Thursday Travel: The Pearl Of The East
Ayuthaya, Thailand, was the capital of Thailand from 1350 until its destruction by Burmese 4 centuries later. Ayuthaya was once called the “Pearl of the East”.
The city was destroyed completely in 1767, the heartbroken king chose to relocate his court to Bangkok, where he would soon build the Grand Palace.
Thirty-three kings of various dynasties build hundreds of temples and thousands of images of Buddha.
The city was ideally situated at the head of the Gulf of Siam, equi-distant between India and China and well upstream to be protected from Arab and European powers who were expanding their influence in the region even as Ayutthaya was itself consolidating and extending its own power to fill the vacuum left by the fall of Angkor. As a result, Ayutthaya became a center of economics and trade at the regional and global levels, and an important connecting point between the East and the West. The Royal Court of Ayutthaya exchanged ambassadors far and wide, including with the French Court at Versailles and the Mughal Court in Delhi, as well as with imperial courts of Japan and China. — unesco.org
The World Is A Book... 
You must be logged in to post a comment.