the PERFECT Trip to AYUTTHAYA 🇹🇭 (Copy This Itinerary)

I'm back to Ayutthaya with my lovely wife for the weekend. It's nice to come back to a beautiful place that I loved the last time I was here. We're coming away for a weekend escape from Bangkok. I'll share with you where we're staying, our amazing tour guide, lots of delicious food that we'll find, plus all the adventures that you can find here in Ayutthaya. So come and join us as we have a lovely weekend away in Ayutthaya. There are many ways to get to Ayutthaya from Bangkok. You can catch the train, you can get a taxi, you can get the bus, but we decided to go with a private driver who lives in Ayutthaya. We found her on Facebook and we paid 2,500 baht for a two-day driver service. She would take us from our house in Bangkok all the way to Ayutthaya, plus she would take us to all the temples we wanted to visit. And on the second day, she would take us to more places and drive us all the way back to our home in Bangkok. 2,500 baht for your own personal driver for two days is a fantastic deal and I'll leave her information in the description below. Okay, so let's begin with our adventures in Ayutthaya, beginning with one of the most unexpected temples I've ever experienced in Thailand. Now this temple is located about 10 or 15 minutes outside of Ayutthaya on your way up north from Bangkok and it's definitely worth a detour. Even getting across the temple is part of the fun experience here. There's a short cable car ride that takes you peacefully across the river, adding to the sense that you're stepping into something truly different. Now this is the name of the temple. Please don't ask me to pronounce it. But at first glance, you would be forgiven for thinking that it's a church with its gothic style architecture and stained glass windows and its pointed arches. It feels more like something you see in France or England than in central Thailand. However, this is very much a Buddhist temple. It was built in 1878 by the king of Thailand who was heavily influenced by Western design after he started traveling abroad in places like France. And so he wanted to build a traditional Thai temple but with European church aesthetics. So it's very unique. I've never seen anything like this anywhere else in Thailand. Inside where you might expect to see the cross and an altar, you'll find a golden Buddha statue sitting peacefully beneath these colorful stained glass windows. It's a quiet and beautiful spot and it's one of the most fascinating cultural crossovers that you'll find in Thailand. So this is a quite unique part of Thai tradition. Every day of the week has a different Buddha stance and a different color depending on the day of the week that you were born. But you might be wondering, well, it looks like there's more than seven statues for the seven days. Well, red and this Buddha is Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, daytime, Wednesday evening. So Wednesday has two, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and for people who don't know when they were born. So every day has a different color and a different statue. Now you can stay and hang out by the river, feed the fish and enjoy the nature. But we headed further north into Ayutthaya town itself because there was a few temples we wanted to visit. Our hotel wouldn't let us check into three o'clock. So there was no rush to get into town. So we decided to go a little bit slower and ask our driver to take us to some of the temples that she likes as well as some ones that I want to revisit and some temples that Miss P has never seen in person. Inside this magnificent temple is a massive golden statue that dates back to 1324. This beautiful golden statue is older than the city of Ayutthaya itself. And Buddha depicted here in a seated posture is over 19 meters tall, symbolizing calm, stability and spiritual protection. I've seen statues like this all over Thailand, but its sheer scale is just mesmerizing. Outside of the statue, the temple grounds are alive with a lot of motion. Thai people come here to make all types of blessings and my wife was no stranger. She wanted to get stuck in. So we made a few blessings. We bought a candle on the day we were born and pushed it on some water as a blessing to bring in some good luck. My wife also bought some oil and you top up the candles so they burn longer. And again, another way of bringing in good luck and fortune. And then she also did this fun one where you shake some sticks and when one of them falls out, you take the corresponding number and you find a fortune in a box and you read it. And if it's good luck, you can feel happy about your good luck charm. And if it's not that great, then you can just leave it in the temple and move on, which is what we did. Onwards and upwards to the next temple. Now it's probably worth mentioning that if you do come to Ayutthaya, be prepared. You'll see tourists on top of elephants doing walking tours of the ruins. It's not something I would do or recommend, but it is an interesting part of Thai culture here and you will see it on the streets of Ayutthaya. Another option of getting around, by the way, is a tuk-tuk. These boat shaped tuk-tuks are very cool. You'll see them all over Ayutthaya and you can haggle a price and rent a driver for the day to take you to all of the temples and ruins that you want. But we have our own driver, as I mentioned earlier. So we were heading straight to the next ruin and temple that I absolutely love. One of my favorites in Ayutthaya. It's probably worth mentioning at this point that Ayutthaya used to be the capital of Thailand. Many years ago, obviously, at its peak, it was one of the largest and wealthiest cities in the world and it was acting as a political, economic and cultural center of Thailand. It was a major international port as well. However, in 1767, the city was almost completely destroyed by the Burmese during the war. I'll show you some of the damage as we go around. But yeah, it's quite sad to see some of the disfigured statues of Buddha all around Ayutthaya, which of course was something that the Burmese did to really rub salt in the wounds of the Thais during the war. On our way into my favorite temple, we met this lovely girl. She tried to sell us something, but in the end, we gave her 100 baht and asked her to be our own little tour guide. And she gratefully accepted and started telling us the history of some of these stupas. One, two, three. These bell-shaped structures were built in the 15th century and they actually enshrine the ashes of three Ayutthayan kings from the past. The design is inspired by Sri Lankan architecture, reflecting Ayutthaya's international Buddhist connections at the time. And as I mentioned, you'll see defaced Buddha images all around from the war. It's also worth mentioning that today, it was 40 degrees, absolutely boiling hot. So once we had walked around and seen a few of our temples that we wanted to see, it was finally time to head over to our hotel and check in. I've got a fantastic recommendation for you if you are coming to Ayutthaya for at least a night. You definitely want to consider staying here. This is Salar Ayutthaya. Now there are two salars in Ayutthaya. This one is on the river. I'll leave the information in the description so you can book it if you want. It's fantastic. It's a bit pricey. Our room was 7,000 Thai Baht or so. It does include a fantastic breakfast, which I'll show you later. And there's a swimming pool which we used because we still had to wait a little while for our room to be ready. And inside, a huge king-size bed, nice airy open room, lots of light, a huge jacuzzi bathtub and a little sofa area to just relax and enjoy the view of the incredible river, the Chao Phraya river, no doubt. And even a ruin in the background, a real beautiful backdrop and a great setting for your hotel, for your stay in Ayutthaya. And we'll show you some more of the hotel later. But yeah, I've got a very interesting discount for you from one of my channel sponsors. All right, let me show you something that's made traveling this year so much easier. So everything that I've packed for both me and Mrs P is in this extra travel compression bag. I've been on loads of trips recently and this is my go-to every single time. You just pack your clothes in it and you use this small portable air pump that compresses everything down, sucks out all of the air so you can fit way more into the same space. And for trips like this, where I'm bouncing between cities, it honestly means I can travel with half the luggage space. All of the bags are super durable too. They're waterproof zips, anti-rip material and I can reuse this as a laundry bag as and when I start to pile up dirty laundry. And this is another great product that Exeter have in the sale. This is the Exeter Wallet Pro. It's my everyday wallet now. All my cards come out instantly with this trigger. It's RFID protected and it's way slimmer than a normal wallet which is ideal when you travel light. And with my code Paddy Doyle, you can get up to 65% off. So if you travel a lot or you just want to pack smarter, go grab yourself a great deal and a great bargain for a great product. And thanks to Exeter for sponsoring today's adventure. All right, next up was a late lunch spot recommended to us by our driver. It's called Prang Cafe. It's got a beautiful view of a ruin across the street and we had a delicious late lunch of a Massaman curry, some river prawns with pasta and we washed it down with Bua Loy, a very traditional Thai dessert with ice cream this time. It was delicious. And then in the afternoon, it was time to take a boat tour of Ayutthaya. One of the best things you can do in Ayutthaya guys is take a boat tour. You can book them at the riverfront. I'll leave the lady's information in the description. There's this lovely aunt and she has a Google map link and a phone number you can book ahead. We paid 1,200 for a private tour but you can for a lot cheaper, join another tour and just share it with other people. Ayutthaya is surrounded by the Chao Phraya on all sides and it's probably one of the reasons why Ayutthaya thrived so much back in the day because they had access to water all year round and from every point of the island. We were given a bunch of bananas as well because we were told we might pass by some hungry elephants and in the distance, we could hear the screams of a boat being harassed by a group of elephants. Once that boat's food ran out, they quickly turned around and put their attention on us and they started to make their way over to our boat. That was such a funny experience. They soaked us. We were completely soaked to the bone but it was so much fun to get up and close with these elephants and yeah, it was just fun to see them swimming and enjoying a break from the boiling heat. But we weren't finished yet. We still had another 45 minutes to cruise around Ayutthaya, see the local way of life and enjoy the beautiful afternoon of which was this beautiful ruin on the water's edge. It was a bit busy both on the ground, there were so many tourists inside as well as with us on the boats, there was loads of people taking pictures. I think this particular room was recently featured in a very famous film so very popular at the minute but stunning especially as the sun was going down behind it. If you remember, our hotel is on the riverfront so we asked our driver and he actually just dropped us off at a hotel and our hotel has a beautiful restaurant with great views but it was packed so we couldn't get a table just yet but never mind, we could go up to the rooftop and use the vouchers for free cocktails because when we checked in we had some vouchers for a sunset cocktail so why not? I had a pina colada and Miss P had a fruit punch and it was just a great way to end the day and prepare our stomachs ready for dinner. When a table was finally ready we were hungry so we ordered a lot. Mrs P went for the Ayutthaya river prawns with pad thai we shared a beautiful boiled fish with garlic and lime and I had kanom jeen with a coconut curry and it was delicious. We might have ordered a little bit too much. How are we going to finish all of this? I'll help you. We probably ordered too much but it was a beautiful dinner very romantic a fantastic view and the restaurant and the service was quality and we went to bed happy and full and very content with our experience so far but it's not over yet. The following morning we made a plan we wanted to visit a few more temples and ruins but first of course we had to decide what to have for breakfast. I went with the English breakfast my wife went with thai omelette with veggies and french toast with banana and bacon and there was fruit and there was salad and there was drinks and there was coffees it was beautiful very delicious and included in the price. After breakfast we wanted to tick off some bucket list places and the first one being a revisit to well Ayutthaya's most famous relic and most famous site the Buddha head statue surrounded by the roots of a tree. It's very unique it's very beautiful there's an interesting story behind this but of course it's one of the most photogenic parts of Ayutthaya very famous as well so expect crowds. Try to get here earlier because 10 30 all the tour buses are already here. After that we just wandered and explored the ruins in this area and it's such a beautiful experience Ayutthaya is packed with history really takes you back in time and it's just yeah it's a beautiful place to be. Ayutthaya is a hundred percent worth a visit whether just for the day or an overnight stay it's fantastic and there's so many ruins and temples to explore you probably if you want to see them all need at least three days. One place in particular i wanted to revisit because i'd seen on google maps something that kind of threw me off it looked like AI but basically now a few years ago when i visited it it was dirty and it was old and broken looking but it is old right but they've renovated it but i'm not quite sure that the renovation has kept the essence of this particular statue i don't know let me know what you think i can't decide if i prefer the reclining statue now after the renovation or before i mean before it was dark and dirty and moldy and ancient looking probably needed a renovation of sorts but i don't know if this suits it it's almost too new looking i'm not sure what do you think? do you think it looks better like this? renovated and fresh lick of paint look or does it look better before? i'm not sure i'm not sure about this our driver wanted to take us to a different temple just to show us another example of a reclining buddha and she took us here and it was beautiful actually it was probably the best temple that we'd seen on the entire trip they had the beautiful reclining buddha which was restored in a better way if you ask me just the temple grounds and just oh god this place was stunningly beautiful as with all the other temples and ruins mentioned and showcased in this video all of the locations and information is in the description including the entire itinerary in a breakdown for you where to go where to stay and our driver's information what a great weekend we had just had in Ayutthaya okie dokie that's been a nice break in Ayutthaya and you know the best part about getting out of Bangkok and spending quality time with your wife is eating good food and just having fun experiences together it's really nice for me to bring Mrs P on a trip like this get her out of her comfort zone with the muddy elephants and the geckos in the hotel but for sure one of the best things about this trip was my wife's idea which was to ask Ploy to pick us up and be our guide and to drive us around my idea was let's just get the train and make it up you know when we get here yeah that was a stupid idea we would be haggling for tuk-tuks using Grab and just it would have been a lot more stress obviously if you come to Ayutthaya the cheapest way is take the train and rent bicycles for two days that would cost you less than ten dollars but Ploy has been fantastic and we'll leave her information in the description she can take you around not just Ayutthaya but Khao Yai National Park and other areas she's been great nice car air con good guide door-to-door service and it's been great anywhere we've wanted to go she's taken us and she's also taken us to a few local food spots in fact on the way home she's going to take us to a really cool dessert spot which i'll insert here so we can show you some yummy dessert apparently it's a signature dessert dish around here and yeah have you enjoyed yourself? yeah i really enjoyed it what was the best part for you? oh anyway thanks for joining us for our little escape to Ayutthaya it's great to come back i think ideally you probably need two nights here to really immerse yourself in all of the temples all of the ruins the museums and the history but we just had a fleeting visit but it's been fantastic so thanks again check out the extra sale in the description below thanks to Mrs P for joining me thanks to Ploy for being our fantastic driver and guide check her out on facebook and we'll see you next week bye