Word: ayutthaya
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...ride on monotonous highways; a float by on a tourist boat with buffets and chatter out of Stuttgart or Indiana; or a two-hour train chug that quickly stops being quaint. Commuters toting guitars and mangoes are charming, but the carriage is grimy and the trackside views uninspiring. Yet Ayutthaya provides an eye-cleansing surplus of green after days in Bangkok's concrete maze (at admission prices that, while annoyingly higher for foreigners, are still minimal by world standards). Its sculptures and chedi ooze grandeur, not rot. And the Chao Sam Phraya leads the most impressive array of museums found...
...Ayutthaya, one of the world's most splendid capitals three centuries back, gets lost in the modern Thai glitter. Aside from two museums and a famed crafts center, this UNESCO World Heritage Site offers too many temples in every which way. Less diligent tour groups never make it beyond the emblematic columns of the Wat Phra Si Sanphet to the many parks strewn with headless statuary and palace foundations. But Wat Mahatat, with a stone head emerging from gnarled bodhi (or fig tree) roots, is as good as historical rummaging gets. And the reclining Buddha, speckled with fresh squares...
CAPTURED Caught in Ayutthaya, Thailand, August...
...Hambali ran out of time. Last Monday night a fleet of bronze sedans carrying about two dozen Thai Special Branch police forces pulled up near the six-story Boon Yarak apartment building in Ayutthaya. A U.S. official says the Thai authorities were acting on at least two forms of intelligence provided by the CIA. Intelligence officers in the region pinpointed Hambali's location after intercepting a cell-phone call placed to an operative in Indonesia. At 10:30 p.m. on Monday, the Thai forces knocked on Hambali's door and then smashed the lock and stormed inside. A college student...
Though the object of a manhunt, Hambali managed to stay on the loose for almost a year. He probably chose to live in the cream-and-pink apartment in Ayutthaya precisely because of the anonymity it offered. Oh and other residents say he rarely left the place, never did laundry and ventured to the local 7-Eleven only at night. "He kept to himself," she says...