We had planned to make a day trip to Ayuthaya this day and so we headed through the city to Bangkok northern bus station and caught the 9 o’clock bus there. It took about 2 hours to get to Ayuthaya, because even though the distance is only about 75 km, the bus stopped here and there to pick up more people.
Ayuthaya is a centuries-old town with a population of 137,000. It was the Thai capital for 417 years between 1350 and 1767, and it was an important trading city, as its centre is located on an inland island at the meeting point of 3 navigable rivers. Owing to the trade it used to be a very prosperous city and had a lot palaces and temples. Unfortunately, most of its grandeur was heavily damaged and looted during the Burmese attack in 1767, which was fatal to the great Ayuthaya kingdom of that time. The survivors that rebuilt the Siamese (now Thai) kingdom moved the capital south to Bangkok instead of rebuilding it in Ayuthaya.
A considerable amount of the old temples or the ruins thereof have been restored to some extent by now. We rented bikes and rode around the city from temple to temple. We started from Wat Phra Mahathat. The most remarkable feature of this temple complex is a Buddha head embedded among tree roots.
We continued our tour with a visit to the Ayuthaya Historical Study Centre – a museum that gives an overview of a life in Ayuthaya Kingdom as it once was.
We then went to Wat Phra Si Sanphet, which used to be the largest temple in Ayuthaya and it was used by several kings. It houses three huge chedis (stupas) and it used to have some huge golden Buddha statues, which were melted down by the Burmese. Next to Wat Phra Si Sanphet is the beautiful Wihaan Mongkhon Bophit. This temple has been nicely restored and it houses one of Thailand’s biggest bronze Buddhas (17 metres high).
It was burning hot by the time we were there and we were really hungry. There was a market right next to the temples and there were all kinds of local delicacies (dried fish, deep fried waffles, pickled fruits, cosmic looking sweets and pastries). Nothing of this seemed too promising, but I noticed the ingredients of green papaya salad in one stall. I had been missing the green papaya salad all the time since leaving Laos and was happy to have it again, together with some refreshing cold beer. We had a first one that was too spicy for us (even after 2 months in Asia!) but we asked another one with no chilli at all, and that levelled it out… It was really nice to have our new favourite Asian dish!
In the afternoon we went on riding around different old temples or ruins (Wat Chetharam, Wat Lokaya Sutha, Wat Na Phra Meru, ending up at Wat Ratburana). Really nice pass time…
We had thought of doing some souvenir shopping in the evening at the central local market, Chao Phrom Market. But it appeared that it was oriented to locals – no souvenirs, only foodstuff and hideous apparel. So, no shopping there.
We took a boat across the river to go to railway station on the other side. The boat ride took about 2 minutes. I was determined to use a train at least once during our trip. So, we headed to the railway station and got tickets to the next train to Bangkok. We didn’t have to wait for long, perhaps only 15 minutes. It took about 2 hours to get to Bangkok. The train was a bit crowded at the beginning, so that Felipe had to stand for a while, but soon people started to alight and we were almost the only ones left by the time the train arrived to Bangkok central station.
We ended the day with a nice dinner at Antonio’s balcony chatting with him about the day.
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