Ayutthaya 16-18th March

Ayutthaya

After our 19 hour train ride into Bangkok from Malaysia we had a quick lunch at Bangkok railway station and jumped on the first commuter train north to the old capital of Thailand, Ayutthaya.
We arrived at a nice little budget hotel called Grandparents place, and headed off to the night markets for some dinner hunting. The night markets are situated next to a stream, in fact Ayutthaya is surrounded by a river which makes for a lot of mosquitos, and the hundreds of fluorescent lights lighting up the stalls seemed to attract every single mozzy in a 10 km radius.

After fighting out way through the mosquitos we collected a few take away dishes and headed home.
The next day we took advantage of the rental bicycles at our hotel and headed out on a cycle mission around the ruins that once were a thriving capital. The ruins are spread out across the city but all within biking distance as long as the roaming dogs don’t decide to take out your tyres.
After seeing a few wats (temples) we finished up looking at Wat Mahathat which boasts the famous Buddha head being lifted up in the tree roots. A lot of these ruins were poorly maintained, with many having been damaged by attacks from the Burmese. 

Later that night we headed down to the big muay thai tournament that was in town. With big crowds cheering and jeering and dozens of little food stalls dotted around we decided that this was the place to spend the evening.

There’s not a lot else to Ayutthaya except for these wats so the next day headed out to the bus station and headed for Sukothai  another  former capital of Thailand.