Remnants of a golden age

Thailand has a rich and varied history. Never colonised by any of the European powers, it developed its own unique identity.

Its golden age, culturally, was known as the Sukhothai period, after the city of that name. When it fell into decline in the middle of the 14th century a new city emerged.

Ayutthaya was to become so powerful that it would unite all the Tai people (as the Thais were then known) in one kingdom, Siam.

At the height of its power in the 17th century, the population of more than one million was larger than London's and envoys came from all the great European countries, and from China, India and Japan, and marvelled at what they saw.

Ayutthaya had 140 kilometres of canals and on a busy trading day as many as 20,000 boats and rafts could be seen moored on the Chao Phraya River.

While much physical evidence of the past has been erased by the passage of time, there is still a lot for visitors to see at this Unesco world heritage site.

The ruins are dotted around the busy modern town of Ayutthaya, which can be easily reached by bus and train from Bangkok. The trip takes about two hours.

How Ayutthaya came to be founded is open to debate, but it is probable that a soldier, Prince U-Thong, was escaping pestilence with his troops when he came to an island at the confluence of three rivers and realised that it offered natural protection from disease and other armies and a plentiful supply of water for drinking and irrigation.

He renamed himself King Ramathibodi and became the first of 34 kings who would rule in Ayutthaya for more than 400 years.

The best way to get to grips with Ayutthaya is to think of its three distinct architectural periods, examples of which have survived in the various temple, or wat, complexes.

The first period between 1351 and 1488 was heavily influenced by the Khmer of Angkor Wat. Khmer-style sanctuary towers (the spiritual centre of a wat), with their corn-cob shape, called prangs, can be found in many of the oldest wats. The two most easily accessible temples in the centre of town date from this period - Wat Mahathat and Wat Ratchaburana. In Mahathat the central prang, now in ruins, was 50 metres high.

During this first phase Ayutthaya extended its influence over other Tai states.

While it grew in strength the inherent weaknesses that would bring about its demise remained unresolved. They were, namely, a manpower shortage and struggles over succession.

With the kings of Ayutthaya there was no natural line of succession. Passing of the crown from father to eldest son had ensured the survival of some of Europe's most famous royal houses for centuries. Almost every time a king died in Ayutthaya there was a battle for succession.

Ratchaburana was the cremation site of two royal brothers who fought a duel on their elephants for the crown and killed each other.

Stability could only be ensured if a good monarch ruled for a long time. There were many of these during the second period, from 1488 to 1629, when the kingdom began to be recognised internationally as a nation of importance.

In the wats the sanctuary towers changed completely. The corn-cob gave way to a fluted design which spread out at its base and partly resembled the bell-shaped tower of Sri Lanka, known as a chedi.

These prototypes were to become the most popular form of sanctuary tower in Thailand and they can be seen in modern wats throughout the kingdom. The finest in Ayutthaya are at Wat Yai Chai Mongkhon and Wat Phra Si Sanphet. Often a monarch wanted a wat built to bring him merit and act as a symbol of his absolute and divine power.

This was particularly important for those commoners who usurped the throne by force and had to emphasise their right to rule.

The most ostentatious of these usurpers was Prasat Thong who ushered in the final architectural period when he seized the crown in 1629 after King Song Tham died.

Not satisfied with killing the late king's widow and all her children, the youngest being five, he also disembowelled the queen's ladies-in-waiting and executed those nobles whom he perceived as a threat.

He then turned to temple-building on a lavish scale.

His finest achievement was Wat Chaiwatthanaram. It conforms to all the Theravada Buddhist conventions, first of all, facing the river, as Buddha did when he found enlightenment. For this wat, Prasat Thong returned to the Khmer style.

It had five prangs all gilded with gold and they must have been a lovely sight glistening in the midday sun. The main prang represented the centre of the universe, Mount Meru, with four staircases situated at the cardinal points of the compass. Even with the gold gone long ago, it is for me the most beautiful of all Ayutthaya's temples.

After Prasat Thong's death, the city continued to expand and we know much about its daily life from the European missionaries, envoys and traders who lived there. But as it expanded, it became increasingly difficult to manage the city and rule the kingdom.

The king's citizens were more concerned with making money from trade than doing their civic duty. As vassals, they were supposed to give six months of the year in the service of the king, either in his fields or in his army, but many did not. By 1760, after a succession of weak kings had seen Ayutthaya's hold over Siam begin to slip, Burma launched its invasion of the country.

Three years later the Burmese had taken Chiang Mai.

Their troops then began their advance on Ayutthaya on two fronts, from the north and the south.

Had the king sent his troops, including his elephants (the 18th-century version of modern tank regiments), to try to drive a wedge between the two Burmese forces, he might have saved Ayutthaya, but he vacillated and by 1765 it was too late.

The Burmese laid siege to the city and took it on April 7, 1767. They were merciless. They raped the women and slaughtered or enslaved the men, then torched everything that could burn, desecrated temples and melted down sacred, solid-gold Buddhas.

The Siamese recovered quickly, driving out the Burmese only seven years later, but they were never to return to Ayutthaya, choosing instead a new capital in Thonburi, now a suburb of Bangkok.

Getting there There are daily flights to Bangkok. Sightseeing in Ayutthaya is a daunting task for those who want to see everything. The most centrally located wats such as Mahathat open at 8am and close at around 6pm and can be reached on foot. Other ruins will require renting a bicycle and putting up with the typically eccentric Thai signposting.

The best idea is to see as much as you can on your own, then hail a tuk-tuk driver and negotiate a fee for him to take you round the wats you have missed. A more leisurely way to view the wats near the river is to hire a long-tailed boat at the pier opposite the Chan Kasem Palace. There are a number of guesthouses of varying standards in the centre of town and more upmarket hotels on the outskirts.

Many tourists make the mistake of signing up for an all-day tour at their hotel in Bangkok, as I did when I first visited Ayutthaya. It is a pleasant tour, taking in a river cruise and lunch, but it only leaves about half an hour for the temple ruins.

Ayutthaya needs at least a day, preferably two or three, including a visit to the town's historical study centre. This is a real gem, with well-designed and fascinating displays on daily life in old Ayutthaya, religious rituals and international trade.