"Love Destiny" temple, Summer Palace, and drive to Pattaya

Day 8  Saturday, April 7, 2018  Ayutthaya and Pattaya

We visited Wat Chai Wattanaram in the morning, and the most vivid memory we have is all the locals being photographed in 13th century Thai dress based on the highly popular TV series, Love Destiny.

On the way to the temple, we stopped along the road to sample Roti, a crepe with either sweet or savory filling. Roti is a very popular street-vendor treat all over Thailand. She cooks three crepes at a time, and then we got to fill them with a variety of flavored, cotton-candy type fillings.

We enjoyed the Roti!

Our next stop was the old temple, still in ruins from the Burmese raids of 1767.

This model shows what it looked like in its heyday. Janet was getting a photo from the other side!

This view allows seeing all the various chedi and towers.

Nu explained that a popular Thai soap opera, called Love's Destiny, has prompted a craze of Thais wanting to dress up in 13th-century clothes similar to what is worn on the TV series that takes place at that time. They come to get their photos at this old temple to capture the right atmosphere.

Vendors were renting the outfits there at the temple, and Nu joked that we might want to partake for some cool pictures!

Even the children can get dressed up, complete with a wig to look like a character on the soap opera.

 Here is evidence of the ruinous nature of this temple, although we learned that most of these Buddha heads were taken by recent thieves, not the Burmese invaders.

 

One more couple in their Love's Destiny pose. 

 On the far side of the river behind the temple is a residence of the previous queen, Rama IX's wife. Nu just loved that royal family, and he's showing his respects.

We then visited the Royal Summer Palace, Bang Pa-In. It was created by the king from 1632, and serves to this day as a  royal retreat.  Beautiful grounds! Most of the current structures were built under King Rama V in the late 19th century.

Summer camp for Thai kids!

 This is Rama IV's lookout tower. It's the only structure at the palace that the public may visit, since it's still in use by the royal family.

Nu told us a very sad story about Rama V's family that occurred in 1887. His wife and three of his children all died, in separate situations. The beloved queen, age 34, died when her boat sank in the river as she was traveling from Bangkok up to the palace. 

And this monument is for the thee children, a princess and two princes, who each died of an illness.

Each of these monuments, including this one for the queen, was erected by King Rama V to honor his family members who died in that fateful year.

Thais love their elephants! These were on the summer palace grounds. 

 We then traveled a few hours south on the freeway, east of Bangkok and down to Pattaya. Our very first stop there was the world's largest jewelry store. If you question that claim, just read it above their ticket counter!

We all took this hokey "amusement" ride (yes, we had to laugh) to illustrate how gems are mined. Sitting on the far left are our friends from Kansas, Susan and Hal. On the left of the car on the right are our friends from Redlands, CA, Susie and Merry.

This is what the world's biggest jewelry store looks like inside. What was creepy was that they assign an agent to shadow you the entire time you're in there. She sometimes promoted something we were looking at, but mostly she stayed in the wings. But in the very end, in the gift shop, we chose something and suddenly there she was, ready to ring it up for us. 

Our hotel was luxurious. We walked off to find a restaurant, and found this one serving Uzbekistan food. We met the portly owner and his wife, the chef, who of course were from that country. They were friendly and wanted to know if we liked our dinners. We did!

That is all I remember from that day. Pattaya was certainly a large touristy town with lots of neon lights, massage parlors, restaurants, bars, drag queen shows, and music.