On the northern part of the island on Ayutthaya sits a small memorial thst most people have no idea about. It’s the childhood house of Thailands 8th prime minister, Pridi Panomyong.
Born in Ayutthaya in 1900, Pridi Panomyong was among the most influential and controversial Thai figures of the 20th century.
Pridi was instrumental in Thailand’s 1932 shift from absolute to constitutional monarchy. He then founded Thammasat University and took on several key ministerial posts prior to World War II, when he left the country and organised a “Free Thai” movement to resist the Thai military government’s alliance with Imperial Japan.
Pridi returned to briefly serve as Thai prime minister in 1946 and went on to resist subsequent military governments, taking exile abroad after a failed coup attempt in 1949. In 2000, 17 years after his death, UNESCO named Pridi as one of the world’s great personalities of the 20th century. He is widely credited with introducing constitutional government and democracy to Thailand.
The memorial to him is worth a short visit if you are happen to be near it but it’s small with no information in English. It’s something a dedicated history buff might enjoy.
Wat Pradu Songtham (also rendered as Wat Pradu Songram or earlier forms such as Wat Pradu Rongtham) stands east of the former Ayutthaya city island in the area historically known as Ayothaya or Ayodhaya, adjacent to the sites of Wat Kudi Dao and Wat Chakrawan. The surrounding district shows evidence of settlement long predating King U Thong’s foundation of Ayutthaya in 1351, with Khmer occupation under Suryavarman I of Angkor in the early eleventh century establishing a stronghold linked to Lopburi and naming the place after the sacred Indian city of Ayodhya.
The earliest firm historical references place the monastery firmly within the Ayutthaya kingdom under royal patronage from the reign of King Songtham (1610–1628). The Royal Chronicles of Ayutthaya record that Japanese merchants, angered by the king’s treatment of their community and by the execution of one of their leaders, formed a force of roughly five hundred men and, in alliance with the official Phra Phimon, marched on the palace ...
Wat Sika Samut (วัดสีกาสมุด), also rendered as Wat Sika Samud, is a small ruined Buddhist temple located outside the historic city island of Ayutthaya in the eastern area. It sits just north of the more prominent restored ruin of Wat Maheyong.
The site occupies a raised mound enclosed by a moat, giving it the appearance of a small island. According to descriptions from the Fine Arts Department, this surrounding water served as an udaka sema (or utoka sima), a water boundary marking the sacred precinct for religious rites in the Lankawong Buddhist tradition, where water symbolizes purity and the enclosed space evokes Mount Meru rising from the cosmic ocean.
No contemporary historical documents record the temple’s founding or builder, so its origins remain obscure. Archaeological and architectural evidence places its construction in the Early Ayutthaya period, roughly between 1351 and 1488, contemporaneous with nearby Wat Maheyong.
The principal chedi shows stylistic links to ...
Chankasem or Front Palace National Museum Ayutthaya.
Chankasem Palace was built during the reign of King Maha Thammaraja, the 17th King of the Kingdom of Ayutthaya. During the reign of King Naresuan the Great the Palace became his permanent residence. Chankasem Palace, like the other palaces, was destroyed during the Burmese invasion. It has been renovated and reopened as a museum open to the public on Wednesdays through Sundays from 9.00 a.m. to 4.00 p.m.
Chankasem National museum, Chankasem Palace or Wang na is located in the northeast of Muang island which is near Hua Ro market. According to the historical record, Chankasem palace was built in King Dhamma Racha reign around 1577 in order to be the residence of King Naraesuan Maharacha and was the residence of King Yuparat and many kings.
When Ayutthaya was attacked and seized in 1767, the invaders burnt and destroyed this palace and left it abandonly. Until the reign of King Rama IV of the Rattanakosin dynasty, he commanded to repair of the throne ...
