Thailand (Sukhothai)

The bus from Chiang Mai was only five hours but was bum numbing none the less. Sukhothai is an ancient captial of Thailand many thousands of years ago and predates Angkor Wat in Siam Reap, Cambodia. We have gone for budget diggs with shared bathroom and no A/C, only US$6 a night but it should be adequate for a quick two night stopover before moving on. The worst bit about the accomodation was the number of mosquitoes, especially in the showers and bathrooms, not too enjoyable and very annoying.

The main reason for us coming here is to see the historic ruins and temples in the old city, about 12km out of the new city where we are staying. To get there you simply pay a flat fee of 30 Baht pp and board a big Russian looking truck with seats on both sides inside of a trailer. The trucks go back and forth between the old and new city with tourists and locals alike, its surprisingly pleasant if a bit slow. When arriving at the city it didn't appear to have much, a 7eleven was near by, a few resturants and an underwhelming night market. A tasty  local dish which was sold in most places 'Sukhothai noodles with pork'. It was a delicious sweat and sour soup which I ate twice in only two days.

We awoke and headed for the ruins early, catching the truck and renting some push bikes to ride around the park. We tried to get audio guides but they didn't have any working ones left which wad a shame. The best part was biking around everywhere. It was relatively flat and very well kept so made for an enjoyable days cycle. We probably cycled for 4 hours in total but when combining with the bus and the elephants a few days before both of us felt it! To the north of the main site a few kilometers away was another part of the ruins. This turned out to be the best simply due to the surroudings and the lack of the tourists as others tended not to venture from the main park. After being in the sun most of the day we both got a bit burnt but nothing too bad. 

We had bumped into a dutch family, two boys and the parents, who we got chatting to and we agreed to meet up for a drink and some food later that night. We ate and drank, exchanging stories as the parents seemed to have a quite adventurous past and had travelled around S E Asia and China before. We spoke about everything from cooking, sport and tv, it was an enjoyable evening. Unfortunately towards the end of the evening three sorry looking small sad elephants walked by with their Manhouts who were trying to sell fruit to tourists so they could feed the elephants. They were being dragged by the ear and didn't look happy, a sorry sight and it brought home what our elephant training day taught us, thankfully no one fed them which would only encourage the practice.

That evening we struggled to decided where to go next finely deciding to get up and board a bus to Phitsanulok about hour away to get us to the main train line. From there Bangkok is an 8 hour train journey where we will stop for just 1 night before catching the morning train west to Kanchanaburi.