From Jungle To City

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Well... Maybe Not The Kind Of City Your Thinking....

Sukhothai is a bit off the beaten track (being the main route between Bangkok and Chiang Mai), but well worth the visit for a couple of nights. It's the ancient capital of Siam and houses some of the best ruins of the old empire I have seen. Coming recommended by the Tourism Agency Thailand (TAT - the government arm that all tourism and transportation goes through) as the best place to see ancient Buddha statues, we thought we'd give it a go.

Thank god we did!!!

Pulling into our little guest house, aptly named "At Home Guesthouse", we were greeted with smiles, warm welcomes and critical information for both places of interest and the cheapest way to get there and back. The next morning we set off for the Old City, which is about 15km out of town, on the local bus - a beat up, old bus with no windows and 2 long, wooden bench seats that ran the length of the sides.

15km turned into an hour drive as locals piled in and out. One older lady was determined to have a conversation with us, even though she spoke not one word of English, and us not one of Thai. Made for an interesting game of charades though!!

Disembarking the bus, we hired a couple of bikes to get us round. Now these aren't your 18 speed mountain bikes.... no.....two wheels,one speed and the equivalent of zero brakes compiled a set of handlebars that seemed to sit too far over the front tyre making it nearly impossible to steer. Out onto the road on our death traps and we were on our way. I must say that it felt great to have the wind in our hair.

The Old City is basically separated into two areas of temples and palaces.... those inside the walls and those outside. Starting with the most famous of them, Wat Mahathit, the Palace was the first drawcard. Ambling through 800 year old structures, you get a real mix of emotions. Awe and the inescapable truth of how short our time is compared to these great architectural marvels gave a somewhat surreal feeling while wandering between the pillars.

The are a number of temples surrounding the palace, including moats and islands, and they cover the 2 main religions at the time, Buddhism and Hindu. After visiting a number of them we rolled outside the South Gate to see some of the outlying ones. The terrain around here is almost completely flat so riding was by far the best option for the sights.

A few hours passed before we knew it and the temperature must have been topping out in the high thirties again, so back to the guest house for a relaxing afternoon (and to play with quite possibly the cutest puppy in the world) before making our way to the night markets for some food and browsing.

This is probably the last blog for Thailand as tomorrow we head to Bangkok for the night and then up before the sun to catch the early bus to the Cambodian border and through to Siem Reap. I have learnt a lot more about the people, the history and the land then I thought possible, and discovered that although we saw a lot, there is so much more to see still. So from us...

Kon poon ka Thailand!!

"One’s destination is never a place, but a new way of seeing things." -- Henry Miller

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