24 December 2015 Day trip to Ayuttaya

I had wanted to go to the old capital of Thailand on my last trip and took the opportunity today. I did not know what to expect but it certainly sounded interesting. In 1700, the largest city in the world with one million inhabitants, it was a huge trading centre for items from China, India, Japan, Europe and the Arab world. However, the Burmese invaded in 1767 and almost destroyed the city, prompting the Thais to move their capital to Bangkok.

The train cost 40p for the 76 kilometres. At that price, it would be churlish to complain that we left half an hour late. Not before some people had the chance of a visit to the on-platform barber! I was also taken with the at-platform servicing of the brakes.

The journey itself was slow to start with and we seemed to be following the route of a major civil engineering project. Then, after about an hour, we were in more open countryside and we gathered speed.

Arriving in Ayuttaya, you have to rather follow your instincts across the tracks and out of the station. The road leads to a short ferry crossing to the UNESCO site which is an island. The archeological park is about a fifteen minute walk down an uninspiring road.

Towards the end of the road, came the first Wats - relatively small and not a portent of the Wats in store.

Then I found myself back with the Seam Reap experience. Ayuttaya is a large city of the remains of temples and palaces. They look amazing and the colour of the brick is particularly appealing.

Weirdly, however, the week of my visit was the time of the Ayutthaya World Heritage Festival which seemed a bit like a country fair scattered amongst some of the temples. It also included, rather unfortunately, the Thai Cock Fighting festival that was housed at the tourist centre.

There were also elephant rides but they seemed to be a normal rather than festival activity. I managed to get some pictures of the bullhook carried by the mahout - a very nasty implement and it is a great shame that tourists are so unimaginative and unquestioning to perpetuate the abuse of elephants for their air-brained pleasure.

I carried on to see a few more sites, before walking back through the centre of the park to my starting point Wat Mahathat

Then it was the ferry back, only to turn up at the station to find the train had a one hour delay - still at 40p...

To kill timer, I wandered down the road from the station, confirming my view that the modern Ayutthaya is no great shakes and certainly not somewhere to hang out for long once the archeology is ticked off.

23 December 2015. Golden Temple and boat up the Chaopraya to Nonthaburi

This morning, I went first to Hualamphong station to get the times of trains to Ayuttaya for tomorrow. I was in an area familiar to me from last year and I set out to take a look at the Golden Buddha Wat. It looked splendid in the sun.

Then I went up Song Wat road, taking a few photos on the way.

I caught a boat going North, planning to get off at Wat Khema. The journey did not afford many photos.

When we got to t0 Wat Khema, I thought it looked less enticing than I hope, so I stuck with the boat to its end point - Nonthaburi.

This proved a good decision. It was an interesting area and I wandered around for an hour or so.

The boat back gave the opportunities for some photos as we got near the end. The north section does not offer many views but from the Royal Palace it gets a lot more interesting.

Some of the architecture is weird. One building seems to be trying to be a Siem Reap entry.

At the end, I got the skytrain to the station near the hotel. Outside, they were trying to make a film with the traffic swirling by.