Capital of the former kingdom of Siam

If you visit Bangkok, a flying visit to the historic city of Ayutthaya, located about 70km north, is almost a must.
Ayutthaya was the capital of the siamese kingdom Ayutthaya for over 400 years and for a long time the most important city on the southeast Asian mainland.
What remained of the historic city after the Siamese-Burmese War is now a UNESCO World Heritage Site and in our opinion is definitely worth a visit.

At the beginning we were a bit confused that there are actually two Ayutthaya today. One is the historical city of Ayutthaya, which is generally spoken of in the tourist sense, actually a temple park that is really worth visiting. Beside it a modern Ayutthaya has developed. When we write about the city or Ayutthaya here in our blog post, we refer to the historical Ayutthaya, the temple park.

The city is surrounded by three big rivers: the Chao Phraya in the west and south, the Pa Sak in the east and the Lop Buri in the north. Because of the rivers around the city Ayutthaya looks like an island and can also be circumnavigated with a typical Asian longtail boat. However, we have not done this and therefore cannot give a report on this experience.

How do I get to Ayutthaya?

If you want to go to Ayutthaya starting in Bangkok like we do, there are several possibilities.

By train:

With the two train lines “Northern Line” and “North Estern Line” you can get from Bangkok to Ayutthaya within 1 ½ hours.

This is most likely the cheapest option. Depending on which class you book, you pay between 240 and 1’000 Baht per person.

With a cab / private driver:

If you book a cab or a private driver, you will get to Ayutthaya much more comfortable, and of course you don’t have to stick to any timetable. But this is certainly a more expensive alternative with about 950 to 1’250 Baht for a cab and up to 2’500 Baht for a private driver. But you usually arrive within about 1 hour driving time.

But as a group or family it is definitely worth thinking about. But also here it is important to fix the price in advance.

With the Mini-Van:

A seat in a mini-van is probably the cheapest option besides the train (250-280 Baht), but it is much more uncomfortable and it will almost certainly take a lot longer (almost 2 ½ hours) since people often wait for other tourists or collect them at their hotel.

Our, well, “horror” trip in Ayutthaya

We have chosen the Mini-Van option, but with a guided tour. Well, as they say; in retrospect, you are always smarter. We are picked up early in the morning (unfortunately too early for breakfast) directly in front of the hostel and then we drive with 12 other tourists in a mini-van to Ayutthaya. The drive takes a good 2 hours, a long time if you have to sit still in a narrow space, especially with folded legs. Our driver is a grinning elderly gentleman, who doesn’t speak or understand a word of English, but has a perfect command of the art of driving a car on Thai roads: Red light and other traffic rules don’t apply to him, push the accelerator pedal and honk the horn at regular intervals!

A young Chinese woman is supposed to guide us through six different temples on this day. Already during the drive, but at the latest at the first temple, we realize that booking this tour was a mistake for us. But it’s our own fault, there is no use, now we are here and want to see something. Unfortunately, we are chased from temple to temple and get texts with information that we can neither enjoy the day nor save any information.

Of course we have seen the most famous temples like Wat Mahathat, Wat Phra Si Sanphet and Wat Ratchaburana. But it was all so fast, we can’t hardly tell which one was which, whats is somehow quite sad. There are surely people who like it when everything is organized, you don’t have to take care of anything and only have to run after and listen. We do not belong to this group of people. Well, you learn from your mistakes, we won’t book such a tour for a long time.

We’ll do better next time…

For a next time we would travel comfortably by train to Ayutthaya, take one of the old hotels by the river and stay for two or maybe three days in the city. Two or three temples per day are enough for us, this way you can take your time to visit the temples and enjoy the impressive buildings.

Another time Ayutthaya, if we come again, we will take more time for you!

How did you come to Ayutthaya? How did you like the historical city? Write us your experience in a comment.