Ayutthaya

As far as I can tell from listening to the locals, this is pronounced “ah-YOU-tee-yuh” (you spend all this time figuring out how the vowels are pronounced, then they get pronounced differently when they’re in different environments – stressed syllable vs. unstressed. I so much prefer consonanats.)

This is the ancient capital of Thailand. The Thai king established the capital here in about 1300, and it lasted until the Khmers conquered the nation in about 1700 (these dates are off the top of my head, I’ll look them up to see if they’re accurate, but I might forget). It’s an island in the confluence of several rivers, and had great natural protection from invaders as a result.

There are ruins of at least 30 impressive Wats here, many of them not maintained. The truly impressive ones are maintained (or at least have a fence with a tickert-taker around them. You’ll nowhere else in the world see a tourist attraction so impressive for 80 cents.) LP suggests visiting the following three, which we dutifully did: Wat Phra Si Sanphet, Wihaan Phra Mongkhon Bophit, and Wat Phra Mahathat. The Bophit one was restored in the early 1900s, and is still being kept up, after a fashion, with help from a grant from the queen. It has a really big seated Buddha image. The other two are in ruins.

Wat Phra Si Sanphet was the king’s private temple, and was huge. It was overrun by school children on a field trip when we were there. These kids had an assignment from their English teacher to find an English speaking tourist, and interview them, so I was interviewed twice. They asked basic questions like “where are you from”, “do you like Thai food”, and “what do you think of our King?” (If you are asked this question, the answer is “I like the King!” – it’s actually illegal here to insult him, and would be very bad form, as all the people seem to genuinely adore him – he is the longest serving monarch currently in the entire world – 60 years. He also doesn’t have any actual power, which is left to an elected government, since 1997, and the military before that, but he does have a lot of power over public opinion.) Their English was… not so good, but they got their point across, and the other boys who weren’t actually interviewing me would stand around us in a circle and tease and push each other, and give prompts to the interviewer.

All around the island are the ruins of Wats, many without any signs, and you’re left to guess at what it might have been. We also went to the Ayutthaya Historical Study Center, which is funded by some Japanese-Thai friendship society. This was also overrun by schoolkids, but was really interesting, and worth the 100B admission price. There was a fair bit of information about the history of the place, and a display of a traditional Thai home from the period, which was an interesting contrast from all the talk about royalty.

This is a great side trip from Bangkok, and a really nice relief from the crowds and stink and noise of the capital. There are still taxi and tuk-tuk drivers pestering you, but only for a few blocks after you get off the ferry. You take a local train for 20B up. It takes about an hour each way, and you can easily spend the whole day looking at neat things. I recommend renting a bicycle – Ev’s not a biker, and so we probably walked 10km. We were good and tired at the end of the day.