Watting out in Sukhothai & Ayutthaya

As strange as this may sound to some, the one thing I really did miss, while traveling was my Mountain Bike. It is well noted that they best way to explore Sukhothai Historical Park is by bicycle, but that by no means, means that you need to rent a bike in New Sukhothai and cycle to the park in the humid heat, which is 20km away (what did you expect), especially when there are much more civilized forms for transport, like thieving Tuk-Tuk’s. The fact is, it almost felt like I was cheating on my faithful bike back home, while cruising along the painfully flat roads of Sukhothai on a cheap Thai hire bike. Though, as they say, what goes around comes around and the 50km round trip to the park and surrounds, managed to undo a few weeks of physical therapy on my right knee (as I discovered once I got back home and after riding 16km, turned homewards, due to the knee pain).

Old Sukhothai was the first capital of Siam and the dynasty, established in the 13th century, lasted about 200 years with about 9 kings. This rich royal history has resulted in some of the most impressive ruins in Thailand, which have been rightly so declared as a World Heritage site (UNESCO, Wikipedia). The park itself has the remains of about 21 historical sites, with an additional 70 sites within a 5km radius, consisting mainly of Wat’s & Stupa’s (temples). So you can easily spend the good part of the day walking through the ruins, admiring the architecture as well getting a ample dosage of Buddha statues. In fact, after visiting Sukhothai and the surrounding area, you can officially announce that your are “Watted Out”, as there is no good reason to even want to even consider looking at anything that could possibly be classified as a Wat, or Buddha statue for the rest of your trip.

As already mentioned, a bicycle is the best way to get around the park and there are really an ample amount of perfectly spaced, shiny and squeaky-clean, bicycles to choose from around the actual park. In fact, I got the impression that a good part of any hire bike shop owner’s day consists of cleaning bikes and spacing them perfectly apart. The only reason I mention this completely irrelevant information is that my bike rarely gets cleans (admit-ably, I’ve made a bit more effort this year) and I was really impressed at the absolute precision in which the bicycles were spaced. I digress.

That evening I had shared a really enjoyable dinner of Red Snapper Fish, with a free topping of local insect, with a fellow traveler from Germany. Sitting under a fan, in an open air restaurant may seem like a good idea at first, but the moment it gets dark and someone turns on the neon light next to the fan, you may want to quickly re-think. Later that evening, I headed over to an excellent Internet café I had found the evening before, after arriving in New Sukhothai and caught up on Nepal posts and played some Warcraft DOTA online (what can I say, I’m an IT Nerd). What really was interesting is that the kids in small towns are encouraged to spend time behind the monitor at the Internet café. Figure there is sense in it, what would you rather have your kid doing… hanging around shopping malls getting up to all sorts of mischief or sitting behind a computer screen playing a harmless online game, where you and your friends get to hack each other apart in a virtual environment, while drinking a refreshing bottle of Pepsi (I drank a lot of Pepsi in Thailand). My vote is for the Internet Café.

Obviously not yet having my full of Wat’s, Stupa’s & Buddha Statues, I headed over to Si Satchanalai-Chaliang Historical Park (50km North of Sukhothai). Learning my lesson, I did however rent a Motorbike this time, which was more of a scooter with gears (no clutch and damn uncomfortable). Apart from being a lot more peaceful and “untouched”, it is much the same Sukhothai. Though it is still worth the trip, if you have the time to kill, if only to feed bananas to elephants.

That evening, over a tasty meal, with a much smaller portion of insects, I decided that I was officially “Watted Out” and that for a change, I’ll go in search of Rama Khamhaeng National Park, which climbs steeply up to the whopping height of 1185m (relative to the surrounds, this is high in the clouds)! Once I eventually found the place… admit-ably it was not the toughest place to find, just head off to the only high lump of dirt you can see (did I mention Thailand is mostly flat). I’m guessing (or at least hoping) that not many western tourists visit Rama Khamhaeng National Park, as the guards at the entrance were exceptionally friendly, friendly to the point of creepy. The one guard kept on rubbing the hairs on my arm and compared various body parts (hands, arms, etc), when he finally gave me a hug to try an compare my waist line, I decided that maybe it was time to go, before things when completely South.

So, climb I did. The trail went straight up the side of the mountain (imagine climbing stairs, but you need to skip every second stair). Though what made the climb pretty tough was the heat / humidity combination, which under normal circumstances would have been bearable, was it not for the cloud of mosquitoes, which tagged along hoping for a free lunch. Stopping turned out to be a bit of blood bath, as each time you stopped to rest, wave upon wave of small black mosquitoes would descend on you and even though one can fight back bravely and kill may of them, there are still those that get through. Though, the view from the top was great!

From Sukhothai I caught a bus back to Bangkok and then backtracked to Ayutthaya(would have gone straight to Ayutthaya, but the guest house made a muddle of my bus ticket). I do not really have much to say about Ayuthaya, it’s just another town with more ruins. So why did I go? Well, apart from being a World Heritage Site (UNESCO, Wikipedia), all over Thailand you can buy stunning photos depicting Monks, Buddha’s, Temples or combinations of these. One of the most photographed Buddha images is that of a Buddha head embedded in twisted tree roots, at Wat Phra Mahathat. Where it not for this, I probably would have given the city a skip.

The ruins of Ayutthaya are however stunning, but after spending time in Sukhothai, ruins were not high on my lists of interests. I did however find a boat museum in the back streets and it is well worth a visit if you have time to kill. It is privately owned, not mentioned in any guidebook and entrance is free, you can however leave a donation if you wish (the owner when to a lot of effort, so LEAVE A DONATION!). The owner of the place is an ex boat builder and currently teaches. Even though he can’t speak much English, he is very friendly and more than willing to take you around his stunning little museum – I stand under correction, but from what I could gather he had built the museum part of his house himself, out of teak wood.

Next day it was back to Bangkok.