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Day 339: Wednesday 3rd June - Sukhothai: Thailand’s first capital
Why do I do this to myself? Taking 6 hour bus journeys at 10:30pm at night isn’t sensible - you arrive at your destination at 4:30am, a time you would much prefer to be sleeping. At least the journey on the first class government bus in more comfortable than that on the second class one. Decent suspension so you don’t feel the bumps in the road, seats that recline more than a couple of degrees and blankets are provided to combat the air-conditioning. When I arrive in Sukhothai bus station a guy holds up a sign for one of the guesthouses in town offering a lift on a vehicle not too dissimilar to a tuk-tuk. I decide to take a punt on someone being awake at the guesthouse rather than trying to get some sleep at the bus station for a few hours. Someone is up at the guesthouse but they want to charge me 150 Baht for the room for the night but they won’t charge me for tonight after 6am. If I take the room now it kind of defeats the purpose of taking the night bus so
I stubbornly don’t. They offer me a seat in their mosquito infested restaurant while I wait and when I wake up it is after 7am and people have started to appear for breakfast and I feel like a right tramp!!!!
The day management contradict the night management and tell me that there aren’t any cheap rooms left so I walk up the street and find another guesthouse which is cheaper, and has hot water and free wi-fi which are considered luxuries in the backpacking fraternity in Southeast Asia. Those flies were probably attracted by my stench so I sort that out and have the opportunity to get a meal at a restaurant whose menu I can read!! Refreshed and refuelled, I catch a sawngthaew from New Sukhothai to Old Sukhothai, which is half an hour away.
Established in the thirteenth century Sukhothai was the first independent kingdom of Siam. In the words of the current king: ‘Constructing modern buildings is only the builder’s reputation, but ancient monuments are a nation’s reputation......Without Sukhothai, Ayutthaya and Bangkok, Thailand is meaningless’. These are definitely the three cities to visit if you want to understand Thailand’s history. Sukhothai is like Ayutthaya but
better. Monuments are better preserved, and the location is more isolated from urbanism which makes cycling around all the more pleasant. On my arrival at the old city I hire a bike, arm myself with a map and start off exploring the old city inside the walls. The old city’s central zone is only 3 square kilometres and even though there are 11 ruins to see it doesn’t take long to get between them. I start at what proves to be the crown jewel of Sukhothai’s monuments, Wat Mahatat. It takes another two hours to make my way round the rest of Sukhothai Historical Park’s central zone, and this really is a park, the setting is in beautiful parkland, complete with lakes.
I head out of the northern gate to the city and look around the ruins in the North Zone. The best are Wat Si Chum, which contains a massive seated Buddha tightly squeezed in an open, walled building; and Wat Phra Pai Luang. There are three other zones, East, South and West but I’ve got Wat fatigue and in the blazing midday sun I need to take cover. I have the town’s signature dish, noodle soup, drop
the bike off and then head back to my guesthouse to relax somewhere cool.
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