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Ayutthaya Tour Part 1 | Ayutthaya Tour Part 2
We travel in style and comfort to Ayutthaya, the capital of Thailand from 1379 until its destruction by the Burmese in 1767. The first stop is at Bang Pa-In, the summer palace. It has large, beautiful grounds. There is a replica of the Disrobing Pavilion from the Grand Palace sitting on a pond. It's a very impressive sight. There are also residences for the royal family and their relatives, an observatory for viewing the surrounding countryside, and a memorial to the queen of Rama V, who drowned in the river on her way to Bang Pa-In. There is a variety of architecture, including Thai, Western and Chinese. After seeing the palace, takes a boat up the river to Ayutthaya. It is a wonderfully peaceful trip. You can see houses and temples along the river and may be a water buffalo walking into the river. A lot of floating vegetation grows in the river. |
Bang Pa-In Palace
Chinese style architecturer
Houses along the river
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| After 40 minutes boat trip, we reach Ayutthaya and the first stop here is at Phanan Choeng Temple. The story behind this temple was that a king during the Ayutthaya period went to a foreign country and fell in love with a princess there. He promised to divorce his wife and marry her, and he brought her back to Thailand. However, once he got back to Thailand, he never got around to divorcing his queen and she just pined away alone. When he heard about her death later, he built this temple. This is a temple that was originally constructed in 1324 and then continually rebuilt and repaired up to the present day. The temple now appears modern on the outside with typical steep pitched red roof, white walls and gilt accents. What sets it apart however, is what is inside; an absolutely giant gold covered sitting Buddha. This guy is so big that there are no complete photos of it anywhere because there is not enough room inside the temple to place a camera to capture the entire image. The statue is almost 60 feet in height. It is said that when Ayutthaya was taken by the Burmese in 1767 tears flowed from the eyes of the Buddha. The four walls surrounding the Buddha are covered from about ten feet off the floor to the ceiling in four inch niches that each contain a little wooden Buddha. There must be thousands of them. |
Riverside Temple
Water Buffalo
Phanan Choeng
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