Ayutthaya tourist map series#

The first iteration of Wat Pho (officially Wat Phra Chetuphon Wimon Mangkhalaram Rajwaramahawihana) was built in the 16th century as a late Ayuthaya-period monastery. If you don't have enough coins on you, an attendant will oblige you with loose change for bigger denominations.

Ayutthaya tourist map series#

The famous massage school has two massage pavilions located within the temple area and additional rooms within the training facility outside the temple.ДЄ common public ritual at the temple of the Reclining Buddha is to donate coins (representing alms) in a series of metal bowls placed in a long row to the rear of the Buddha statue. The temple compound is also the national headquarters for the teaching and preservation of traditional Thai medicine, including Thai massage, a mandate legislated by Rama III when the tradition was in danger of extinction.

The rambling grounds of Wat Pho cover eight hectares, with the major tourist sites occupying the northern side of Th Chetuphon and the monastic facilities found on the southern side. You'll even find (slightly) fewer tourists here than at neighboring Wat Phra Kaew. In fact, the compound incorporates a host of superlatives: the city's largest reclining Buddha, the largest collection of Buddha images in Thailand and the country's earliest center for public education.ДЄlmost too big for its shelter is Wat Pho's highlight, the genuinely impressive Reclining Buddha, housed in a pavilion on the western edge of the temple complex. Wat Pho is our absolute favorite among Bangkok's biggest sights. You can snorkel the gentle waters off Ko Lipe, dive with whale sharks around Ko Tao, scale the sea cliffs of Krabi, kiteboard in Hua Hin, party on Ko Phi-Phi and recuperate at a health resort on Ko Samui. The country's coast is one giant playground, with plenty going on wherever the sand meets the sea. With a luxuriously long coastline (actually, two coastlines) and over 1400 jungle-topped islands anchored in azure waters, Thailand is a tropical getaway fit for everyone, whether hedonist or hermit, prince or pauper. Visitors can join the conversation through meditation retreats in Chiang Mai, religious festivals in northeastern Thailand, underground cave shrines in Kanchanaburi and Phetchaburi, and hilltop temples in northern Thailand. Ancient banyan trees are ceremoniously wrapped in sacred cloth to honour the resident spirits, fortune-bringing shrines decorate humble homes as well as monumental malls, while garland-festooned dashboards ward off traffic accidents.

Gleaming temples and golden Buddhas frame both the rural and the urban landscape. The celestial world is a close confidant in this Buddhist nation, and religious devotion is colourful and ubiquitous. The usually arid northeast turns an emerald hue during the rainy season when tender green rice shoots carpet the landscape. Down south, scraggy limestone cliffs poke out of the cultivated landscape like prehistoric skyscrapers, or emerge dramatically out of the turquoise sea. In the north, the forests and fields bump up against toothy blue mountains decorated with silvery waterfalls and honeycombed by deep caves. Outside the cluttered cities and towns lies Thailand's rural heartland, a mix of rice paddies, tropical forests and villages where life is dominated by the rhythms of the agricultural clock. Cooking classes reveal the simplicity behind the seemingly complicated dishes, and mastering the market is an important survival skill. Roving appetites go on eating tours of Bangkok noodle shacks, seafood pavilions in Phuket, and Burmese market stalls in Mae Sot. A varied national menu is built around the four fundamental flavours: spicy, sweet, salty and sour. Thai dishes rely on fresh, local ingredients вЂ“ pungent lemongrass, searing chillies and plump seafood. A Bountiful TableДЄdored around the world, Thai cuisine expresses fundamental aspects of Thai culture: it is generous, warm, refreshing and relaxed. Friendly and food-obsessed, hedonistic and historic, cultured and curious, Thailand tempts visitors with a smile as golden as the country's glittering temples and tropical beaches.