Bangkok to Rome: Ayutthaya Tour and sights around Bankok

We started this morning (Sunday the 30th of March) at 7 AM on a tour of towns and ruins about 60 miles north of where we are staying in Bankok. A bus whisked us north on the freeway to the Si Ayutthaya area, where there is a UNESCO world heritage site with temple ruins, Buddhas, working temples, and all manor of other Thai religious artifacts and buildings.

As an aside, religion is represented on the national flag as the color white. The other colors are red and blue, standing for nation and king (royalty) respectively. From wikipedia:

"The colours are said to stand for nation-religion-king, an unofficial motto of Thailand,[1] red for the land and people, white for Theravada Buddhism and blue for the monarchy, the last having been the auspicious colour of Rama VI. As the king had declared war on Germany that July, some note the flag now bore the same colours as those of Britain and France"

The Ayutthaya world heritage site at our first stop was originally an old city with a very large assortment of ruined stupas and temples, made of what appeared to be ordinary brick, veneered with mostly eroded stucco-like material, and tilted at precarious angles. We were told this was the result of earthquakes, but I'm skeptical of that as the only explanation, as many of the walls were bent in ways that looked like just plain sinking land with poor footings. The original structures were built around 1350. It was the capital of the country until its destruction by the Burmese army in 1767.

The tour was billed as 1/2 day, but was quite a bit longer. After the ground tour, we boarded a riverboat for lunch while returning to near the hotel around 3:30 PM. The lunch was delicious Thai fare, better than than the restaurant meals we had the previous two nights in my opinion. The whole day including tours, lunch, bus and boat cost only 2100 bht per person (about $67.00 per person.)

Sunday evening we took the free boat provided by the Shangri-la Hotel down river to the "Asiatique" mall and restaurant complex, where we had a minimal dinner (after the large lunch) and Judy, Judy and Melinda rode the large ferris wheel.

Judy, Prudence and Melinda, with leaning stupas in background