January 10, 2010 - Back to Old Sukhothai

We headed to the old city Sukhothai for another bike tour, this time choosing bikes more carefully, so that my bike this time almost fit me. The seat height was a little bit low, but at least it rattled a lot less than the one 2 days before.

We began by heading up the road to Tak, to check out the wats in the forest district. Most of the wats here were up on hills, meaning we also wandered our way up a few hills, many of which had the remnants of raised stone pathways to ascend.

I'm beginning to figure out the naming style for the wats - the one on a hill with a large stone walkway is the Temple with Stone Bridge; the one with a stone wall is, you guessed it, Temple with a Stone Wall. There's also the Temple made of Rocks.

The wats here are generally in greater states of having fallen down than those in the central area. One chedi was completely gone except for the foundation, from which even the 16 elephant statues, which would normally appear to support the chedi, were gone. In the spots where the elephants would have stood, however, someone had placed some small, likely terracotta replicas, lovingly placing these mini elephants in the places where largers one would have previously stood.

 

After the forest wats, we took advantage of an unstaffed gate we had found on the 8th, getting back into the central area without paying admission again, riding in to show Karina's sister some of the best we had found in this area, and to take advantage of the sun and blue sky to load up on some more pictures of these areas, this time with better lighting.

While everyone else retreated to the fans in their rooms, I took the time to go for a ramble along the main street and then back into the municipal market area, wlaking through lesser streets to get there.The lone Westerner in streets of Thais, unable to read the signs, there was some fear, but also a sense that I had done the right thing. I was exploring again and getting more of a feel of life in Sukhothai. At one point a dog threatened to attack me, as I'd wandered into its territory, but this was the closest I came to real danger, and it was dealt with easily enough.

 

 

Dinner was a further adventure; We went on a quest for Sukhothai style noodles, walking down the main road towards the old city in quest of a restaurant that was supposed to lay about a km from our guest house. We were unable to find it, and so went into a local restaurant on our way back instead. I sampled a delicious, truly spicy eggplant dish and a mild, but extremely tasty veggie dish with some yummy mushrooms in it.

The others also went on a culinary adventure, pointing at stuff that was laid out, sampling deep fried crab, fish soups, and deep fried pork cubes. I'm looking forward to the food adventures that await as our journey continues.

Back at the guesthouse, it was time for high intensity games of spoons and Jenga, while eating miscellaneous snack food from the 7-11, including chocolate flavoured Collon, and one of my favourites, sweetened tamarind candies.

During the day I also purchased one more gift - for Ben, a small puzzle cube. I also got one for myself, and spent about 15 minutes of the bus ride back to the new city solving it. Ben, you'll have to let me know how long it takes you to figure it out when it arrives. ;)