valtor

What is the best option to visit Ayuthaya and Sumer Palace:
1. A tour by car
2. tour by car + boat
3. with a driver like Ratt

We are interested to see more temples and to spend enough time at the palace, but also to travel in comfort.

Thanks in advance for the advise.

Cicerone

I have done the tour by bus/boat three times and always enjoy it. To be honest, there is not a lot to see at Ayyuthia and unless you have an really well-versed tour guide (I have yet to find one) you will not understand a lot of what you are looking at, although you can appreciate the beauty of the dozens of buddhas around the main temple. The ruins are not extensive and not especially well-preserved. With regard to the Summer Palace, most of it is outside walking looking at the various building and grounds, which are very nice and there are lakes and garden walks to enjoy. You get to look at the inside of a few buildings, which are fairly staid European or Chinese furnishings. To me, the highlight of the trip is the boat ride back, where you can sit outside in front and watch the life of Thailand flow by for several hours, and understand why this country is called the Land of a 1,000 Temples. It really is the most pleasant way to spend an afternoon, IMO. The trip up by road is not especially scenic and to do it both ways would be quite boring, IMO.

If you are taking an overnight or day long river cruise on another day, then this trip would be a repeat so I wouldn’t take it. Otherwise, I would not even go to Ayyuthia or the Summer Palace, if you want to see better preserved more extensive ruins, go to Sukkothai instead. And instead of the Summer Palace, go to the Vimarnmek Palace in Bangkok and save the drive to the Summer Palace.

rhkkmk

i think the combo of car and boat is a very good one...up quickly in the AM by car and return via boat would make the heat the most tollerable...

JBX

A recent thread about visiting Ayuthaya has many reponses and may be helpful to you >>> http://www.fodors.com/forums/threads...p;tid=34549871

valtor

Thank you to all for the advices.
We decided to take a combo tour (car and boat), to combine the tour of temples, ruins, with the cruise.

In a previous day, we shall have Ratt as driver to visit as much we can in Bangkok.

Thanks a lot to everybody.

Mitmap

I thought about doing the same thing myself. I was going to hire Ratt to take us up, but then do we just send her back by herself if we want to take a boat back? Would she still charge us for the return trip because it's out of town?

valtor

We did not take Ratt for this tour. We booked a tour car + boat at a company named Bangkok smiling tours. Sorry, I have not yet their web site, however you will can find it easy, if you are interested in this. They have the email address:
[email protected]

They have two types of tours: bus plus boat, or car plus boat. We took car plus boat, and in this case we left BKK at 8 in the morning (while the bus tour started at 6), we had a private driver and guide (very good guide) and we visited what temples we wanted and spent more time at Summer Palace, as we liked it.
The return by boat was very nice, good food, we could relax aand enjoy the view in air conditioned boat.

MichaelBKK

A couple of notes on this topic:

Nobody has yet mentioned the Royal Arts & Crafts center at Bang Sai, a few kilos south of the Bang Pa In Palace. Am I the only one that thinks this is worth a look?

In Ayutthaya, I've found that a lot of guides miss some of the really interesting (to me) and better preserved monuments. Most stick to the old city center on the island, which can be crawling with tourists, while just across the river, Wat Chai Wattanaram and Wat Phutthaisawan are almost deserted. Chai Wattanaram is one of the best preserved temples in Ayutthaya, and is used as teh backdrop for many movies and photos, but for some reason tourists are never taken there.

CFW

Michael, What is the Royal Arts & Crafts Center? Also have you heard of the Center for Khon Maskmaking in theBang Sue area of Bangkok, and if so, is it worthwhile to visit?

saluki00

MichaelBKK, Good call on Wat Chai Watthanaram. My friends took me there in the late afternoon and I thought it was quite stunning in the setting sun. They also took me to Wat Yai Chaya Mongkol on the southeast side of Ayutthaya when we first drove in from Bangkok which I liked as well. It is a ruin but still a working temple as well and afforded some nice views of the area when you climb the main chedi.

MichaelBKK

The Royal Arts & Crafts center is a project of H.M. the Queen. It's close to 15 years old, and has become something of a mish-mash of different things. The original intent was to preserve traditional crafts, so the oldest buildings are a collection of workshops where they teach furniture making, silk weaving and even how to make khon masks to young apprentices. The best time to see these in action is usually weekdays.

A few years ago, a huge museum cum shoppe was built. Ground floor is a shop selling a variety of handicrafts, while 2nd & 3rd floors have displays of painting along with traditional arts. More recently, they added a 'Thai village' with houses in various regional styles, selling OTOP stuff. On my last visit about 8 months ago, there was a huge new building just outside the park just being finished. I understand it's supposed to be something of an OTOP hyper-market.

Bang Sai is right on the river, and I thought most boat tours stopped there, although on most of my visits, I've been about the only foreigner wandering around the place.

Have heard of the Khon Center, but haven't been there yet. It seems I'm only in Bangkok long enough to do laundry and re-pack my bags these days.

ronnie_s

We had Ratt take us to Ayuthaya last May, and it was a wonderful day. She is delightful!! An extra bonus was stopping to take an elephant ride on the way up. We would highly recommend her.