Ayutthaya : The Ancient Capital of Thailand

Our trip to Ayutthaya happened on Mar 13, 2005. Ayutthaya, the old capital of Thailand, is located not far from Bangkok, about 1.5 hours train trip. The city used to be one of the marvellous cities of prosperous South East Asia. Unfortunately, it was devastated and levelled during war campaign with the Burmese. Modern Ayutthaya still keeps all its ruins, tracing back from the glorious past. It is now one of the World Heritage Site, and is under supervision of UNESCO.
Getting there
Willy had been to Ayutthaya once many years ago during his first trip to Thailand. Now since Astrid and Rudy were visiting, we decided to take them to Ayutthaya, since Visca had also not yet been to the place. We took train from Hua Lamphong station which was leaving for Chiang Mai. It departed at 09.30 and arrived in Ayutthaya at 10.51. The train fare was only 40 Baht (air-con) to Ayutthaya, but without seat number. It means if there were empty seats due to few passengers travelling to Chiang Mai, we were allowed to occupy them.


The Ayutthaya trip
We had to cross the river separating the train station to the city area by paying 2 Baht per person. We then hired a song-thaew to take us around the archaelogical complex. The negotiated fare was 150 Baht/person for 4 hours trip. Our original plan was to hire bikes, but we were very lucky not to have done so as the weather had been extremely hot during that summer, also because the temples are located quite far one from another making it very tough to explore by bike.
Most of the temples and shrines were in state of ruins as they were all destroyed during the war with the Burmese. However, we found some temples to be in quite a better condition. The first wat that we visited was Wat Chai Mongkhon, which is still in a relatively good condition. It has an immense stupa, surrounded by a lot of Sitting Buddha statues, has a big reclining Buddha statue. Ticket is 20 Baht, and free for Thais and Willy (since Willy speaks good Thai without accent and has a work permit :-) Next is the Wat Phra Mahathat... a ruin, but it has a unique feature, i.e. a Buddha statue head which is coming out of tree trunk. Ticket was 30 Baht (free willy :). Then, there was Wat Ratburana. Just like Wat Phra Mahathat, this one is also ruins. Here, visitors can climb up to the stupa, and enter it to see some of the nicest mural paintings in the inside.Wat Phra Si Sanpet was our next wat, the biggest wat in Ayutthaya. It is the most popular wat in Ayutthaya, and has been featured in a lot of brochures and postcards. It also usually held Thai traditional dance performance illuminated by spectacular lights. There were a lot of food and souvenir vendors nearby.
Apart from temples, we also visited Baan Chang (Elephant's house) where visitors can take photos with or ride on the elephants.
Getting back
We took the same train and departed at 15.48, arrived in Bangkok at 17.35. The fare was cheaper (non- air con) at 20 Baht only.