Ayutthaya(Thailand): 1N/2D

March 2018

The biggest city in the world around the year 1700 had a population of over a million, and guess where this city was: in Thailand. Where is that, you may wonder. Ayutthaya, only about 80 km north of Bangkok following the Chao Praya River.  You can get there by train in 90 minutes.

The Bangkok Railway Station(also called Hua Lamphong station) is in downtown Bangkok.  This is where you get the train to Ayutthaya. We arrived at the station around 9 in the morning, bought our tickets, and quickly discovered that there were not enough seats in the waiting area.  We went upstairs to a cafe.

The train ride was uneventful.  Once we arrived at the station in Ayutthya, the four of us got on a tuktuk, mainly because the driver approached us with a nice smile.  He took us to our hotel, the Klong Suan Plu Resort. It was a bit outside of the city close to the river. Quirky is the word that came to mine as we entered the place. Why they chose to have all the super heros flying around the property was not clear, but it was fun. “Resort” was a stretch, but it worked for one night. If we had known better, we’d have stayed closer to town, though.

As you can see on the map, there is too much to see. We hired the tuktuk guy for the day(we paid about $30/day) and let him take us around. First thing first, lunch. He took us to a restaurant nearby, then we were ready to head out.

Temples. Then more temples.

Our driver was eager to show us more, but we had to stop. We could not keep track of all the temples. Please take us to an airconditioned cafe or restuarnt to take a break. Where did we end up? Back to the railway station. There was a nice resturant called “the Station” there.

Can we see the sites from a boat? Of course. The driver got arranged for a boat, and we let the temples and the palaces slide by us as we were comfortably sitting down.

As we exited the boat, our driver said we had to hurry to catch the sunset and there was one particular spot where we would get the best view.

All the temples were lit up, and the whole town looked very pretty. You can visit Ayutthaya for a day from Bangkok, but, then you would miss this!

We asked the tuktuk guy to drop us off at a restaurant near a night market(nothing special about it) and a massage place(good and cheap) and then to go home. He insisted on waiting for us. We begged him to leave as we went in for a massage. He finally did, and we took a cab home after a blissful treatment.

Next morning after breakfast the tuktuk man picked us up and took us 20 minutes down the river to the former summer palace of Thai royals in Bang Pa-In. In the picture above, our friend Sam is modeling how long a woman’s dress or slacks should be in order to be attired properly to be admitted to the palace grounds.

It was interesting to note that there were lots of European touches in this complex which was rebuilt in the early 1800’s. Sorry but I can’t find the pictures we took. We did rent a golf cart to save our steps, and it was fun driving the thing.

We caught the train back to Bangkok from a station nearby rather than going all the way back to Ayutthaya. Not every train stops here, but we lucked out and did not have to wait long. The tuktuk guy knew the train schedule, and that helped.