Thailand - Ayutthaya

I’d been looking forward to seeing Ayutthaya again after 26 years. I’d cycled around its copper-toned brick ruins with my friend Jason and had loved it’s quiet ancient vibe. I remember the cycling being a bit more haphazard then, me in a long flowy chain-ring catching tie-dye green skirt, Jason with large white plaster cast on his foot.

Ayutthaya’s large island historical park is a UNESCO site packed full of extensive ruins. Founded in 1350 as the second capital of the Siamese Kingdom, it is 50 miles (80km) north of the current capital Bangkok. The extent of the ruins means it doesn’t take too much to imagine it as it once was before it was destroyed in 1767 by the Burmese. Once one of the world’s largest cities it would have been a magnificent glittering centre of commerce. Dominated by towering, gilded temples, grand palaces, and white plastered stupas it was also a global trading hub with a cosmopolitan population. Traders from China, Japan, Persia, and Europe would have wandered the streets and navigated the rivers, wheeling and dealing, making the city one of the wealthiest in the world during its peak.

We enjoyed wandering through sleepy bygone wats and chedis, looking up at the surviving prangs, and losing count of decapitated Buddha statues (their heads lopped off by the invading Burmese). We visited: Wat Mahathat (famous for the Buddha head cradled by a Bodhi tree), Wat Phraram (a quieter, less visited but well-preserved site), Wat Phra Si Sanphet (the holiest temple in the Royal Palace with three chedis: we just poked our heads over the outer wall), and Wat Chaiwatthanaram (a temple built by a king in 1630 and the set of the massive drama series Love Destiny. This historic soap opera was so popular it led to increased tourism in Ayutthaya and was often credited with causing a temporary decrease in traffic during its airing times).

I found the vibe of Ayutthaya very different this time round. We’d landed at the start of the World Heritage festival. Each year, over ten days, Ayutthaya Historical Park is blinged up, illuminated by lights, and loud with fireworks and cultural performances. The place becomes home to hundreds of market stalls lining the roads circling the ancient wats. And because this is Thailand, the stalls positively groan with sizzling, smoking, squirming street food. Can there possibly be enough people, even with the crowds, to eat it all?!

Along the main road the stalls sold goods we’d not expect at a festival market. Huge heavy statement wooden furniture, polished to a high gloss. White goods. Garden plants. Chaotic mountains of shoes.

We watched hundreds of programmed drones with LED lights make pictures in the sky. Walking through the festive streets we watched young skinny boys kick boxing in an elevated ring. We walked through an impossibly loud fairground buzzing with thrill rides. Successful attempts at game stalls - like balloon darts - resulted in small statured Thai girls struggled to manhandle oversized stuffed toy prizes. Animals - kid goats, piglets, rabbits, guinea pigs - suffered the noise and chaos in interactive petting zones. The epic feature show of the festival, with hundreds of performers telling the heroic story of Ayutthaya’s kings, could be heard beyond its fenced in theatre compound across the festival grounds. Peaking through the fence we distressingly saw elephants being ridden as part of the show, alongside the ongoing explosive pyrotechnics.

We had also seen elephant riding earlier in the day. Sadly we’d watched these giant intelligent creatures walking incessantly up and down one of Ayutthaya’s busy streets as two or three tourists sat atop taking insta-worthy selfies on their back. I thought back to when, as an eleven-year old I too had ridden an elephant in Chiang Mai. I had hoped that things would have changed more over the past 35 years as views on elephant riding shift from seeing it as a mainstream, acceptable tourist activity to recognizing it as an animal welfare concern. However, despite criticism from animal rights groups, and increased awareness in the last 15 years of harsh training methods, poor living conditions, and physical injuries sustained by elephants in the tourism industry, elephant riding continues because of strong demand from tourists. The number of captive elephants in tourism in Thailand has increased by more than 70% between 2010 and 2024 and elephants used for rides has only decreased by 20% (from 1,519 elephants in 2010 to 1,217 elephants in 2024).

We stayed in Ayutthaya longer than we’d anticipated. This was due to me being sick for two days and also due to a crisis of confidence in our lack of plans which set me off into a spiral of anxiety.

We knew we were heading for Beijing, but hadn’t got a plan to get there. We didn’t know where we were headed over the next few days, let alone how we were crossing countries. Our original plan had been to cycle east from Ayutthaya, cross into Cambodia, then cycle the length of Vietnam and into China. Our original plan also had us in Ayutthaya mid-December - to enable crossing the Silk Road in the most favourable months. It was now mid-February.

With the Thai/Cambodia border still closed, and our schedule increasingly unrealistic, our first few days in Ayutthaya contained a maelstrom of alternative routes and sweeping ideas. A nice place to be some would think. But for me I found this incredibly uncomfortable.

This trip has taught me some unsuspected truths about myself. I believed this trip would lead me to become super laid back, stripped of a work routine, able to drift where the moment took us, spontaneously taking the path that called to us. I have learnt - to my chagrin 😆 - that my inherent ways are not so romantic. Although I follow other long-distance bicycle tourers who live this carefree way, and hoped to emulate them, I’ve learnt I can’t be that person. I’m too much of a control freak, too ruled by FOMO. And I surprised myself by being fine with that. Different pedal strokes for different folks.

I’m happiest when I’ve done my research and know why we’re taking this path over that one, know we’ll not cycle past something extraordinary we’ll both enjoy, know where I’ll be in a week and a month, which border crossing I’m heading to, which season I’ll hit. We’ve also both learnt we are happiest with the routines associated with pedalling all day. When we get stuck in a place - often because I’m freaking out that I don’t know where we’re going and need to look at maps - we lose our way, get irritable with each other, become listless.

Our time in Ayutthaya was a bit of a turning point as these realisations began to surface and crystallise. To be happiest travelling we need a solid plan. We decided to stay a week to bring the ideas up in the air to ground, to research and plan our route to the border at Nong Khai (before our Thai visa runs out), and our route across Laos into Vietnam. In essence we planned the next month. It was time well spent, giving us direction and a better understanding that will help future plans unfold.Read more