Chai Nat

Chai Nat stands in the central Thai plain where branches of the Chao Phraya divide and spread southwards. The old settlement occupied a strategic position at the river's branching waterways, between the northern cities and Ayutthaya. Buddhist images from the area attest to earlier Dvaravati and Khmer traditions. In the fourteenth century the town lay in the contested frontier between Sukhothai and the rising Ayutthaya kingdom. The river and its branches carried travellers towards the rich delta and the Gulf of Siam.