Wat Mahathat temple, originally built in 1374. The site was destroyed by the Burmese invasion in 1767, when several heads of Buddha statues were looped off as an act of desecration. The ruins were left and the over grown nature took over, entwining one of the severed Buddha heads with the roots of a Banyan tree. Just one of the incredibly nice results of the fusion of nature, ruins and time.
I never got around to finishing this series after I got home from Thailand in 2024 but now that I'm visiting Thailand again soon so I figured I'd finally finish it.
This is the 4th post in the 4 part series with the other posts here:
1. An overview and my general advice for visiting Thailand
A deeper look at our trip with my thoughts and specific advice, split into 3 sections:
2. Road trip of the Mae Hong Son Loop
3. Chiang Mai
4. Bangkok and Ayutthaya (this post)
This post covers our trip to Ayutthaya from Chiang Mai and then on to Bangkok, where we visited the GMMTV building and celebrated the Chinese New Year.
Train to Ayutthaya
We took the sleeper train from Chiang Mai to Ayutthaya, which for sure was an experience. We decided to take an "earlier" train, that left Chiang Mai at 7pm, which meant we got to see at least some of the views from the train before the sun set. This however meant that we got to Ayutthaya at 5am in the morning which was not ideal.
We had a compartment to ourselves which was a good choice since we a closed off space with bunks all to ourselves. This however didn't make up for how uncomfortable the sleeping experience was on the train.
As expected from a train in Thailand it wasn't very modern which made it for a rough ride so we didn't sleep a lot.
The changing terrain in Thailand also meant that the train went up and down some pretty steep slopes, and let me tell you, I wouldn't recommend waking up in the middle of the night (for the nth time) to the feeling of the train hurdling down a mountain side.
I'm sure it really wasn't that extreme but since it was night and the train was in the middle of nowhere, I had no way of confirming that it really wasn't that bad.
As far as I remember the train tickets also weren't much cheaper than a plane ticket, if at all, so going by train is for the experience, which it definitely was.
So if you're thinking of taking the sleeper train between Chiang Mai and Bangkok (or maybe at all in Thailand) you might want to make sure that you're able to sleep well on the train and/or that the experience itself will outweigh the negatives for you.
Ayutthaya
What met us in Ayutthaya at 5am was a wall of heat and humidity, letting us know that we'd finally arrived in central Thailand.
We were dead tired at this point but luckily our airbnb host was very kind and let us get into our room at 7am so we could have a nap before we went exploring.
Ayutthaya is the old capital of Thailand so there's a lot of historical ruins which was cool to see. Sadly there isn't a lot of information about each structure on the sites which means that to me they pretty fast all started looking the same.
We borrowed bikes from our Airbnb since, especially in the central old part of town, it's easy to get around on bikes. It's definitely still Thailand so you do have to have some nerve to bike outside this small area and especially if you want to visit some of the historical sites outside of the main central area biking does become more like an extreme sport. Being Danish this of course didn't scare us off, but you should definitely think carefully before doing this.
Most of the other tourists we met were on day trips to the historical sites from Bangkok, which I honestly also think is the best way to experience the historical sites, because it would usually come with a guide so you'd get much more information and context for the ruins.
This, however, meant that there weren't a lot of tourists outside of these areas which actually made for an interesting experience, though as much as I found it super interesting, I would rather have done a more in-dept tour of the historical sites on a day-trip from Bangkok.
Bangkok
By the time we got to Bangkok I'd seen enough historical sites and temples to last me a long while so we didn't really see any of the more touristy sites in Bangkok. We mostly traveled around town, taking in the city by foot while doing small personal quests, like finding a smoothie place, getting Texas Chicken and buying a Tilly Birds CD.
Bangkok was also just incredibly hot and humid which meant we could only handle so much time outside before we needed to take shelter in the many shopping malls of Bangkok.
GMMTV
We'd not really done much research or planning around our trip to the GMMTV building because we figured it would just be a regular old merch store but when we got to the building and, after some searching with no results, we had to turn to the internet to figure out what the deal was.
Turns out there really isn't any "merch store" but a small merch stand and a place where you can buy merch from their website, as long as they have it in stock. This is also only accessible to you if you get a visitor badge to the specific floor the merch is on, which there are no signs about or easily available information about on the ground floor. Luckily some guardian angel posted a long post on reddit about it 3 years ago which was the thing that saved us.
If you find this post after January 2026 and you want to know if this is still the case, you should check to see if I've updated this post and if I haven't, you should shoot me a message and I'll let you know what the updated situation is.
Chinese New Year
We had planned it so we'd be in Bangkok during the Chinese New Year and getting to experiencing China Town during this time was definitely one of the highlights of the Bangkok visit. There was so much going on and the area is all decked out which was so cool to experience. We went into China Town several times during the days leading up to the Chinese New Year because we stayed near by so we also got to see the lead up to the day.
On the day itself we went both in the afternoon and in the evening, and I'll continue with my notes of caution, because going in the evening was down right scary because the crowd was so thick with people. I've never before been in a crowd that dense and I rather not ever try that again. At times we'd move at a snails pace and you'd have to almost be a little aggressive to make sure you actually kept moving in the direction you wanted.
Final thoughts
This post feels a lot more like a lesson in what not to do when visiting Ayutthaya and Bangkok, but I still hope it was interesting and useful, and I'll happily answer any questions you have.
Lessons I took away from this part of the trip:
Only take the sleeper train from Chiang Mai to Ayutthaya/Bangkok if you're good at sleeping in more hostile environments or if you just love trains enough to overshadow this.
Ayutthaya is a good place for a day trip but if you want to stay for longer make sure you have a way to get more information about the historical sites, like having a guide.
Make sure to research how to get into the GMMTV building before you go.
Don't go to China Town in Bangkok on Chinese New Years too late in the evening because it gets too crowded.
A Malay Hindu-Buddhist nation that was thought to have been established and founded by the Fabled Raja Sang Nila Utama, a Prince from what is now Palembang, Indonesia.
The Kingdom lasted from 1299 to 1398, his Skin Dark Red symbolising his origin as a Simple Settlement and former Vassal to the Majaphait Empire known as Temasek. Lion ears and a Swordfish Tail, symbolizing the Lion that the Raja saw, the Merlion and the Swordfish invasion myth.
The Clothes and accessories he wears represent his past and his conflicts, the Crown he wears is woven by Leaf fronds and Tree bark, referencing the Orang Asli of East Malaysia and Singapore.
I commissioned this piece from hshmingon on Instagram!
Ayutthara: at the height of its power this city and its surrounding kingdom were one of the world's largest and wealthiest locations, with a population of about a million inhabitants, built onto an island which was surrounded by three rivers.
Coverage of the various historical cultures, rulers, and states of the Far East
