Pattaya: Ayutthaya and Big Buddha Full-Day Tour

Visit Ayutthaya, Thailand's ancient capital, and the country's tallest Buddha statue in one day. Three temple complexes, the King's Royal Palace, a Thai lunch, and no forced shopping stops
Ayutthaya was once one of the richest cities in Asia, ringed by three rivers and packed with over a hundred temples and a royal palace that pulled merchants and diplomats in from across the world. European traders who visited in the 1600s wrote home comparing it to Paris. This tour spends a full day showing you why.

The morning starts at Bang Pa-In, the king's summer palace 60 km outside Bangkok. Thai, Chinese and European architecture sit side by side around ornamental ponds and canals. The standout is Wehart Chamrun, a two-story Chinese mansion gifted to King Chulalongkorn in 1889, its ground floor still holding a Chinese-style throne room and its upper floor a shrine to two former kings. Nearby, the Aisawan Thiphya-Art pavilion appears to float on the lake, one of the most photographed spots in the country.

From the palace you head into Ayutthaya proper. Wat Yai Chai Mongkhon is still an active monastery, its 62-meter chedi built by King Naresuan to commemorate his legendary elephant-back duel with the Burmese crown prince in 1592. Climb the stairs for a view over the whole complex, then walk past rows of Buddha statues in saffron robes on the way to the reclining Buddha inside the main hall.

Next is Wat Mahathat, home to Thailand's most photographed image: a sandstone Buddha head cradled in the roots of a bodhi tree. Burmese soldiers decapitated most of the statues here when Ayutthaya fell in 1767, and this head is believed to have rolled against the young tree and simply stayed there as the roots grew up and around it over the following two centuries. It's a strange, quiet moment in the middle of a busy day.

After a Thai lunch, the tour continues to Wat Chaiwatthanaram on the banks of the Chao Phraya River, built in 1630 in Khmer style deliberately echoing Angkor Wat. The 35-meter central prang and its ring of smaller towers once hosted royal cremations, and the whole riverside complex has since shown up on screen, most recently as a filming location for Mortal Kombat.

The day finishes at Wat Muang in Ang Thong province, home to Thailand's tallest Buddha statue: 92 meters of gold rising out of the rice fields, visible from kilometers away. The grounds around it are filled with sculpted scenes of heaven and hell from Buddhist teaching, along with figures from Hindu and Chinese mythology and the old wars between Siam and Burma. Most Ayutthaya day tours stop well before reaching this far, which is exactly why it's worth the extra distance.

Pickup from your hotel in Pattaya. No shopping stops, no factory visits, just six stops that actually earn their place in the day

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