Advertisement
Published: January 15th 2008
Edit Blog Post
Sukhotai is a city divided in two, old and new Sukhotai. The old town is what remained of the first ever Thai capital, now named Sukhotai Historical Park, also a UNESCO World Heritage site. The new is a small town of about 40.000 people that gets surprisingly quiet after 11 PM. The historical park is a beautiful and peaceful place. Its a collection of buildings and temples in ruins, set amidst a very green tropical park, with ponds and palm trees dominating it. With few tourists it can also be a place where you find your very own space to dream and imagine what it must have been like living there 800 years ago.
The next day I moved on to Ayuthaya, historically the capital of a great empire that rose to power after the fall of Sukhotai. Since Ayuthaya is close to Bangkok, the bus I took was also heading for the City of Angels. I naively expected to be dropped off at the bus station, but Thais wanted to make some more money on me. The bus stopped just next to the motorway, where a few motos were already waiting and the ride to my guesthouse costed an extra
100 baht ($3). It was a scary ride as well, as with having two backpacks I could only hold on to the moto with one arm and we were flying at about 100 km/h. It turned out the guesthouse I chose to go to (the cheapest hole in the town, of course), is run by a retired teacher of English who was probably the friendliest host I had on the whole trip. The next morning I got up and met a couple of other guests who invited me to go see the Elephant kraal or go for a boat trip with them. I turned them down since Ive already been to both the elephants and boat trips. Instead I rent a bike and went for a ride around the town. Talking to the owner of the guesthouse I also mentioned I might be interested in a boat ride if the price was right. Hopping on the bike my first destination was the local museum. It was built with $6 million of Japanese funding which means the exhibitions are made with state of the art technology. They tell the story of Thai culture and history plus the history of Thai-Japanese relations.
After about an hour there I cycled back to the guesthouse, only to find the couple from the morning were leaving and had already been on the boat trip. The guesthouse owner then offered to take me for the trip anyway. We were joined by a couple of her friends, both teachers, of which one was also teaching English so we could talk properly. Since they dont get a chance to talk to farang often, they treated me with great friendliness, answering all my questions about Thailand and introducing me to a variety of Thai sweets that they bought for me. They were also absolutely shocked when I told them theres just 1 elephant living in Slovenia.
Ayuthaya is a town surrounded by 3 rivers that form a circle around it. We spent the next 3 hours cruising around, stopping at Elephant krall and the most important wat in town with a huge sitting buddha statue. By now youre probably wondering what an Elephant kraal is. Its a kind of a training camp for elephants where they have been training these animals for battling in wars for hundreds of years. Today elephants dont fight anymore, but are more of a
tourist attraction. While on the boat trip, I got a lot of time to talk to Non, English teacher at Pradoosongtham school. We agreed I can come to the school next morning to help her teach. That meant waking up early, grabbing a breakfast and heading for the school to be there at 8 AM. Pradoosongtham school is a state school and most of the students come from poor backgrounds. Their families cant afford to send them to better schools. They also have a pre-school with kids from 3 to 6. The primary school then lasts from 6 to 12 and from 12 to 14 theyre in secondary school. The morning start is the same every day, with students gathering for prayer to the king and buddha. When I was there, they prayed for kings sister, who died 5 days prior to the day, as well. Again, since not may farang visit the school, I was treated like a king. First they introduced me to the headmaster, then I got to visit many classes, from 3 year olds to the last one, 12-14. There I got a chance to teach English and I have to admit it was one of
the best and funniest experiences on the trip. We had a Q&A lecture with questions like "What is your name", "What color do you like" and "Where is Slovenia". The time flew by and the friendly staff then took me to the train station where I boarded an express train to Lopburi, the city of monkeys...
Advertisement
Tot: 0.043s; Tpl: 0.013s; cc: 9; qc: 23; dbt: 0.0223s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1mb