We have been to Ancient City before, but Di wanted to visit, so off we went as it is only 45 mins outside Bangkok. Very hot and humid day. Bought the tickets for both sites online, saved 50%. Again as the park is over 200 acres, in the shape of Thailand, we took advantage of the golf cart hire, our trusty steed was No 119.

The museum park was constructed by Lek Viriyaphant, who passed away in 2000 aged 85, he was also responsible for the Erawan Museum, which we will be visiting for the first time and the Sanctuary of Truth in Pattaya, which we went to a few days ago. He founded Mercedes Benz in Thailand, Krungsri Bank and Viriya Insurance.

Ancient Siam is considered as the world’s largest outdoor museum, the “city” features 116 structures of Thailand’s famous monuments, which lie at their correct places geographically. Some of the buildings are life-size replicas of existing or former sites, while others are scaled down, others are “creative designs,” of the designer.

This time we managed to catch the short cultural show of Thai Dancing and Muay Thai Boxing demonstration.

The monuments include the former Grand Palace of Ayutthaya (destroyed in the Burmese invasion of 1767), Phimai Sanctuary in Nakhon Ratchasima, and Wat Khao Phra Viharn on the Cambodian border.

It was huge and took us nearly 4 hours to go around, in our trusty steed, fortunately it was also quiet, with not too many tourists around, until we were leaving when we met up with 3 coaches of Chinese tourists.

Erawan Museum

You can see this huge 3 headed elephant statue from the motorway, but have never visited this in all our trips to Bangkok. It is said to represent both 4 religions inc Hindu and Buddhism and the arts.

The Erawan Museum is sectioned into 3 levels, the idea came from a book of Bhumitha, that heaven and earth are separated into three, the underworld – Suvarnabhumi (name of Bangkok’s airport), the middle level – human earth, while the third level located inside the elephant’s body is heaven.

The ancient myth has it that the most important duty of the great Erawan Elephant is as a vehicle to bring the all-mighty Indra god to a different realm between heaven and earth. He is also the war weapon for good and evil. Indra is the god that is in charge of all weathers of the world and has an enemy – the drought. Erawan who has the power to bring water from the world up to heaven to disperse down to the world again is one of his most important companions. Erawan was able to assist Indra in helping him bring good to the world.