We took a day trip out of Bangkok to visit the old capital of Ayutthaya. They moved the capital to Bangkok a little over 200 years ago after the Burmese sacked the place. It's quite interesting and some of the old temples there, would have been in use until they abandoned the place, are beautiful. When you look closely you'll see that a lot of the temple walls still look scorched after the Burmese burned the city.
A lot of the Buddha statues here would once have been covered in gold, but when the city was sacked they burned the statues to melt the gold off and take it away.
Also notice how all the smaller Buddha statues are beheaded - Talk about a symbolic stab in the heart to your enemy!
My favourite temple here was a temple they had built in the Khmer style after the Thai beat them - hence it looks very like Angkor Wat in Cambodia.
After the city was sacked somebody picked up one of the severed Buddha heads and laid it against a tree, where it stayed. As the tree grew, its roots curled around the head making it look like the head is part of the tree ...
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