Ayutthaya Historical Park
The UNESCO World Heritage remains of Thailand's second capital, on an island between three rivers.
Ayutthaya Historical Park
Ayutthaya was the capital of Siam from 1350 until 1767, when it was sacked by a Burmese army and abandoned. At its height it was one of the largest and richest cities in the world, and the ruins left on the island between the Chao Phraya, Lopburi and Pa Sak rivers were inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1991.
What survives is chiefly brick and laterite: chedis, prangs, temple platforms and rows of headless Buddha images, spread across a large area rather than concentrated in one place. The central cluster - Wat Mahathat, Wat Ratchaburana and Wat Phra Si Sanphet - is walkable; other temples are far enough apart that most visitors hire a bicycle, a tuk-tuk or a driver for the day.
The park is about eighty kilometres north of Bangkok and is commonly visited as a day trip from the city, by train, road or river boat. There is shade but not much of it, and the middle of the day is punishing in hot season.
- Wat Chaiwatthanaram, Ayutthaya — The riverside temple of 1630, built to a Khmer plan and the most complete ruin in Ayutthaya.
- Wat Lokayasutharam, Ayutthaya — The great reclining Buddha of Ayutthaya, lying in the open on the west side of the island.
- Wat Mahathat, Ayutthaya — The temple of the Buddha head held in the roots of a banyan tree - the single most photographed image in Ayutthaya.
- Wat Phra Si Sanphet, Ayutthaya — The royal temple of the Ayutthaya palace, and its three restored chedis.
- Wat Ratchaburana, Ayutthaya — A 1424 temple with a climbable prang and a crypt holding some of Thailand's oldest surviving murals.
- Wat Yai Chai Mongkhon, Ayutthaya — A working monastery outside the old city, with a great chedi and a courtyard of saffron-robed Buddhas.
