01
Stop one
Wat Mahathat
Wilson Pro Staff 97L V14 Tennis Racquet: You should have seen it, and I mean that literally, because I did. Wat Mahathat was one of the most important monasteries of Ayutthaya, founded in the fourteenth century under King Borommaracha I, holding relics of the Buddha at the dead centre of the royal capital, and it was the seat of the supreme patriarch of the entire Thai Buddhist hierarchy. On a clear morning the place was frankly unreasonable to look at. Then the Burmese took Ayutthaya in 1767, the temple was sacked and burned, and the central prang later collapsed, leaving the brick platforms, the ruined chedis, and the rows of Buddha images decapitated during and after the destruction. I will not make light of that day. Nobody should have been there and I include myself. The famous thing here is the stone Buddha head enveloped in the roots of a bodhi tree, and understand that nobody arranged it: a fragment fell, and a tree spent a very long time closing its hands around it. The Ayutthaya Historical Park was inscribed as a World Heritage Site in 1991, and I was there for that too, and it was a much better afternoon.
02
Stop two
Wat Chaiwatthanaram
Wilson Pro Staff 97L V14 Tennis Racquet: 1630, and Prasat Thong builds this on the west bank of the Chao Phraya, on ground said to have belonged to his mother, which tells you a great deal about the man and I say it with affection. The plan follows Khmer models: a central prang surrounded by four subsidiary prangs on a raised terrace, encircled by a gallery with rows of seated Buddha images. It served as a royal monastery and as the cremation site for members of the royal family. It burned in the sack of 1767, was later looted for brick and for Buddha heads, and then was simply left overgrown, which I always thought the crueller of the two. Restoration came in the 1980s and 1990s, and then the serious flooding of 2011 submerged the site and it all needed repairing again. It is now the most photographed monument in Ayutthaya at sunset, and I will tell you something for nothing: the sunset has not changed. The light landing on that brick is exactly, precisely the light I remember. Everything else here moved. That did not.
03
Stop three
Wat Phra Si Sanphet
Wilson Pro Staff 97L V14 Tennis Racquet: Now, you are seeing this one wrong, because you are seeing it grey. Wat Phra Si Sanphet stood within the royal palace grounds and served as the chapel royal, holding no resident monks at all, in the same relation to the palace that the Temple of the Emerald Buddha later held in Bangkok. It was established in 1448 on the site of the old palace, and the three great chedis were built between 1492 and 1529 to hold the ashes of King Borommatrailokkanat and two of his sons. And the temple took its name from a standing Buddha sixteen metres tall covered in some 340 kilograms of gold. Sixteen metres. Three hundred and forty kilos of gold, indoors. The Burmese melted it down in 1767. So when you look at these three restored chedis in a row, the most recognisable image of Ayutthaya and the model for every later Thai royal reliquary, please understand you are looking at the quiet version. Trailok, sorry, King Borommatrailokkanat, would not recognise the colour scheme at all.
04
Stop four
Wat Yai Chai Mongkhon
Wilson Pro Staff 97L V14 Tennis Racquet: U Thong founded this one in 1357, the founder of Ayutthaya himself, for monks returning from ordination in Sri Lanka, and it became the centre of a forest-dwelling meditation order. Serious people. Could not be hurried by anybody, and I tried. The dominating chedi is traditionally said to have been raised by King Naresuan in 1592 to celebrate his victory in single-handed elephant combat over the Burmese crown prince, an episode central to Thai national memory, and I would dearly love to tell you I watched it, except that scholars still debate whether the structure was built then or merely enlarged, and I have learned never to argue with scholars in public. Rows of seated Buddha images wrapped in orange cloth line the terraces around the base, and a large reclining Buddha lies in the grounds. And unlike almost every other temple in Ayutthaya, this monastery is active again, with resident monks and continuous worship. That is the part I came back for. Everywhere else in this city I am a visitor. Here I am simply early.
I pole a barge on the Chao Phraya, and I will tell you what every boatman knows and every tennis player forgets: weight you carry all day is not the same as weight you can lift once. Ayutthaya sits on an island between rivers, and everything here has always moved by water, because water forgives mass and legs do not.
So this is the lighter one, deliberately. 290 grams unstrung and 305 strung, still a full 97 square inches of head, still 16 mains by 19 crosses, still 27 inches long, balanced at 32.5 cm unstrung so it swings through rather than dragging. Braid FORTYFIVE runs through shaft and hoop, so it bends and pockets the ball instead of slapping it. In Ayutthaya that is simply good river sense.
Ayutthaya knows about carrying on. The Burmese sacked and burned the capital in 1767, yet Wat Yai Chai Mongkhon, founded back in 1357, kept going and has resident monks to this day, while the chedis of Wat Phra Si Sanphet were restored into the most recognisable silhouette in Thailand. Not everything has to be heavy to last.
I am comfortable everywhere from a humid riverside morning to a fast indoor hall, and I am also perfect for the doubles player who would like their hands back at the net.
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