The ruins consist of these towers, the pillars that supported the worship hall, and walls. It was the capital of the Ayutthaya dynasty between 1351 and 1767, about 200 years later than the famous Angkor Wat, and differs from other similar monuments in that it was burned down and destroyed by the Burmese in the 18th century.

It is said to be a directional marker, but it is a crystalline schist. I am very curious to know where it is from.

These are the red bricks that make up most of the structure. It seems to be from that time. It is different from the stone of Angkor Wat. The symbolic red image of the ruins comes from here.

The heads of many of the Buddha statues have been chopped off. The violence of the Burmese army is very intense. But the Burmese were punished for it. The political situation has not stabilized since then, and now they are in a civil war. Well, Japan is partly to blame.

As I had not seen the famous one at this site, I asked a tourist guide at the exit and he told me about this place. It seemed to be the first stop, but as usual, I went the opposite way without thinking. Tourists who came by sightseeing bus were swarming around the site.

In contrast to the pagoda, the pillars and walls that supported the large worship hall still remain. As with the pagoda, many of the pillars and walls are tilted, suggesting that restoration work is underway.

It is written that it is made of brick and stucco. Next is a reconstruction of the building.

The reconstruction looks like a magnificent Greek temple (I have never been to Greece). The worship hall seems to be built in a style that is still common in Thailand today.

Brick and stucco walls that have been severely damaged by fire. Beyond the wall, there is a group of statues of Buddha, which have been painfully decapitated. It looks exactly like a ruin.

Some of the pagodas are decorated with magnificent ornaments. The glory of the Ayutthaya dynasty is at its peak here.

These ruins are scattered all over the city, and since we visited them at random, I honestly do not remember which one was which. Well, I felt that as a whole, this is the World Heritage Site of Ayutthaya. I am sure that at the end of the tour, you will be in a state of intoxication like "red brick illusion".

A small animal crosses in front of me for a moment. It was a wild squirrel. I tried to take a good picture of it, but it was too quick and ran away. Do you know where he/she is? Squirrels are rare. Dogs are everywhere.

There was only one tower that was climbable, so I climbed it. The tourists I passed were speaking Russian. There are many Russians in this country. Dr. T, who was my mentor here, was in Russia last year. I heard that science education in Thailand has deep ties with Russia. I remember that when I was in KVIS, I had a short trip with a Russian lady researcher.
http://yossi-okamoto.net/KVIS/2018/Photo_diary_Part3.html

This is the last temple I visited, and I was quite impressed by the beauty of these three well-dressed buildings. I saw a group of Japanese students seemed to be having a lot of fun here.

This is a part of a wall, and the way the gap is opened is interesting. It is not clear whether they are for decoration or for a gun sight to respond to an attack by the enemy.

This is the Japanese town we stopped by on our last day in Ayutthaya. This was not in my plan at first, but I was looking for a bridge to cross into the city, and I happened to see a sign and stopped by. It seems that some Western primary school had a field trip there. Well, this is a typical example of introducing Japanese culture. Of course, the cherry blossoms are artificial.

There are two video exhibits in this location, each showing the Japanese town that used to be here. The famous Nagamasa Yamada was introduced in detail. He was a captain of the foreign volunteer army fighting against the Burmese army. Ayutthaya was a cosmopolitan city in those days, and cultural relics from all over the world were transported by boat up the Chao Phraya River like this. I was able to take a video of the ship bringing in the cargo at the right time.

In addition to Nagamasa Yamada, a woman born half-Portuguese in a Japanese town eventually became famous for her pastry making and eventually worked for the royal family. This episode is also interesting.

These are spheres that was labeled “Cannonball”. Can you see the size of the ticket? It is quite large. I guess they were used to destroy the walls of the city.

This is a system that allows free transportation. The staff will give you a token, which is a plastic coin that looks like a ticket, at the ticket gate of the ART (Airport Link, an elevated railroad, MRT and BTS are also available) on the hotel vicinity. With this, you can enter the ticket gate. You don't have to tell them where you are going.

This is the BTS (also called Skytrain) that I changed trains at the end of the line. It was a weekday afternoon, but the train was crowded like I have never seen before. Usually, I could sit in a seat. As expected, people seem to be using the BTS more and more after one week of free service.

After a long drive, I came to the Air Force Museum near Don Mueang Airport. It is located right after getting off the station of the same name, but there is no sign below the station, so you may get lost a little. I will see the inside of the museum later. It is a very big building, and as you would expect from the military, it took much cost.

Inside the building, there were many exhibits explaining the history of the Royal Thai Air Force, as well as a variety of aircraft from the past to the present. It took me quite a while just to look around the exhibits in the building, but in fact, there were many more exhibits outside the building.

This is a Grumman F8F used after the war. The wings are foldable, because the U.S. NAVY used them on aircraft carriers. Missiles are under the wings.

This is an F16, the current main fighter plane? F16. It was displayed outside later. I saw it up close for the first time, but it didn't look so big.

The display outside was amazing. There are so many airplanes that I can't even count them. The last one is an aircraft that was active during the Vietnam War. It seems that the U.S. Air Force transferred quite a few aircraft to the Royal Thai Air Force during the Vietnam War.

What surprised me was this. I read the explanation plate and found that it was the main fighter plane of North Vietnam during the Vietnam War, but it was donated to Thailand by the Vietnamese government after the war.

It was a model that fought in the air against the F4 Phantom, the mainstay of the U.S.Air Force at that time. This is the first time I have seen this aircraft.

I believe it is still the main fighter of the British Army. This is the first time I have seen it.

The F5E on the left and the F16B (double-seat type) Fighting Falcon on the right, the F5E was equipped with Sidewinder, an air-to-air missile.

This is the first time I have seen a Sidewinder infrared seeker up close. This is amazing. It is a system to track enemy aircraft by aiming at the heat radiation of their engines. Of course, the tracked aircraft tries to escape by radiating a heat source called chaff, which looks like a firework. I think the principle of an IR seeker is the same as the thermo camera I bought with SSH budget a long time ago for students* science project.

This is the skeleton of the F8F Sabre, the main fighter of the United Nations (U.S.) forces in the Korean War. The oval holes are openings for three 12.7mm machine guns on each side.

The train on the way back was as crowded as you can see. I was so careless that I didn't get off at the station I was supposed to get off at, so I went one stop further and took the train on the other side to my hotel. I never thought I would meet a packed hell in Thailand.

Lunch was a little late, but I went to the recently built food stall village at the train station biside at the hotel. This stall sells “HALAL” food for Muslims who live in this area many. I learned the word “HALAL” when I went to Bali, Indonesia as a preliminary inspection for the school excursion at my high school. I think the best way to understand different cultures is to go out.

So, after a long time, I made kaijao rice. It was hot during the day, so naturally I had a beer at the daytime. I bought some cut papaya at a food stall, and I'm studying the Thai alphabet while waiting at the train station. Inspired by a JICA information teacher I met at Loei, I am going to restart studying Thai a little.

I walked to a laundromat in the neighborhood and tried to put my clothes in the 14kg washing machine, but a kind old lady who seemed to be the owner of the laundromat showed me the 10kg machine and told me to put my clothes in this one. The price was cheaper only 30 baht. There are so many kind people in Thailand. I was almost given up my seat several times on the train. I stood there laughing, though.