Ayutthaya: Temple Ruins

The year is 2549 and Ayutthaya, the ancient Thai capital lies in ruin.

I didn’t make any of that up.

I’ll explain. The Thais use two different calendar systems. The first is the standard solar based Western calendar, year zero being set at Christ’s birth. The second is the lunar based Buddhist calendar set at Buddha’s (Siddhartha Gautama’s) enlightenment. English newspapers use the former system as not to throw off the farangs (foreigners) and food expiry dates are based on the latter.

Ayutthaya was once the capital of Thailand (Siam at the time) until it was invaded and destroyed by the Burmese. The ruined remnants of the ancient city are under the protection of UNESCO. A sleepy but pleasant city has been built around them.

The sheer number of ruins makes Ayutthaya a very difficult city to conquer over a couple of days. A friend of my brother’s (while he lived and taught here) showed me a few of the less convenient temples and I filled in a few of the nearby ones by rented bicycle… With Hobbes in tow:

I’m keeping the photos in order otherwise I’ll forget the temple names:

Wat Chai Wattanaram

Wat Kasatthirat

Wat Yai Chai Mongkhon

Wat Phra Si Sanpet

Wat Phra Mahatat (finally found a good excuse to try out a new Photoshop technique with this one)

Plenty of tail

Wat Ratburana