Ayutthaya In It's Days Of Glory. What Was The Siamese Capital Really Like?Prepared by Harold Stephens
Travel Correspondent for Thai Airways International
Ayutthaya, the old capital of Siam, is on the tourist map and it’s also listed as a World Heritage Site. It’s a wonderful trip to go there and see the ruins. Yet, I am sure, no matter how hard the visitor tries, he or she cannot imagine, truly imagine that is, what the place was really like.
It’s true, we hear so much about Ayutthaya, the grand and marvelous capital of Siam. They say it was even greater than the Genoa and Venice of its time. That was, of course, before the Burmese invaded Siam in 1776 and sacked the city.
The Burmese destruction was complete, which meant all documents and records of history of Siam up to that time were lost. If this were the case, how accurate can history be when it concludes that old Ayutthaya was the most magnificent city in the East? When we visit today’s Ayutthaya, we find some temples and stupas still standing; but mostly what we see are ruins—crumbling walls and piles of masonry, sad memories of a once-glorious past.
Nevertheless, records have survived—journals and diaries kept by foreigners who lived in Ayutthaya at the time of King Narai and from those foreigners who visited the old Kingdom. There are also biographies and letters, many of which were written in French, Dutch, Portuguese and Japanese. These records paint a vivid picture of past life in Ayutthaya. In doing research on King Narai and his foreign Minister, Constantine Gerakis, for my book that has just been released, For the Love of Siam, I delved into dozens of dusty old volumes and forgotten letters and came up with a picture of what it was like to visit and live in old Ayutthaya. What a rewarding discovery. Permit me to quote from For the Love of Siam.
One visitor who came to Ayutthaya was Richard Burnaby aboard the HMS Hopewell in the 1680s, when the Kingdom was under the reign of King Narai. He came as an agent for the East India Company. Hopewell arrived at Ayutthaya after having taken three days to make its way up the Chao Phraya from Pak Nam, at the mouth of the river. The vessel arrived at the southern gate of the city in darkness with an exhausted crew and dropped anchor mid-stream. Never before having been to the East, Burnaby was mystified by all the strange sounds he heard as he stood at the rail staring into the night. There was little he could see—the glow of lamps on other ships at anchor, the flickering of fires on shore, and an occasional flare of light that rose up from the city. It was the next morning, however, that a whole new world opened up to him.
He stepped on deck and found a place to sit on a forward hatch to await dawn. The river was still at this hour, mist rising from the water. Shimmers of red sky in the east gave hint that dawn was approaching. As night turned to day, forms slowly began to take shape. Far downriver, ships pulled at their anchors, a continuum of ships that faded away into a blur in the mist. There seemed to be no end to the vessels at anchor, stretching as they did for what appeared to be several miles. Ships from more nations than he could count—Chinese junks with their high sterns, Makassar schooners from the Dutch East Indies, Arab dhows from the African coast, square-riggers from the West, lighters and barges, skiffs and prows—they all came to engage in the business of trade.
Amazed at the magnitude of what lay downriver, Burnaby turned to face the other direction, toward the town, and a sight even more startling presented itself. A picture from a book of fairytales, Ayutthaya loomed before him, the capital of the Eastern kingdom he had heard so much about but which few Westerners had ever visited. Were his eyes deceiving him? Only a cable length or two from where Hopewell was anchored, edging its way to the river, lay a massive brick wall, crumbling in places, under repair in others. Even at this early morning hour, work on the wall had begun. An army of labourers, bent under the weight of heavy wicker baskets of bricks, carried their loads to hoists that lifted the bricks up the wall to where masons worked cementing them into place. Elephants in their dozens rolled heavy logs along the embankment, logs to support the scaffolding. Above and behind the wall, in towering masses of masonry, rose magnificent Ayutthaya. As Burnaby sat there, mesmerized by the dazzling beauty of the scene before him, the sun edged over the tops of trees in the distance to cast a red glow upon an assortment of domes and spires, of temples and stupas, and of palaces with many upturned, tiered roofs all festooned with nagas at the eaves, each mythical serpent pointing skyward. Freckled patches of gold on the temples sparkled like diamonds in the sunlight. The sight was overpowering.
The river flowed along the southern wall of the city to where flat-bottomed scows and barges were run high up onto the bank of the river, their cargoes unloaded and carried ashore from ships at anchor. Burnaby was greeted and escorted ashore by George White, an Englishman and long-time resident of Siam. Two turbaned Sikh footmen, each with truncheon in hand, cleared a path for the two white men to follow.
They passed through a huge gate constructed of heavy timbers, crossed with beams and studded with bolts, and entered another world. Within the confines of the wall lay still more waterways, a labyrinth of canals, or klongs. Upon these klongs, more vessels crowded together: sampans, barges, scows, even bundles of bamboo that served as crude rafts used for transporting people and goods. There was hardly room through the centre of the klongs for watercraft to move, but somehow they managed, aided by shouts and warnings. Some boats were rowed, oddly enough, by a man or woman standing upright, deftly crossing the handle of one oar over the other. Some were paddled and still others sculled by single oars aft. They came upon more boats, long and slender, beautifully carved and gilded in gold, their crews in wonderfully bright uniforms, standing by. These were the king’s barges.
White knew the city well, and explained that Ayutthaya was divided into quarters, with each quarter itself divided by wide boulevards. The king’s quarter, of course, was the finest. They could see, through a wide gate flanked by guards clutching long javelins in each hand, great squares and tree-shaded walks with the grand houses farther back where the nobility lived.
Everywhere were sparkling pagodas with steep-pitched roofs. They came upon a huge, splendid temple, which White said was the Royal Wat. White led Burnaby for a look inside. While the Sikhs waited outside, they entered and, once inside, Burnaby could do little else but stand in awe before a statue of a magnificent golden Buddha. He judged the statue to be more than 10 metres high. It was molded in pure gold, White said, and surrounded by many lesser golden idols inlaid with precious stones. Nearly everything in the temple was gold—the vases, the candlesticks, everything.
They passed through one quarter after another, quarters assigned to foreigners: Chinese, Portuguese, Japanese, Arabs, Moors and Europeans. The houses where these foreigners lived were brick and well built; all the streets were cobblestone. Foreigners lived splendidly, and Burnaby was impressed.
Some streets were less crowded than others, those without shops and storehouses, and these were lined with trees that provided shade and made walking much easier. A few streets were paved with bricks, while others, the majority, were rutted from the wheels of heavy ox carts, and these were dusty. Elephants with carved howdahs upon their backs, where passengers sat, stirred up dust as they wobbled down the centre of the streets and roadways.
Water buffalo by the score grazed along the banks of the klongs. Young boys attending the buffalo lay sound asleep, stretched out face down on the generous backs of their charges, their naked bodies as covered with mud as were those of the buffalo. Along other klongs, boys frolicked as boys do everywhere, diving from the banks and trees into the muddy water, shouting and screaming as they did, calling attention to the two white men as they passed.
The entire city was intersected by klongs, upon which some people lived aboard their tiny sampans. There were bridges over the klongs at every turn—one was never out of sight of a bridge. Some were arched, elaborately constructed of brick; others were fashioned from bamboo, so narrow and flimsy that only skilled, nimble walkers could pass over them.
George White lived in the Japanese quarter. His apartment was simple and well lighted with few furnishings. His sleeping quarters were on the second storey, as were most in the foreign quarters. Their thick walls kept the houses surprisingly cool even at the hottest times of the year. Most foreign houses had running water from clay urns stored in enclosed compartments on rooftops to keep them cool. Servants filled the urns in the evenings.
Burnaby could see that living in Ayutthaya would be pleasant. It was true what he had heard about this fabled capital of the East far up this exotic river.
Now back to the present. I never tire of visiting Ayutthaya and each time I find something I missed before. Only recently I hired a boat to take a cruise around the city. True, a cruise around the city, Ayutthaya is actually an island with the Chao Phraya flowing from the north and here it divides and flows to the east and west. It joins again at the south of the city where it now flows south to Bangkok. It was here at this southern point that vessels from the world over arrived and dropped anchor. There is a French engraving of a half dozen royal barges anchored at this very same spot. Behind the barges the city rises up and there is a gate. I pondered over that engraving for years, and suddenly now, on my boat trip around Ayutthaya when we reached the southern tip, I looked up and there it was—the old wall. Of course, the city behind it was gone, but wall and gate, in parts, were still there. Gone too were the royal barges, and the junks and Macassar schooners and the trading boats from the Spice Islands and the square riggers flying the flags of a dozen European nations; but for that moment it could have been 1685 when the engraving was made. The great city of Ayutthaya, the capital of a kingdom of the East, and now only a memory.
Next week I will take readers on a Fly/Drive experience from Chiang Mai to Bangkok. But this is not the standard drive from Chiang Mai. It’s via the back roads. QUESTIONS & ANSWERSQ. Dear Mr. Stephens. I just returned from a great 12-day trip to Thailand. We stayed at Phuket, Chiang Mai, and Bangkok and on a Live-aboard boat (SCUBA Diving) and I wasn't able to locate a nice collectable map that I can have framed for my Shop here in the USA. I was wondering if you had any suggestions or could offer me any help. Thanks, Ryan Weeks. Sydney
A. Dear Ryan, there are a few good mapmakers around. APA Press, the publisher that produced Insight Guides, has a good line of maps. Some of the most attractive maps I have seen are by B&B Maps of Thailand produced by David Unkovich, a photographer who lives in northern Thailand. These maps are really first class and worthy of hanging on any wall. Another excellent shop is Map & Prints at River City in Bangkok. --HS
Harold Stephens
Bangkok
E-mail: ROH Weekly Travel (booking@inet.co.th)
Note: The article is the personal view of the writer and does not necessarily reflect the view of Thai Airways International Public Company Limited.
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