Ayutthaya

A river island that held a million people in the seventeenth century, was burned in 1767 and was never built over — which is why there is anything left to walk through.

Start planning your trip

Ayutthaya

A capital that burned and was never rebuilt

Ayutthaya was one of the largest cities in the world in the seventeenth century: a river island of perhaps a million people, with Portuguese, Dutch, Japanese and Persian quarters and a diplomatic correspondence that reached Versailles. In 1767 a Burmese army took it after a long siege and burned it, and the surviving court moved downriver to found Bangkok. Nobody rebuilt on the ruins. That is the whole reason there is something to see — a modern town of sixty thousand has grown up around the archaeological park rather than over the top of it.

What survives is brick. Siamese practice was to build a brick core and finish it in stucco and gold leaf, so the colour and the surfaces have gone and the skeletons remain: rows of bell-shaped chedis, prangs that lean a few degrees, and hundreds of Buddha figures whose heads were taken long ago. It reads as melancholy rather than grand, and it is the strongest single argument for a day out of Bangkok.

A sandstone Buddha head held in fig tree roots at Wat Mahathat in Ayutthaya, Thailand

Three ancient stone chedis stand amid brick ruins at Wat Phra Si Sanphet in Ayutthaya, Thailand.

Wat Mahathat · Wat Phra Si Sanphet

On the ground

Four sites, in this order

The park spreads over several square kilometres and the temples are scattered across it, so this is a bicycle or a car day rather than a walking one. Four is the right number; a fifth starts to look like the fourth.

Wat Mahathat, for the sandstone Buddha head grown into the roots of a fig tree — the image of Ayutthaya, and about ten minutes to find.
Wat Phra Si Sanphet, the royal temple inside the old palace grounds, where three restored chedis stand in a line.
Wat Chaiwatthanaram, on the west bank, the most complete Khmer-style complex here and the one to be standing in for the last hour of light.
Wat Yai Chai Mongkhon, east of the island, where the central chedi can still be climbed and the view explains the layout of the whole city.

A tall Khmer-style prang towers over the ruins of Wat Chaiwatthanaram beside a river in Ayutthaya. — Late afternoon

Planning

Day trip or overnight

As a day tripLeave Bangkok at seven, four or five hours in the park, back in the city for dinner. This is what most trips do and it works.

OvernightBuys the two hours the day trip cannot reach: Wat Chaiwatthanaram at sunset, and the park before nine the next morning when it is empty and not yet 35°C.

On the way northIf you are driving or taking the sleeper towards Sukhothai and Chiang Mai, a night here costs nothing extra and breaks a long day.

November to FebruaryThe only comfortable months. There is almost no shade in the park, and April regularly passes 38°C on open brick.

Transfers

Train, road and river

Three ways down from Bangkok, and they suit different sorts of day. The train is the one we use most often when the day is not being combined with anything else.

A tour boat glides along a canal past a fortress-style wall and wooden walkways at Ayutthaya's floating market.

The river island

Route	How long	What to know
Bangkok by road	1.5 hours each way	Longer on a Friday afternoon, when the whole city leaves northwards at once.
Bangkok by ordinary train	About 1 hour 45 from Krung Thep Aphiwat	Frequent and very cheap; the station is a short ferry hop from the island.
Bangkok by river cruise	A full day, boat one way and road the other	Slow and pleasant, and you see rather less of the park.
On to Sukhothai or Chiang Mai	About 5 hours by road to Sukhothai; 9 to 10 hours to Chiang Mai	Ayutthaya is on the northern rail line, so the sleeper can be joined here.

Onward

Why it belongs on a northbound route

Nobody flies for Ayutthaya and there is no border within two hundred kilometres of it. What it does is give Bangkok a third day with substance, which matters a great deal when Bangkok is otherwise being used as an airport. On a longer route it sits naturally between the city and the north — Bangkok, Ayutthaya, then the sleeper or the flight to Chiang Mai, and on to Chiang Rai and the Lao border. Travellers continuing towards Angkor should know two things: these temples and the Cambodian ones share an ancestry and very little else, and the land border between the two countries has been shut to tourists since June 2025, so Siem Reap is an hour by air from Bangkok.

Give the ruins a morning of their own.

Plan My Trip

Tell us your dates

We will tell you whether a night here earns its place, or whether the train and back is enough.

Plan My Trip

Common questions

Questions travellers ask most

Day trip or overnight in Ayutthaya?

A day trip is enough for most routes and is what we usually build. One night is worth it if you care about light: sunset at Wat Chaiwatthanaram and the park before nine the next morning are the two hours a day trip never reaches.

What is the best way to get there from Bangkok?

The ordinary train takes about an hour and three quarters from Krung Thep Aphiwat and costs almost nothing, with a short ferry across to the island. By road it is an hour and a half each way, which is better if you are carrying on north the same day.

Is Ayutthaya worth seeing if I am also going to Angkor?

Yes, because they are not the same thing. Angkor is stone-built Khmer temple architecture; Ayutthaya is a burned brick city with its skin stripped off. Note that the land border is closed, so the two are joined by a one-hour flight from Bangkok rather than a road.

Journey ideas