Cycling Sukhothai

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The Sukhothai kingdom was an early kingdom in the area around the city of Sukhothai, in north central Thailand. It existed from 1238 till 1438. The old capital, now 12 km outside of New Sukhothai is in ruins and is a historical park and we decided to check them out on our way up north.

We stayed in New Sukhothai which is nothing to write home about but the following morning we headed straight for the historical park. Sukhothai (literally means Dawn of Happiness) was the first truly independent Thai Kingdom and was the capital of Thailand for approximately 120 years. The superb temples and monuments of this great city have been lovingly restored and most lie within the perimeter walls around the centre of the old city. Some others are scattered around outside of the walls so we decided to rent some very vintage push bikes to get around.

We spent a few hours leisurely cycling around the ruins, it was very peaceful with very few tourists which was a nice change after Bangkok. The site is beautifully maintained with manicured lawns and lakes dotted around. The temple ruins were also very beauitiful, some were shaped like huge lotus buds and others had crumbling pillars framing huge stone carved staues of Buddha. The Royal Building which is surrounded by a moat is within the main walls and has many wonderfully carved Buddha images and temples around it. The most impressive of these was Wat Mahathat which is Sukhothai's largest temple. Its main Buddha image is 8 metres tall and the temple is adorned with beautiful stucco figures of demons, elephants and lions. We saw some Buddhist monks walking around the ruins but they were obviously here to sight see rather than for some religious reason as they all had big digital cameras.

After looking around all the ruins within the walls we ventured out on our vintage bikes to see some ruins in the surrounding area. We visited a large lotus bud shaped temple which was surrounded by stone carvings of elephants. All the ruins were very interesting but it would have been better with a guide who could have explained the history of the site and the what all the different styles of temples were. Oh well, it looked good.

We dropped of our bikes and got a bus back to the new town which turned out to be a school bus. Five minutes down the road we stopped outside the school and all the kids jumped on so it was a cramped but thankfully short ride back.

We spent one more night in Sukhothai before heading on our way the following day.

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