Wat Cherng Tha

Wat Cherng Tha sits off Ayutthaya’s city island, beside Khlong Mueang — the old channel of the Lopburi River — in what was once a prime riverside position near the royal palace and the boat arsenal. The name means roughly “Pier Temple,” a nod to the river trade that ran past its walls when Ayutthaya was Siam’s capital. Its Khmer-style prang, with standing Buddha images set into niches on all four sides, points to an early-Ayutthaya founding, though the temple’s original name and exact date have been lost.

The temple has a documented restoration history most ruins in Ayutthaya lack. During King Narai’s reign (1656-1688), the royal envoy Phraya Kosa Pan — famous for leading Siam’s 1686 embassy to the court of Louis XIV — renovated the site and it briefly took the name Wat Kosa-was after him. King Borommakot carried out further repairs in the 18th century, and after the fall of Ayutthaya in 1767, both Rama I and Rama IV ordered additional restoration; it was Mongkut (Rama IV) who gave the temple its current name, Wat Choeng Tha. Local tradition also places Phraya Tak Sin — the future King Taksin — here as a young novice monk before the Burmese invasion, though that detail survives as oral history rather than official record.

Much of what’s standing predates that history of repair: the prang’s Buddha niches, an ubosot to the west, dozens of small chedis in mixed styles, and the original sema boundary stones marking the ordination hall. Some of the standing Buddha images lost their heads when Burmese forces sacked the city in 1767; others, executed in a style closer to Sukhothai or Lanna than central Thai work, survived close to intact. A working sermon hall on the active side of the compound has murals depicting Jataka tales, though the paint has faded and flaked in places from three centuries of humidity.

Combine the visit with Wat Kasattrathirat Worawihan, another riverside temple off the city island, or Wat Lokkayasutha for its reclining Buddha — both make an easy loop by bicycle or tuk-tuk without doubling back through the crowded historical park. Wear comfortable shoes for uneven brick paving, and cover shoulders and knees; this remains consecrated ground with resident monks rather than a roped-off museum piece.