Ayutthaya - The largest city in the world in 1700…

​Founded around 1350, Ayutthaya was the second capital of Siam and the primary trading capital of Asia. (I’ll be visiting the original ancient capital of Sukothai later in the week.) By 1700,  Ayutthaya had become the largest city in the world, with a total of 1 million inhabitants. International merchants came from the Arab world, China, India, Japan, Portugal, the Netherlands and France, and merchants from Europe proclaimed Ayutthaya as the finest city they had ever seen. Then in 1766, the Burmese invaded Ayutthaya and burnt the city down to the ground. I mean, why the hell would they do that?

Siam has been a mystical and mythic place for me since I was a youngster. I’m not sure how I would have heard of it. A children’s book? Later, I saw The King & I, my first Broadway show. My mother-in-law, Marcia, treated us to the experience. At the time, I thought it was a bit of fluff. Those were my very serious days. But I was captivated by the bald Yul Brynner, misunderstandings between cultures, and the possibility of love ever since.


PS - Amazingly, Brynner played The King 4,600 times over 34 years and won the Academy Award for Best Actor in the film in 1956.

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