Same Same Sukothai
We spent nearly 2 weeks in Chiang Mai, so apologies for the ridiculously long post. Hopefully I'll keep this one a bit shorter!
Sukothai used to be the capital of Siam and is said to be the first capital of Thailand. According to my Lonely Planet book, this may not actually be the case but who am I to argue? I wasn't around.
What I can tell you first-hand is that the place, like many areas in Thailand, has an old and a new city. We stayed in the old city which we booked through our lovely guesthouse in Chiang Mai. I'm sure we paid someone extra commission and paid over the odds, but the place was really nice and we were told that everywhere else was booked up for Chinese new year. I'm not sure how accurate that was, but the old city was definitely the place to go. We had considered the new city, but once we left, we took a trip there and realised it wasn't so good.
So anyhow, Sukothai, it has a lot of ruins. I actually much preferred these to all the active temples I'd seen in Chiang Mai. So this time the Thai's were right, it was same same but different. We only spent 3 days in Sukothai, 1 full day going round the ruins, and the other 2 getting to and from the place.
The ruins span a large area and are therefore split into five sections, central, north, south, east and west. Thanks to the heat in Thailand, walking to all those areas just seems crazy, so we opted for the very popular method - a bicycle. It was great! Chris hadn't ridden for some time, but he was able to get used to it quite well. We only went round the main park to start with before we started getting the usual Tired-of-Temples Syndrome.
Everything looked great, but it was all quite similar after a while. We ventured off to another section and found a really interesting Wat (temple) that had been restored. This one housed a HUGE buddha image in this concrete area (called a Mon-Dop I think), so large that there is a hidden alleyway up and behind the buddha. Apparently, in its heyday, the army would go there and be encouraged as they actually heard the buddha talking to them. I read, and I'm no sceptic but tend to agree, suggestions that perhaps this wsan't a sacred happening as thought, but maybe someone had just taken a sneaky trip into the alleyway/tunnel and played a clever little trick on innocent worshippers!
Anyhow, our fun was short-lived as upon leaving this Wat, I obtained a puncture. So we walked all the way back to the guesthouse which didn't actually turn out to be too far at all. When we returned, Chris continued his cycling adventure whilst I went to freshen up - as nice as these ruins and new surroundings were, a flat-tyre sure does ruin a good day out. I'd still recommend anyone visiting Thailand to take a look if they get the opportunity.
Sukothai used to be the capital of Siam and is said to be the first capital of Thailand. According to my Lonely Planet book, this may not actually be the case but who am I to argue? I wasn't around.
What I can tell you first-hand is that the place, like many areas in Thailand, has an old and a new city. We stayed in the old city which we booked through our lovely guesthouse in Chiang Mai. I'm sure we paid someone extra commission and paid over the odds, but the place was really nice and we were told that everywhere else was booked up for Chinese new year. I'm not sure how accurate that was, but the old city was definitely the place to go. We had considered the new city, but once we left, we took a trip there and realised it wasn't so good.
So anyhow, Sukothai, it has a lot of ruins. I actually much preferred these to all the active temples I'd seen in Chiang Mai. So this time the Thai's were right, it was same same but different. We only spent 3 days in Sukothai, 1 full day going round the ruins, and the other 2 getting to and from the place.
The ruins span a large area and are therefore split into five sections, central, north, south, east and west. Thanks to the heat in Thailand, walking to all those areas just seems crazy, so we opted for the very popular method - a bicycle. It was great! Chris hadn't ridden for some time, but he was able to get used to it quite well. We only went round the main park to start with before we started getting the usual Tired-of-Temples Syndrome.
Everything looked great, but it was all quite similar after a while. We ventured off to another section and found a really interesting Wat (temple) that had been restored. This one housed a HUGE buddha image in this concrete area (called a Mon-Dop I think), so large that there is a hidden alleyway up and behind the buddha. Apparently, in its heyday, the army would go there and be encouraged as they actually heard the buddha talking to them. I read, and I'm no sceptic but tend to agree, suggestions that perhaps this wsan't a sacred happening as thought, but maybe someone had just taken a sneaky trip into the alleyway/tunnel and played a clever little trick on innocent worshippers!
Anyhow, our fun was short-lived as upon leaving this Wat, I obtained a puncture. So we walked all the way back to the guesthouse which didn't actually turn out to be too far at all. When we returned, Chris continued his cycling adventure whilst I went to freshen up - as nice as these ruins and new surroundings were, a flat-tyre sure does ruin a good day out. I'd still recommend anyone visiting Thailand to take a look if they get the opportunity.
posted by wobblepop at 9:36 am
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