Top Bangkok Tours

Ayutthaya was the former Capital of Siam, as Thailand was then called. The City was founded by Prince U-Thong in1350 who became King Ramathibodi One and later ruled the Northern Kingdom of Sukhothai, Angkor in the East and Pegu to the West, in Burma. By the 1600’s Ayutthaya was one of the richest and most cosmopolitan Cities in Asia, exporting Rice, Animal Skins and Ivory, with a population of one million people, larger than London at the time.

Thirty three Ayutthaya Kings left their personal contribution to the City over this 400 year period, until after years of fighting; Ayutthaya was attacked by Burmese Army forces in 1767 who in a mad rampage, burned, looted and destroyed most of the City’s monuments, enslaved 90,000 captives and killed or scattered the population. The young Thai General Taksin had fought through the besieged City prior to its collapse, but returned seven months later with a large Army and defeated the Burmese. Re-building was considered to be impossible and the General moved the Capital eighty kilometres further south to Thonburi, on the opposite bank of the River, we know as the Old City in Bangkok, today.

You can go by Car, Bus or Train, but what better way to go than by the Chao Phraya River, the method the General himself used to escape, return to achieve victory and then move his Royal Court to Thonburi, Bangkok.