Getting to the wonderful island of Koh Mak, Koh Chang or Koh Kut isn’t as difficult as it might seem when planning a trip. The first part is you’ll have to figure out how to get from Bangkok to Trat. The last part of the journey will be by passenger boat as there aren’t any vehicle ferres to the island. So traveling door to door in the same vehicle isn’t possible.
Many take the bus to Trat and then spend a night in the town before traveling to the islands the next morning. It’s also possible to fly and do the ferry trip to the island that day or the next morning. Either way that is the most difficult part. Once you are in Trat the next step is to get to the ferry pier.
Another option is to arrange a bus with a ferry transfer from Bangkok and one of the piers in Trat. One company that provides service from Khao San Road in Bangkok to the islands is Boonsiri. For 1,100 Baht, one way, it’s a simple and easy way to get to the islands. They provide service to Koh Kut, Koh Mak...
Wat Sala Pun, also known as Wat Sala Pun Worawihan or the Monastery of the Pavilion of Lime, is an active second class royal temple located off the city island in the northwestern area of Ayutthaya. It sits on the north bank of Khlong Mueang, the former course of the Lopburi River, near Wat Phanom Yong and Wat Phrom Niwat.
The name derives from the nearby Ban Sala Pun village, where residents once operated furnaces to produce and sell red lime, and the temple served as the religious center of that community, which also featured a local market.
The exact date of construction and the identity of its founder remain unknown, though it dates to the Ayutthaya period, likely the middle or late era. The site appears on historical maps, including Phraya Boran Rachathanin’s map of 1926.
After the fall of Ayutthaya in 1767 the temple fell into disuse and became abandoned. It was restored in the early Rattanakosin period, with major renovation recorded around 1812–1816 during the reign of King Rama II, when ...
Wat Yai Chai Mongkhon occupies a site that may reach back far earlier than the Ayutthaya kingdom itself. Historians and archaeologists point to traces of a large surrounding moat and the outline of an ancient baray, or rectangular reservoir, near the southwestern edge of the present monastery. These features are characteristic of Khmer temple planning, in which a broad outer moat symbolized the cosmic ocean encircling Mount Meru. The evidence suggests that an important religious complex, possibly Khmer or linked to the earlier Dvaravati culture of the sixth to eleventh centuries, once stood here, though no standing structures from that period remain visible today.
The monastery that visitors now see was founded in 1357 by King Ramathibodi I, known as U-Thong, the first ruler of Ayutthaya. After two royal princes, Chao Kaeo and Chao Thai, died of cholera, the king ordered their remains cremated and a sacred site established at the place of the ceremony. A stupa and preaching hall were raised, and the ...
Wat Nok, known as the Bird Monastery, stands as a restored temple ruin within the heart of Ayutthaya Historical Park, nestled on the southwestern corner of the far larger Wat Mahathat. Its proximity is so intimate that visitors often assume it forms part of the neighboring complex, yet Wat Nok possesses its own distinct architectural character and independent history.
Oriented along an east-west axis, the site preserves the foundations of a preaching hall together with renovated traces of its walls and pillars. Several headless Buddha images in the Taming Mara posture rest upon the altar area.
Nearby rises a substantial prang like chedi that echoes Khmer forms while displaying the multiple redented corners and elaborate eastern portico crowned by a secondary prang that mark the late Ayutthaya style.
This tower retains some of the finest surviving stucco in the city, including geometric patterns, partial standing Buddha figures within niches, a headless mythological figure on one corner, and ...
