The Tuk Tuk Mafia

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It took 7 hours from Chiang Mai to the town of Phitsolanuk. Then from there it's another 1 hour on the bus to the historical town of Sukothai.

Even though there's maps in our guidebook. Whenever we arrive in a new city, it's dissorienting. Phitsolanuk is a rather boring town so the tuk tuks know when they see tourists that we're just passing through to Sukothai.

We decided to take the bus to the bus station, from there we take the 1 hour bus to town. Hope that makes sense! it's been a month since we've been on the road, and I figure we're still getting a hang of the system. This time I think we really figured it out.

The first bus we found brought us to a private bus station, where the private busses are. There are also government busses that are usually cheaper and better (Although the bus ride from hell from Mae Hong Son was on a government bus)

Anyway, it's a 1 hour jouney and I dont think it was too much more anyway. A lady came and sat beside us and said that we needed reservations. I laughed and said no thank you. She got on the phone speaking Thai, I just smiled and ignored her.

We arrived at the bus station, it was really quiet. The tuk tuk drivers soon came and said they were bringing us to JJ s. We said no we wanted to go to our own guesthouse that we read about. They told us no problem. We looked around and there was no tuk tuks available but them. Usually bus and train stations were filled with tuks tuks willing to go anywhere so it was kind of frusterating. After travelling for 9 hours we decided why not, bring us to JJ s!! haha

Its obvious its a scam, not really a scam but more of an elaborate ploy to get us to go where they want, which is the places where they make commision. We thought we'd just go, be polite and leave saying we're nopt interested. After seeing that it was a beutiful place with a pool for $10 we actually took it. Its silly they had to work so hard to get us there. The tuk tuk hotel mafia strikes again! Alot of times we really dont have much of a choice to where we go!

New Sukothai is the city now, and old Sukothai is the ruins of a kingdom that existed here from the 11th to 13th centuries. We rented some bikes and went throughout the park. Naturally we took a million photographs and pictured what life was like here 900 years ago. The park was huge and took us most of the day to get through. We couldve actually spent more time there touring the sites but the heat really gets to ya from about 1pm to 4pm.

Such an amazing place but I'm lost for words. Saw so much but dont know what elese to say about them

We spent the rest of the evening by swimming in the hotel pool. At night we met up with two germans, and a dutch guy had some dinner and drinks and were off to bed.

Wouldve been an uneventful except for running into an angry pack of dogs. At any given time there are 100s of stray dogs out here. Theyve always just ignored us, there ones werre different and chased us down the street! Id turn around sometimes through my hands up to look bigger and yell, theyd stop but then growl and chase us again!!

yikes!!!

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Photos

Ancient Ruins
The Kindom reigned from the 1100s to the 1400s leaving 100s of buildings still somewhat intact

Comments

[mommy]

hello kids
your blogs are too funny dave, i was just reading the one about the dogs chasing you, well i guess that's not too funny. my eyes are so bad it looks like the statue of the lady is holding a cigarette, it's her finger...haha take care and have fun, love you...mom