The Ancient City

_{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,

Hive account@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}