Our bus arrived late in Ayutthaya. Short on time, we scrambled on our bikes to tour the city at dusk. That was one happy accident.
The ruins at twilight were breathtaking. The colours, vibe and atmosphere were unreal, like a dream.
Wat Phukhao Thong (เจดีย์ภูเขาทอง)
When the western world first discovered Siam, Ayutthaya was the capital city.
During the 17th century, Ayutthaya was one of the biggest and wealthiest cities in the world. The ambassadors of King Louis XIV felt its size and scale was comparable to Paris.
In 1767, the kingdom of Ayutthaya was sacked by the Burmese. A fleeing general gathered the remaining forces to a small garrison town called Thonburi where he made himself king and established a new kingdom.
Today, that town is known as Bangkok.
Ayutthaya’s ruins are now a UNESCO World Heritage site. Unlike Sukhothai, the ruins are much bigger and better preserved, but scattered all over the city—hence the bikes.
Wat Chaiwatthanaram (วัดไชยวัฒนาราม)
Designed in the Khmer style (inspired by Angkor Wat), the princes and princesses of Ayutthaya were cremated in this royal Buddhist temple.
Wat Phra Sri Sanphet (วัดพระศรีสรรเพ็ชญ์)
Near the Grand Palace, this is the king’s private chapel. The three Sri Lankan-style chedis enshrine the ashes of three Ayutthayan kings.
Wat Ratchaburana (วัดราชบุรณะ)
Couldn’t get near this one!
At this point, it was too dark to see anything. We decided to continue the next day.
Traditional Thai historians consider Sukhothai (which means “the dawn of happiness”) as the first capital city, its ruin is now a UNESCO World Heritage Site near the modern city of New Sukhothai.
Upon entering, you will notice a statue of King Ramkamhaeng, the third king of the Sukhothai empire, who ruled during the kingdom’s most prosperous period.
He created the Thai alphabet and introduced Theravada Buddhism as the official state religion. So you can imagine the huge reverence Thais bestow upon him.
We know this from King Mongkut (Rama IV), who found the first Stone Inscription in his archaeological expeditions and transcribed the history of the Sukhothai kingdom.
King Mongkut then incorporated Sukhothai into the Thailand’s historical identity as their starting point.
But modern Thai historians feel that older Thai kingdoms exist further back although they exist as small vassal states to surrounding empires.
The Sukhothai-style of architecture and sculpture is immediately distinct to me.
All the columns, the statues, the podium—their proportions have a slim elegance to them. There’s also minimal detailing between elements, such as where the columns meet the podium and so forth. Akin to a sort of slender Tuscan order.
Even the individual bricks are elongated and slender. Having said that, the vertical scale is still greatly emphasised, accentuated by a myriad of slim bandings at the extremities.
The statues also acquire a feminine poise from Sukhothai’s tendency towards leanness and tapered forms.
Can’t help but notice it’s many times REDDER than impression (from school textbooks), but it’s clearly excessively painted this year for Visit Malaysia 2007.
Thankfully across Dutch Square and Melaka river, original shophouses from the colonial days are still intact. Beautiful, would return to sketch given time.
Midway through the old city, we met a rambling old man. Very very educated with perfect English rambling about his paintings and reciting crazy bits of trivia perfectly, like postcodes from Sydney suburbs and all the Presidents of the United States.
One of the many fort walls going around the island’s weak points. The stone walls appeared to be at least three metres thick. No surprises it’s still standing after all those wars.
Oh yea, and that gate is a human powered drawbridge, with its doors lowered.
As I went around the island, I realised it’s truly an open museum. This place has artifacts from medieval forts (with moats and drawbridge) to WWII anti-aircraft guns.
Another Antoni Gaudi work, the organic nature of his work appears much more fitting in a landscape project.
Jeff meets Tara Reid, sadly I wasn’t there when it happened. Only found out while sorting photographs after I got back to Sydney.
The origina of the much-copied Gaudi lizard, you can find them in souvenir shops all over Barcelona. The rest of the park is made with more humble stones, but still amazing nevertheless.
I sat here a long time observing this thing, wondering if inspiration struck when he was picking up his fork from a bowl of melting cheese.
The Casa Mila, which is also known as the La Pedrera (trans: quarry, in Catalan) was finished in 1907.
This organic theme continues inside, surprisingly very colourful and well-lit.
The roof slab is actually warped! Note Sagrada Familia in the background.
The Casa Batllo is a renovation, so possibly more attention to ornamentation happened here. A fantastic example of Gaudi’s stylised formal and colour mastery in stone, glass and ceramic.
Intended as a Roman Catholic basilica, Gaudi was assigned this project in 1884. He spent 40 years especially the last 15 years of his life working on just this one building, dying in 1926. The thing is, he not only anticipated that it won’t be finished in his lifetime, but projected it’ll take a few hundred years more!
Thanks to computers nowadays, it will be completed in 2026. Yes, that’s not a typo – even with today’s technology his ideas still take an incomprehensible amount of time to realise.
This photo is flipped 180°. In order to resolve the complex load transfers, he hung bags of lead to strings and worked out his geometry upside down.
The studio which he worked, located underneath the church.
The city dates back to the Neolithic (almost stone age) times, that’s how old it is. But I find despite their super rich history of excellence in architecture and culture, where have the Greeks’ drive for perfection gone?
The Parthenon.
The Acropolis. They are literally replacing the original with marble replicas, so come here before it’s fully replaced.
Ancient Agora. Not much, except for one reconstructed building, how much fun can looking at ancient strip footings be?
The Hephaitos temple. Have a funny impression of that guy after watching Alexander the movie, but amazing Greek temple nevertheless.
This is really cool for me because just ten months ago I had a tour of the “Silk Road” in China. Now I’m standing on the other end, it’s magical !
Gondolas
And their owners, business doesn’t seem to be too good …
The city is at least ten times more confusing, but it was actually fun getting lost! After an hour I got tired of it and decided to pull out the map, only to find that it was completely useless. And we’re not alone, every two or three corners we turn, there’s a bunch of people there trying to figure their maps out. Venice’s a tourist trap? Hell yeah.
After some Venetian Pac-Man, we miraculously found San Marco’s square.
a young capricious bloke with a penchant for the strange, unknown, and exotic. Here lies the journals of my worldly travels, as I trot around the globe in search of adventure!
