The Ancient City

in #travel4 years ago


Welcome to the Ancient City also known as Ancient Siam

The Ancient City was one of the places I researched before going to Thailand. A huge open-air museum, shaped like Thailand, full of historically accurate replicas of Thailand’s most famous monuments, buildings, and more? There was no way we would pass on the opportunity to see it and knowing the size of the place, @lemony-cricket and I headed out early (it was easy to grab a grab, Uber type of service in Thailand), and dedicated the entire day for exploration there.

There is a thing that does not translate well from the photography of tropical paradises such as Thailand. The heat. Luckily for us, in the Ancient City, we found tiny shops scattered all over selling water and other refreshments or we would have died, no kidding. Hydration is everything.

Visitors of the Ancient City can borrow bicycles for free. It was so much fun riding around. There was no way we would have seen as much of the park on foot and the sun showed no mercy whatsoever. I was glad I had my hat with me or I would have overheated. Oh! Here started my the most delicious, purple fruit ice cream hunt. I later was not able to find it in any other shops while in Thailand. Bummer.

So what did we see? Let’s jump right into it!



Places such as this one have tons of visitors a year, but either it was due to the season or the size of the place, we barely saw any crowds, which was nice and peaceful.  







These googly-eyed thingies always cracked me up. Love them!







Replica of  Dusit Maha Prasat Palace. My favorite features of Thai architecture for sure are the roofs and the embracing of all the different colors and decorative elements.  





Looks pretty damn impressive, right? It is interesting how these replicas are made. What in a real temple would be wall paintings in replica are wallpaper type of prints glued to the walls in places they are supposed to be.





Pick one and take home with you? I am not sure about bonsai trees in general. They are cute, but if you think about it, all the tortuous things the tree must go through to look in a certain way. Isn’t it a little bit cruel?





Replica of the Sanphet Prasat Palace



Ha! Look, I found a crab warrior!



It is not as easy to capture a peacock as one might think. They move their heads every two, three seconds unless curious about something particular. Happy how these couple of colorful shots turned out!





The Ancient Theatrical Pavilion







These were just roaming around freely. Funny ears, but look at that angry face. We did not want to hang around for too long to find out if they are friendly after all.









This lion temple thingy was still being built and so were many other places there as it seemed. Work at the Ancient City is never-ending. Who knows how the place will look like years from now and what kind of historical treasures and more they will bring to the light!



Sala of Ramayana. Sala in Latvian means island, while in Thai it means pavilion. Since this beautiful, colorful pavilion is right in the middle of a body of water, I think Latvian sala makes sense too.



Botanical Garden from Thai Literature. You guessed it right, all the plants in the garden have been taken from mentions in Thai literature and the pavilion features some writings on the walls as well.





Some water-breathing dragons

The Ancient City was one of the highlights from Thailand no doubt! What’s next? Steem, Steem, Steemfest! ^^ Hopefully, sooner than this post arrived.

Song of the day: Cobble - Noise 

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That looks like another good day out there. I have never been around SE Asia, but have heard that it is filled with a lot of interesting things to see and do.

It's... a somewhat accurate representation, more or less.

Yes, @m31 said as much.

Hope you had a good time in Thailand mate

Ahaha! No, no! You got it wrong. That's me in 20 years from now xD

It was a great day! Ah, we missed you there in Thailand, you would have loved it. Recommend if you get a chance in future.

I would have loved to have gone, but I would have been far too annoying to travel with you :D

Ha! Why? I would have loved listening you talk for hours and hours about Steem :P Maybe I would have learned thing or two. You are like master Yoda of Steem. And other stuffs too :)

Nah, I would have just got drunk in the sunshine :P

Sunshine? :D Well I got drunk too, but not in the sunshine, at a lovely Monkey bar thanks to really cool waitress, but that's a story for another post.

All these photos are just so awesome to have; I didn't take many of my own (I'm just not the photographer type I think, you know?) and, you know, I can look at some of them and actually place myself there, which is just so cool. You are right about the heat though. No photo can capture that. It was really fucking hot in Thailand, and we were there in November. Woah. I just can't imagine the rest of the year. I can't process it. Already I think we had like 6 huge empty water bottles in our bike baskets each from how much we had to keep drinking xD

And yeah, the free bicycles were a nice touch and they were even really well-maintained and safe and stuff and that was just a great part of the whole thing. I remember there was also a place where you could rent golf carts too to drive around but like, that would have just been super lame, right? :D I used to love cycling; when I got a car I abandoned my last bicycle to just sit there and rust when I moved out of university housing years and years ago xD and now I am just determined to get back into it, which I suppose is healthy I guess... so... thanks Ancient City for the inspiration ^_^

I see what you mean about the bonsai trees, you know, you certainly can look at it that way and it's a valid question, but also just think about all the love and care those people must put into their craft and doing that for so long and making them into something beautiful. I bet some of them have really close bonds with their trees. I'm curious about it now... maybe we should have asked the trees while we were there, how they feel about it? Ah well, they seemed content to me as we browsed them. Trees are just really chill I think, you know? At least the ones I've talked to.

Definitely one of the best experiences there for me too. It really was just an awesome time with some really great company; thanks for that ^_^ and we will track down more of that delicious purple ice cream someday if it's the last thing I do :D

Thanks for the visual treat. Those peacock pics look awesome. The sculptures, wow. A really great outing and I am happy you enjoyed it.
Is that a bull?

You are welcome and thank you @sayee :) Yea those peacock pics are one of my favorite from Thailand, took me quite a bit of shots to get couple good ones.

I think it is. Must be a sign because that was not the only bull I saw in Bangkok, you'll see :D

Ah, nice. Stay happy

Such an amazing place! And good photos! :)

Must see for sure, worth both time and money. Thank you @kitalee :)

Wow those are some amazing pictures. The sculptures are incredible. That looks like a magical place. I like the open aspect of the open air museum. That's really cool. Awesome post

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Aww thank you @leaky20 :) Indeed. The place is truly wonderful. Not just for tourists for who those mostly are just beautiful, colorful buildings, but from historical stand point as well. It is like Thai people there embark in places long lost. Love that concept.

Great piece of artwork. Really amazing. Love to see this.

The guy who built the place was really into arts as well. Love the whole concept embodying both art and history. I am glad I got to visit and now share here :)

That is cool that there were free bikes, biking around a place like that sounds amazing! And biking is kind of like mobile air conditioning a bit with the wind in your face when you are riding. Lots of amazing stuff to look at in this post, but for some reason that cow is really sticking out to me!

@tipu curate

Oh absolutely, it was a blast and wind indeed helped. Also interesting how in some of the buildings, when we were just standing in the door isle or window isle the breeze just came in and really felt like air conditioning, dunno if it is by the design or just coincidence.

Those were angry looking cows hehe

Thank you so much @carlgnash for reading and appreciating! :)

very beautiful pictures. I find the culture of them very fascinating. I would wish we now in modern times would combine more nature in our infrastructure.

Thank you so much @bumper! Absolutely, for me it was a good culture shock. I would love to go back one day and learn more about their culture, history and language as well. It sounds so fun.

Yea, know what you mean. Though some buildings incorporate some green areas too, on rooftops etc, but they stand nowhere near parks and forests.

Yeah! This place is very impressive indeed. I love bicycling around while admiring these interesting things and beautiful buildings, too. I love Thai architecture, especially, the roofs and the embracing of all the different colors and decorative elements, too.

Your photos are very magnificent. I like them all. Great capture!

As you said, "work at the Ancient City is never-ending.", some places that are in your photos, I haven't seen yet; i.e. lion temple, etc.

The peacock is beautiful and has bright colors. And it's amazing to see the cow roaming around the area freely like this.

Thanks so much for sharing. I think I shall visit this place again soon. ;)

Thank you @tangmo! ^^ I am just so happy I got to experience it though it is changing and developing all the time. It's like this island of wonders emerged from different times. Loved the vibe.

Hehe, the territory is so huge, they need some alive lawn mowers, seems they are doing pretty good job too :)

You’re welcome!

Ah! I absolutely agree with you, “it's like this island of wonders emerged from different times”.

Haha! Well said and creative words, “alive lawn mowers”! Yeah! It seems that they are doing pretty good job indeed. ;D

Wow, what a beautiful city. I like all the pictures, it must be great to be there.

Thank you @blessed-girl! Glad you enjoy them! ^^ Just imagine if those buildings were the originals. Must have been truly magnificent.

It was lovely there despite the hotness that I am not used to. Bicycles really helped to cool off and the little shops.

Ohhh - I really wanted to go here but I couldn't squeeze in enough time before/after SteemFest. Glad you got to see it!

Aww! You would have loved it there, but it really needs quite a bit of time when visiting, a lot of ground to cover. So worth it though if you get a chance again in future.

Was really lovely to meet you again there at Steemfest! :)

Hey @m31, I really like that photo of the temple reflected in the pond. ✅

Hey! I walked on some slippy looking rocks to grab that one :)

Risking life and limb for our viewing pleasure? That's dedication! Nice work.

I hope you've been well.

Yea, you know, water quality is one thing to be really questioned in Thailand. Wouldn't want to accidentally drink that water or get it on an open wound :D

Been alright, strange to look at pictures from Thailand while in winter wonderland. How about yourself?

I've been good, curating, living and working in real life, writing content. I've been working on engaging with new people more, commenting and getting involved with them a little. It's odd though, some don't even reply, or give me one word replies. I just move on though, no skin off my back.

I bet it's a bit of a culture shock coming from Thailand back to EU. You know, I really wish I could have got to SF to meet some of you guys...I'm a bit of steem-idiot as far as knowledge goes but it would have been nice to fist bump y'all and hang out.

I am trying to get back on curating track. It was good to take a little break after nonstop 2.5 years. Commenting more sounds great. I have always sucked at commenting. Because writing for me really takes a lot of time. I am weird like that. I write and rewrite and ponder for half an hour, delete and write from scratch. I would love to learn how to engage better though. Maybe that should be part of my Steem New Year's resolution.

When it comes to new people. I guess they just mostly don't realize the importance of talking with people in comments. Because they mostly have gone used to screaming in empty voids where no one talks back, share something and go on about their day. Like Facebook.

Culture shock for sure, but I needed that experience. One interesting observation another Steemian pointed out - in Thailand it seems everything is at the same place, poor and the ultra rich shopping at the same places, walking the same streets. Really fascinating place.

You know, this year it was only 100 ish, maybe a little more people there at the fest. While, the number was small in comparison to other years, it was somehow more intimate and I loved that, because it is harder to have conversations with 300 or more people. If you can try and make it next year. I have a feeling it will be a big one for Steem next year and I would love to meet you some day too. Steemians are wonderful people, lots of fun stories. Will share some in next posts :)

Commenting more is difficult as it means reading more posts and like you I write content of my own which takes time. I have real life to contend with too, hobbies, work, my relationship, sleep...Still, having said that I am commenting much more and getting a little reciprocal commenting also. I read for curangel though and so I've started commenting on each one I send up and figured that's a good start.

I've been to Thailand several times and I think you're right, it seems more evenly spread as far as class-structure. I haven't been to Bangkok but seems you saw it there so I assume it's the way of it. I like the place. Vietnam is also cool...Spent some time there too.

Only 100 at SF? I guess a sign of the times, lower crypto prices and more financial pressure around the place - I agree though, maybe better to engage with people more effectively. I'd like to go to the next one, but like everyone, it comes down to time and money. We'll see...Would be interesting to meet you guys.

Be well @m31. 😃

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