Spirit of our times

I left for Ayutthaya on a hot December morning, taking the 2 hour train from Bangkok. It was close to New Years Eve and while some might regret the snow and the cold of winter holidays, I personally much enjoy walking through the streets of Bangkok in a T shirt and shorts, looking for an elusive train station (Hua Lampong by name).

After finding my way to the train station through the kindness of strangers and the help of a piece of paper that had the Thai spelling, got my ticket and was on a train soon enough, towards the ancient Thai capital of Ayutthaya. The old city flourished between the 14th and the 18th centuries, when it was destroyed by the Burmese, but a few of its monasteries and pagodas have survived, making for a truly unique peek into a civilization that has known great glory in its time.

The train is an old one but the ride is scenic, with palm trees lined up and lush vegetation; often though you can see painful signs that Thailand is struggling: the small shops by the tracks, the houses, the infrastructure are all in a stark contrast to the smiles of the people and the beauty of nature all around. Reaching Ayutthaya after a short delay, I hop on in a tuk-tuk (motorized vehicle) that takes me to the ancient ruins of the city where the once bustling city stood (separate from the modern small city of Ayutthaya).

Being there, I felt a nostalgia for the life and the people that I had never seen in a place where many generations have lived, loved and suffered. Walking around, looking at the ruins of this place of long forgotten glory, I had a realization on the significance of time and understood that nothing is eternal, regardless of how sturdy or eternal it might seem. In Ayutthaya you still see large constructions out of massive stone (impressive in architecture) who withstood the test of time – but to me that just means that although their initial role is finished, they still get the rare chance of traveling through time: they stand still while the world around them keeps changing. Being there, made me feel not only as a traveler through space - going around to world to visit this amazing land - but as a traveler through time as well, a Doctor Who without a cabin but with a tuk-tuk.

I left Ayutthaya but I’ll always remember the lesson it gave me on the value of time, of how "the glory of the world passes". Even more, I remember how I missed the last bus and the train was late for hours and hours...