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December 27th 2006

Published: January 4th 2007

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Reclining Buddha

...at Wat Yai Chai Mongkol

To break up the long journey from Chiang Mai back to Bangkok, and for a change of scenery, we stopped off in Ayuthaya (pronounced: A-yoo-tay-a), Thailand's historic former capital city.

Ayuthaya is a mid-sized modern city interspersed with relics of a dominant past. Historic temples and palaces, are scattered throughout the city dating back to 1350 when it was the capital of Siam, up until 1767, when it was sacked by Burmese invaders. We chartered a tuk-tuk for a couple of hours to see the best preserved and most magnificent of the sights.

The city is an island, surrounded by three rivers. The UNESCO World Heritage site and aptly named, Ayuthaya Historical Park covers a big chunk of the west of the island and all the main guesthouses are located on the east of the island on a single street intermixed with a few restaurants and bars. We chose one of the restaurants for a non-spicey Western meal as both Lau and I had dodgy stomachs on Boxing Day and needed something to boost our energy levels. Like most Thais, our waiter was a huge Man Utd fan and wanted us to know it. He could pretty much reel

A Toy Shrine

off the entire squad list going back to the '60s and could tell you exact dates, times and stats of famous games and moments in the team's history. The '99 Champions League final against Bayern Munich played on the big screen behind us... The food was wolfed down but didn't really hit the spot. Thais haven't nailed down Western food yet but never mind, their own food is fantastic and will soon be back on the order as soon as our bellies are ready for chilli again.

We did our temple tour in a fairly rushed two hours. We would have spent longer but we were really lazy and stayed in bed until lunch (it was a nice room!) and we had to get to Bangkok to catch a cheapy AirAsia flight to Krabi, which for the record we nearly missed as we went to the wrong airport (there's a new one that's just opened). We arrived 30mins before departure and after check-in had closed but it was delayed so they let us on anyway - if it was EasyJet we'd have been up a certain creek without a paddle but these guys are a bit more relaxed, fortunately!

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