Ayutthaya

For 417 years, from 1351 to 1767, this was the capital of a kingdom that ran to roughly 400,000 square kilometres with about 2.5 million people by 1600, and European travellers of the early sixteenth century listed it with Vijayanagara and Ming China as one of the three great powers of Asia. On 7 April 1767, after a fourteen-month siege, Burmese forces of the Konbaung dynasty destroyed it completely and the kingdom ended. What is left is the historical park: brick prangs, rows of headless Buddhas, and the famous sandstone head held in the roots of a fig tree at Wat Mahathat. Thailand had a new capital within fifteen years, at Thonburi and then Bangkok. UNESCO World Heritage. An easy day from Bangkok by train.