Throwback: Ayutthaya and Saraburi - August 2013

It's been so long since we've even looked at this site that I'm surprised it hasn't died off already. In any case, we'll try to put in a little more effort in updating. Since we haven't been anywhere in a while, let's do a throwback to 2013 where we visited Ayutthaya and Saraburi. My original plan was to talk about Ayutthaya and Sukhothai in the same post since they are the ancient civilisations of Thailand but the post would be too long and unwieldy, so this post will just be about Ayutthaya and Saraburi instead. All photos are taken with my iPhone so let's not expect any National Geographic quality pictures here. 

Ayutthaya is less than 2 hours drive out of Bangkok, so it's easy to do a day trip there and back from Bangkok. There is also a train from Hua Lamphong station but it supposedly takes longer than the stated time so I would say driving is a better option unless you really like trains. There are also minivans that depart from Victory Monument to Ayutthaya and I think those run rather frequently. 

We drove there so it was easy for us to visit the various temples at Ayutthaya. You could walk around but having a bicycle or motorbike would make it a lot faster. Within Ayutthaya, there are charges for individual temples, so you should do some research as to which temples you want to visit. I actually can't remember the names of the temples we went to except for what I can Google but I think we only visited 3 or 4 that day as it was really hot the day we went. Since our main purpose to Ayutthaya was to visit the temples we had to be appropriately dressed (i.e. no sleeveless tops, no miniskirts/ shorts for ladies) as a form of respect. While some of the temples are no longer in use, they are still religious sites, so the dress code still applies. 

We visited Wat Phra Mahathat, which is famous for the tree which has grown around the Buddha's head. This is a popular tourist spot so there are tour buses full of tourists who come here. Most tourists come and take a photo of this and leave for the next temple but the temple grounds itself has more to see than this tree, so take your time to walk around and explore.

Wat Phra Mahathat

 I actually cannot remember where this was taken, oops

 same for this, not sure which temple

We also visited Wat Lokaya Sutha which has a large reclining Buddha. It is apparently 37 metres and 8 metres high, yes it was so long I couldn't fit it into my iPhone frame so the picture below is what you get instead. 

reclining Buddha at Wat Lokaya Sutha 

Since it was a really hot day, we didn't really feel like temple hopping much so we decided to go to Saraburi instead to visit the vineyards and waterfall to cool down. 

The vineyards were open but sadly there were no grapes, I think it was the wrong season to visit. And proving that I cannot blog for a living I do not remember which vineyard we visited. There are quite a few around the Muak Lek district and they are all situated quite close to each other so if you don't see one you like you can just move onto the next one. We bought a bottle of lychee wine but since we are not wine connoisseurs I can't tell you if the quality was any good. We did rather enjoy it though so that's what counts. 

After the vineyards we went to Namtok Chet Sao Noi National Park to visit the waterfall. You can swim in the waterfall but we just took a short break to enjoy the scenery and had a small picnic.  There were lots of Thai families and teenagers there enjoying the cool breeze, making it quite an enjoyable place to just relax. 

there are supposed to be 7 levels for the waterfall

All in all it was a rather enjoyable day out. If you are looking to get away from the hustle and bustle of Bangkok, do consider going to Ayutthaya and Saraburi for some temples and greenery. 

Gazing upon the Sunflowers

December is typically the "winter" month in Thailand and this year, though the weather is cool, it wasn't as cool as last year. In any case, December is also apparently the month when sunflowers fields can be found around Saraburi and Lopburi area and we thought it would be nice to make a day trip.

We set off early on Sunday morning thinking that the roads would be empty but our mistake was that we chose the LAST weekend before New Year's to go visit the sunflower fields. I think everyone and their grandmother was going back to their hometowns so the highways were filled with cars, trucks, vans, buses etc. Driving out of Bangkok was relatively easy, however once we reached the highway, we were stuck and moving at a snail's pace. It was almost as bad as our drive through Poland and we kind of regretted our decision. It was so bad CS started looking up videos on Youtube to play while we crawled on the highway (he's quite obsessed with Ed Sheeran and Sam Smith lately). 

Anyway if you are interested, these are the instructions I copied from the internet on how to get there (sorry, can't remember the site now) but we made some diversions. The route from the internet is below though 

Take highway 1 and then turn into highway 2 at Saraburi. Go straight until you reach Muak Lek and turn into road 2089 which leads to Wang Muang. From there, take road 3017 to reach Pasa Jolid Dam, from there you can take road 3196 to get to Ayutthaya and then road 32 to get back to Bangkok. 

We followed the instructions and found one sunflower field shortly after turning into road 2089 (I think). We had to pay 10baht each to enter the sunflower field, honestly the field was pretty big BUT the sunflowers were rather small. I had expected to see some really nice big sunflowers so it was a little disappointing. I was pretty glad to get out of the traffic jam though, and to walk around a bit. 

We then drove a little further up and found another sunflower field but this was smaller so we didn't pay to go in. There was a nice old man selling kites just outside so we bought a kite from him and flew the kite for a while. It was pretty windy that day and the weather was great so we had quite a bit of fun for a while.

After that, we decided that we may still be stuck in traffic so we took a detour and went to Pak Chong to visit one of CS customers who had a restaurant there. The food was alright but the view from the restaurant was gorgeous and since the weather was cool, it was really great to sit outdoors and enjoy the cool breeze. 

After that we thought we would drive back towards Saraburi to look at the sunflowers but driving out of Pak Chong, we noticed sunflowers! Turns out it was a corn farm which also grew sunflowers, probably to cash in on the sunflowers craze during December. The farm is Suwan Farm, it was quite sunny when we were there so most of the Thai families were sitting in the shade, snacking and relaxing. We ventured into the sunflower field where we had the fields more or less to ourselves, with the exception of one Thai couple who came with a photography crew. The view is lovely and since a picture says a thousand words, here goes

gorgeous flowers with mountains in the background

not quite Van Gough but good enough for us 

We then took a drive to the Pasak Jolasid Dam, there was a viewing tower of some sorts and we paid 20baht each to go up. The tower was rather short but because it was the highest building in that area we got quite a good view of the surroundings. Unlike the Eiffel Tower there is no cheaper option if you climbed the stairs, haha... In any case it was a good way to get a sense of the surroundings. 

view of the dam

There was this structure near the dam which reminded me of Har Paw Villa, but this was the only structure that looked vaguely scary. The place had mainly Thai families just enjoying a simple day out, enjoying the view and flying kites, and since the weather was quite cool it was all rather relaxing. 

i actually have no idea what this is supposed to be, 

So if you ever come to Bangkok during end November/ December and would like to get out of the city, go visit the sunflowers fields! There's also a Jim Thompson farm which I would like to visit, will update then.