. the majority of people in thailand are buddhists and thailand has 38,000 (!) temples.
a strange thing for us coming from africa was seeing domesticated elephants. african elephants are too crazy to be domesticated, and you do not want to see what an enraged elephant can do. actually you might want to: a quick youtube search for 'angry elephant' is very educational. that trunk is amazing...it can pick up an egg, but it can also throw a motorbike around like it was a ball. and most of those videos are of the smaller, mild-tempered indian elephant.
much of asia practises buddhism, based on what is known of the teachings of siddhārtha gautama who lived in india. thailand is no exception, and it is common for houses to have a small altar, though this is just as likely to be in worship of buddha as it is to be local traditional gods.
this famous head at ayuttaya neatly encapsulates how this once great kingdom met its end. in 1767 burmese armies 40,000 strong laid siege to ayutthaya and sacked the city. it is thought that maybe this head was being carried off by the marauding troops and it was too heavy, so it was abandoned and eventually the tree grew around it.
eventually the capital was rebuilt - but in a new location about 80km to the south - in a place that would eventually become...bangkok. ayutthaya is now rebuilt, but is a relatively quiet and pretty place built around the ruins of a once great kingdom.
