Ayutthaya: a Buddha head held in the roots of a bodhi tree

At Wat Mahathat a sandstone Buddha head sits at the foot of a bodhi tree, the roots grown around it so only the face shows. A sign asks photographers to crouch or kneel, so that their heads stay lower than the Buddha's.

Wat Mahathat was founded around 1374 and was once the seat of the supreme patriarch. Most of its towers now stop halfway up, and the Buddhas along the cloister have lost their heads. Next door, Wat Phra Si Sanphet, at the centre of the historical park, has three bell-shaped chedis in a row, and across the river to the west, Wat Chaiwatthanaram is a tall central tower ringed by smaller ones.

These temples were wrecked in the same war. Ayutthaya was the capital of Siam for more than four hundred years from 1350, until a Burmese army took and burned it in 1767. The old city is an island ringed by the Chao Phraya, Pa Sak and Lopburi rivers, and people still live on it, with roads, houses and markets between the red-brick ruins.

Boats from the piers loop around the island, past riverside temples, waterfront houses and moored barges.

The local sweet is roti sai mai. Stalls sell thin pancake wrappers and bags of coloured spun-sugar threads separately, and you roll the sugar into the wrapper yourself.