Shady Project

Ayutthaya

Posted by Shady Mon, 21 May 2007 04:09:49 GMT

Went to Ayutthaya over the weekend. It's only about an hour and a half by bus from Bangkok. The ride itself isn't too bad; nothing special scenery wise, and at some of the stops they'll let vendors into the bus to sell you food and drinks.

The first stop of the trip was to see Wat Mongkolbopit, a unctioning Wat not ruined near the entrance to the ruins of Wat Prasisanpet.

Ayutthaya was the capital of thailand in the past, and it was also sacked by the Burmese twice during the many, many wars Thailand fought with Burma. As a result, you can find lots of ruins in Ayutthaya, in addition to the usual plethora of Wats. The primary ruins are the ruins of Wat Prasisanpet which was the private chapel for the royal family back when Ayutthaya was the capital. It also houses the ashes of three previous kings of Thailand, in three huge stupas, which you can see in the gallery Ayuttaya, inside the Thailand gallery.

Although Wat Prasisanpet was destroyed by the burmese, Wat Yaichaimongkol was built after Ayutthaya was reclaimed a second time, and as a result is in much better over all shape. You can still see the buddha statues made of stone, and they are still a fully functioning temple to this day. You can find a reclining buddha here, as well as some other large ones.

The third and final Wat that I visited today was Wat Pananchueng. This wat is a mix of Chinese and Thai styles, and for the Chinese, the buddha here is considered to be the protector of sailors. The buddha here is simply huge, and at one point it was exposed outside, where it could be seen for quite a distance. At this wat one of the things that you can do, is to pay 10 baht and get large bag of fish food. You walk out onto a dock, and feed the huge numbers of catfish that congregate here.

Although you can ride elephants around in Ayutthaya, I didn't get the chance to do that. I did however get some pics taken with the pachyderms, and I recommend that anyone who goes to Ayuttaya do so. They're pretty smart and who doesn't love elephants?

Finally, I had the pleasure of a river dinner cruise around Ayuttaya. Ayuttaya is surrounded on all four sides by river, which is why it was originally chosen as a capital. You can order a wide variety of delicious foods (Fried Boar with Curry Sauce!) and watch the scenery go by. There are several companies that offer this type of dinner cruise, but the one I went with is the Pasak River Queen. It's he biggest boat, a dual level ship with the first level enclosed and air conditioned. The second level is open on all sides. The only down side to this is having to sit through some rather appalling karaoke (seriously, you don't know bad karaoke until you hear the engrish version of Zombie by The Cranberries). However, bad singing aside this really is an awesome way to end the day.

You can see all the pictures from Ayutthaya here