Ratchaburi
The town of Ratchaburi (Ratburi), about 80 km (50 mi.) west of Bangkok, once joined the estuary of the Mae Klong in the Gulf of Thailand. Over the course of centuries the river built up so much mud that the sea is now 30 km (19 mi.) away. Rice
fields surround the town and border jagged chalk mountains in the west. Both during the Dvaravati kingdom, in the Lopburi epochs, and during the Sukhothai and Ayuttaya kingdom, Ratchaburi was an important trading town, a function which it still retains.
By car: from Bangkok Highway 4 (100 km (62 mi.)), or Highway 35 to Pak Tho, then Highway 4 (105 km (65 mi.)).
By bus: from Bangkok Southern Bus Terminal several times daily.
By rail: station on the Bangkok-south Thailand line.
The area around Ratchaburi was already settled in the Bronze Age. Wat Mahathat in the town was built in the Dvaravati period, and Ku Bua, one of Thailand's most important archaeological sites situated 12 km (71/2 mi.) away, obviously dates from the late Dvaravati period. At that time Ratchaburi belonged to the Khmers' sphere of control, until Ramkhamhaeng, king of Sukhothai, annexed it to his kingdom. A stone inscription, completed by the king himself in 1292, tells of this. Following this Ratchaburi, together with the provinces of Suphan buri and Phetchaburi, was inherited by the founder of the Ayutthaya kingdom, King Rama Thibodi I (U Thong). In 1768 King Taksin, forerunner of the Chakri dynasty, drove out the Burmese occupiers and added the town to his newly developing kingdom of Siam.
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