Ayuthaya - Old City, Bangkok

Day trip Ayuthaya
For a good day trip, head north to Ayuthaya.
If you have three quarters of a day to spare and are interested in seeing the ancient capital of Thailand you can consider a day trip north on the train to Ayuthaya.
The city was sacked by the Burmese in 1767 after being the capital of the kingdom since 1350. As a result it is now a collection of ruins spread over about 10 square kilometres with a town of 40,000 people inside it.
Transport to Ayutthaya
To get there , I caught the train from the main train station HuaLampong which is at one end of the subway system. After getting off the subway, you walk about 5 minutes through an underground walkway to escalators, which take you up to the main rail station for Bangkok. Here trains leave to the provincial areas. It is a large station , air-conditioned and with a tourist desk to help you find where you get your tickets etc. I was directed to the counter and paid 15 Baht for the one and half hour train ride (third class) to Ayuthaya. There are first and second class trains which are air conditioned, but I found the third class train OK, seats were soft, windows open and they had toilets but I did not use. Enterprising people ride the train selling cold drinks and snacks.
Getting Around
When you get to Ayuthaya station you climb down from the train and are approached by Tuk Tuk drivers wanting you to book them for the day. There is a board setting out the Tuk Tuk rates which helps but they want 300 baht per hour which I though was a bit steep. Also, the TukTuks are not as comfortable as Bangkok , but rather mini cattle trucks where you sit on benches side on, it makes looking around a bit difficult. Paying by the hour also means you want to rush through the ruins as the meter is ticking. If there are more than two of you, this may be the best way to go but if you are on your own or with one other, I recommend hiring a motorbike taxi and negotiating each ride to each site. Alternatively hire a Tuk Tuk to each site and pay him off each time.
So, what to see.
There are ruins everywhere around the town and they can get a bit repetitive if you want to do all of them. On the half day trip you will get to see 4 or 5 of the better ones.
First on the list should be Wat Phra Si Sanphet. As this is the largest and most elaborate of the temple ruins to see. Cost for entry to this and most of the other ruins is 30 Baht. The Tuk Tuk I took (excuse homonyms), dropped me off at the back and you should plan to walk out the front. This was the Royal palace from 1350 to 1448. After having a look around (minimum 30 minutes) there are many stalls for tourists if you want to have a wander. You can walk down a long wide path from this ruin to a busy front entrance where tuk tusk and motorbike taxis are waiting. I walked across the road past tourists seeing the sights on elephants to
Wat Pra Ram
Another B20 entrance and interesting to wander around for 15 minutes but don’t go out of your way to get to it.
Next , head to Wat Mahathat.Built in 1374 here you can see a large number of Buddha statues and a key photo point is the Buddha head embedded in a tree. Also of interest here is the walk in stupa and the variety of stupa which can be seen. The ‘corn cob’or rounded top ones are Khmer style Stupa, the pointy ones are either Sri Lankan Prang (round base and round all the way up) or Thai Chedi (square base and round from the base up. All three styles can be seen here.

Next head north to Wat Na Phra Meru. This is more of an in-tact temple which survived the sacking by the Burmese, the chapel houses a rare 8 meter by 4.4 meter statue of Buddha as a prince in royal robes before he was enlightened. You can take photos inside this temple and be sure to look into the very little chapel next to it. Finally have a quick look at Wat Lokayasutharam- a huge reclining Buddha in the same pose as the one at Wat Po in Bangkok but larger. The authorities wanted to house it to protect it but the locals said no as this was the form it was in and they thought the tourists prefer it this way. The locals arrange to clothe it in the massive saffron robe you will see over it
Phom Phet Fortress- a small ruin of a fortress on the river , takes 5 minutes to see and not really worth it
There are many , man other ruins to explore but this made for a full day by the time I got back to Bangkok.

Read more: http://forum.virtualtourist.com/forum-1445238-1-Travel-Bangkok-1-forum.html#ixzz1Jg7hfJzv

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The cruise we went on was run by Manohra Cruises and we spent 2 nights on board the converted rice barge, the Manohra Song. It was a big highlight of the holiday for us and I’d definitely recommend it for anyone who’s thinking of spending a week or so in Bangkok. The boat was lovely and the crew couldn’t do enough for us. The food was amazing, in both quality and sheer quantity – breakfast, lunch, afternoon tea and dinner were all freshly prepared on board by the boat's chef.

We also had our own personal guide who accompanied us around all the different places we visited along the way and her knowledge of Thai history and culture really helped to bring each one alive for us. I’ve never really been keen on guided tours in the past, but her stories, descriptions and the little songs she sang to us made the trip so much more interesting than if we’d just been wandering around alone, wondering what we were looking at!

Some of the places we visited along the way were Wat Arun, the Royal Barge Museum, Wat Bang Na and the Summer Palace. In Ayutthaya itself, we had a guided tour of the preserved ruins, temples and local market, followed by a ride on an elephant. This was a new and rather bizarre experience for me, since the ride took us along the modern city streets and it felt really strange to be sitting on an elephant waiting for a gap in the traffic to cross the road!

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Set at the confluence of the Lopburi, Prasak and Chao Phraya Rivers, the beautiful city of Ayutthaya was founded in 1350 by King U-Thong and was the capital of what was then known as Siam. It's located in the Central Plains of Thailand, 85km to the north of Bangkok.

Over the next 417 years it was ruled by 33 kings and repelled 23 Burmese invasions, before the Burmese finally succeeded in razing it to the ground in 1767. At its height, Ayutthaya was surrounded by a 12-kilometre-long wall which was five metres thick and six metres high and boasted 99 gates, brick and clay roads and canals to transport water into the city. It is estimated that Ayutthaya, around 1600, had a population of about 300,000, and even 1,000,000 around 1700, making it one of the world's largest cities at the time. There were once more than 100 temples within the city which lie in ruins nowadays and form the Ayutthaya Historical Park, which is now an UNESCO World Heritage Site.

I came here from Kanchanaburi, which involves a change of bus at a place called Suphanburi, and spent a couple of days cycling around the ruins which I really enjoyed. I stayed in a nice guest house on the island in the heart of the traveller/backpacker area where you can find more hotels and guesthouses, along with some restaurants and bars. Ayutthaya is one of the main tourist destinations outside Bangkok but usual tourists come here as part of a day trip and don't stay here. If you have the time, why not spend a couple of days or so here, so as to take in everything.

More can be found on my Ayutthaya page below:

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Our second stop in our Ayutthaya river cruise tour.

An interesting part of our tour is the head of the buddha lodged in the roots of an old tree. we were told that the body of the buddha was never found after the war. We should've asked why was the head lodged in the tree? hmmm...

We were also requested to make sure we were not higher than the buddha's head when we pose for a picture beside it. I was the smallest girl in our group, so my friend joked that I don't need to sit down when I had my picture taken. :-)

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Ayuthaya is a former capital of Thailand and offers magnificent ruins of early splendour some of which have been restored and some of which are still undergoing archaeological excavations.
Ayuthaya is situated about 71 kms north of Bangkok. The drive goes through paddy fields and orchards, the most valuable assets of Thailand.

You can take a day trip via bus and boat. They collect you at your hotel, and then on the way you stop at the Royal Palace (gardens are amazing).You then journey on to Ayuthaya, and visit various ruins. You then taken to the river whrer you board a boat and return to Bangkok via the river...must be 40-50 kilos. Lunch on board. Cost 2 years ago was 1100 Baht per person. Well worth it. One of the best day trips I have done.

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Bang Pa-In Palace, also known as the Summer Palace. Originally built by Ayutthayan King Prasat Thong in 1632 but abandoned after the sack of Ayutthaya in 1767, the site was partially restored by King Mongkut (Rama IV) in the 1850s. The site as it stands today, however, is largely the work of King Chulalongkorn (Rama V), who expanded the area into a Versaillesque garden filled with European-style buildings in 1872-1889. Last restored in 2001, the palace and its grounds are maintained in immaculate shape and well worth a visit. Entry 100 baht, open daily 08:00-16:00. The grounds are not too large to be covered on foot, but you can also rent a golf cart to scoot around in for 150 baht/hour. As at all royal sites, proper dress is required, but you can buy a 100 baht wrapwround skirt from the stall in front of the entrance if needed.

Ayuthaya is listed on many sites and books as a must see, so satisfy your urge, but please promise me you will not do so on a guided tour as I did, because my experience was very unsatisfying. First of all our tour guide, although nice, insisted on talking the whole time and he repeated EVERYTHING he said at least three times, I felt like I was in a twilight zone. Secondly we spent very little time in Ayutthaya and only visited a small amount of the temples, we saw none of the trees with carved faces and so on, it was mildly dissapointing. Afterwards we went to Bang Pa'in Palace, by far my least favorite tourist destination I have EVER BEEN!!!!! Basically the guided tour to Ayuthaya is one of my least favorite days traveling ever, right up there with the day I battled Montezuma's revenge in Montezuma, Costa Rica. GO and see it, but on your own accord, not on a tour!!!!!