View our location map in Ayutthaya
After a brief stop in Chiang Mai, we caught the train south to Ayuttaya. We didn’t have any particular reason to stop here, other than it being a stop off point to break up the journey between Chiang Mai and Bangkok. Once we arrived though we found ourselves in a beautiful, peaceful town, at a gorgeous guesthouse which was blissfully quiet. Ironically, we left Chiang Mai’s crazy busy-ness (because of the festivities for the King’s birthday on the 5th) and the next day, found ourselves in the Ayutthaya festival! What it meant was that we had almost a full day exploring the ruins on our hired bicycles, rode on an elephant around some of the Ayutthaya ruins, and then got to watch a spectacular fireworks display – the best we have seen outside Sydney. Apparently the King’s birthday is the reason for the Ayutthaya festival, and it’s the biggest night all year for fireworks, so we felt very privileged to have an excellent viewing position to watch it from our hotel.
We also had an entire day relaxing in the serene gardens of our lovely little guesthouse so Ayutthaya went from being a pit stop to a perfect break in our trip. Our photos are here.
