Sukhothai

Thailand has it’s fair share of temples, some new, some old, some worth seeing and others you just pass by in the street without even looking at! However, when it comes to ancient temples and historic sites Sukhothai is the place to visit. Leaving Chiang Mai it appeared that we were suddenly venturing off the well trodden tracks, no agent to book bus tickets, no pick up, no comforts – we had to book it all ourselves and it was only Thai people on the bus!! Disgraceful!! A 6 hour bus ride where the air con was set to deep freeze setting followed, it was bliss, while all around me wrapped up in jumpers and coats I was the right temperature for the first time in weeks! Once we arrived we quickly found ourselves a cool little bungalow come hut for the night and settled down for the evening – you suddenly realise how strange it is to be somewhere that’s quiet- no bussle and humming coming from a constant stream of traffic, no high pitched talk from the local girls, no karaoke – just calm and serenity. The following morning after a good night’s sleep (only interrupted by the scariest street dogs howling session ever, it was like a mexican wave round town!) we jumped in a sawrighaew (back of a jeep basically!) and headed out to the site. Sukhothai was the first independent kingdom of Siam and was the centre of rule for over 150 years. This 13th century ancient city has just under 100 ruins scattered around a 5km radius so we hired bikes and cycled around as many of them as we could see and looked worth stopping at as unfortunately some are now no more than rubble! The main site is Wat Mahathat which contained around 200 chedi (bell shaped temples), a huge lotus bud stupa and some impressive Buddha statues. It’s a pretty cool site and not actually too busy but after a few hours riding around and exploring the midday sun got too much and it was time to go hide in the shade and plan our next move – which actually happened later that day, we managed to get booked onto a bus back to Bangkok (no point hanging around!), our passports were ready to pick up and we needed to arrange Vietnam visa’s, plus we only had a few days left on our Thai visa. So after a quick fly by visit of Bangkok we were all set to move on again armed with shiny new passports and their first visa – Vietnam here we come!