Ayuthaya, Thailand

When we got to Ayuthaya we went to a few places looking for a place I could stay and finally found one that was a little steep (500 baht-about $11). Am I a tightwad or what? The next morning I found a cheaper place with more backpacker ambience.

In the evening Nuch came by and we went to the elephant kraal nearby. There is an old holdng pen for the elephants and elevated at one end is a viewing stand where the king would sit and watch the elephants being herded into the corral. It's only used these days on special occasions. Walking distance from there is where the elephants are kept today. These are the same elephants I saw giving rides to tourists several days ago. They used to walk all the way from there to their compound when they were done working every day, but now they are transported by truck. We walked around the place and saw mother and baby elephants as well as some big bulls. I was walking in an open area and taking some photos where several elephants were eating and an American woman who works there called to me to get out of the area. I walked out of there and over to her and she explained that they weren't chained up like the others. How very observant of me. She said it was pretty dangerous over there and I said it would have been nice of some of the mahouts riding their elephants in and out of the area to warn me, since they saw I was in the 'red zone'. She then took me to the river to see a few of the elephants bathing. This is when my camera malfunctioned. It wouldn't load a roll of film properly. I kept getting an error readout on the display. Nothing was obviously wrong, but I couldn't get it to work. First and Ou showed up (Nuch must have called them) and we had a beer and invited the woman, named Margot (Thai name is Mook), to come over to Ou's place later to have a few more. A little after 9:00 pm we drove over to the kraal again and picked up a much fresher looking Margot. She explained about her life at the compound, working with the elephants, all the while speaking a fluent and colorful Thai which First and Ou found very entertaining.　She hadn't been back to the States for over 35 years. She had worked with horses at a racetrack in Singapore, grown dissatisfied with the focus on money and not the horses, and made her way to Thailand to this elephant compound in Ayuthaya. I got back to my new room at the P.U. Guesthouse at about 11:30 pm.

Nuch thought another guesthouse around the corner and down the road was better for me and when we went there I agreed that it was quieter and the next day I checked out of the P.U. and into the Baan Lotus (baan means room). I got a recommendation for a camera repair shop in town and took my camera over there for a diagnosis. I hadn't recieved a return e-mail (as promised) from the manufacturer so I took my chances with the local repair guy. I was already thinking about what I would buy as a replacement if the problem was terminal, but we went back over to his shop at a little after 6 pm. that afternoon and he was finished with it. I loaded a roll right there in the shop and it worked fine. I was just hoping that down the road somewhere less convenient the fix wouldn't fail. I paid almost $50 to get it fixed and gladly stuck it in my bag ready to continue shooting. This little fix probably voided the warranty, but I felt I didn't have much choice.

The next morning I was awakened by a loud buzzing, chirping sort of sound that was very loud. With the heat I was forced to sleep with the windows open so with the trees and the pond fairly close to the building the sound, which I at first thought was cicadas or crickets, was very loud. It would stop after a few minutes and then start up again with all the participants beginning and ending at exactly the same time. In the morning the woman owner said that it was frogs, a fact I eventually figured out for myself. It rained earlier in that night and she said that 'when it rains they cry' meaning the frogs. I guess they had been waiting around for it to rain and when it did they went nuts. There must have been a million of them. They stopped and started all through the night and finally got tired (I guess) later after the sun came up.

First had a gig in Bangkok filling in for a friend of his who plays guitar at a restaurant/bar. He played from 7 pm. to 8 pm. so we all decided to go to Bangkok and lend some support. I would also stay there a day or so to get a ticket to Cambodia to see the Angkor Wat temples at Seim Reap. We all piled into Ou's BMW late in the afternoon after a short rain and met First near the restaurant.

Mar 20, 2005

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