of asking, "what should we do now?," days when we don't have a travel
plan are best. We ate rice soup at Poo Restaurant, a fact that did not
go unnoticed by a Belgian ex-pat. How long have you been here? Two
weeks. Ah, so that's why you eat rice soup in the morning. We think
they then overcharged us slightly, which happens frequently, but it's
always so hard to tell for sure and never an amount worth quibbling
over, so we don't.
Next we tried to get a bus to take us to the Old City. The attraction
at Sukothai is not actually in Sukothai, which seems like a strange
arrangement. The new city with all the markets and amenities is 15 km
east of the old city, the ruins that everyone wants to see. Perhaps
there was a natural division between new and old, perhaps the city was
planned that way so they could depend on that much more tourist
revenue. Supposedly the cheapest transport is via the city buses, but
they aren't regulated, so the price changes depending on time of day
and the driver. We were quoted 80 a piece, which is awfully high for a
meandering bus, so we opted to hire a private tuk-tuk to take us for
the same price.
After a stop at the gas station, we arrived. There is a big festival
here over the coming weekend, so this was basically a recon mission.
We scoped out two guesthouses there to see if we can stay in the old
city for the festival, but one place jacked up their rates and the
other place couldn't speak enough English to convey more than come
back later and we will see if we have a room. Annoying, but okay. The
one amusing bit of the story is that we had to convey that we wanted a
room, not for tonight, but for the weekend. I whipped out my phrase
book and went to town trying to pronounce the days of the week. The
woman was totally flummoxed. I was unrelenting, moving on to the most
easily pronounced days, just to give the woman context of what I was
trying to say. It took awhile, but eventually she repeated one of the
days of the week after me (using the same pronunciation to my ear, but
not to hers) and had a good laugh when she realized what I wanted and
of course I wanted to book a room for the festival; that is what
everyone is doing right now.
Next we went exploring a bit, by foot- big mistake. Everywhere you
look you see people trying to get you to rent a bicycle from them, so
we just ignored them, thinking they were trying to scam us. They were
not. Bikes, we found out later, are only 30B for the whole day.
Shoulda, woulda, coulda. We walked. We didn't know exactly where we
were headed, but we ended up in the North Zone of Old Sukhothai at a
lake/moat. There was a herd of cows on the opposite side, so we
crossed the bridge. Throughout the day we saw several other herds,
apparently the wat ruins are an excellent place to graze your herd. We
wandered around the nearby wat ruins, but really my favorite part of
that wat was that people had made a million rock cairns and stacked
them all over the place.
We kept walking, this time with a plan - to find Wat Chi Chum, which
was recommended on TravelFish and supposedly nearby. We found it, paid
our 100B for this temple and the last, and went in. It looked very
unimpressive from the outside - just a small square building (now I
know it is called a mondop) with pillars in front of it. We walked up
and there was a loud echoing chanting emanating from the inside. A
thought that keeps kicking around my head is the inadequacy of a
photograph, sounds and smells are lost and cannot readily be shared.
We walked closer and noticed a few people inside, chanting. Out of
respect, we did not enter the temple, instead we explored the temple
grounds a bit. Eventually though, we agreed that we most likely wound
not be able to outlast the chanters, so we removed our shoes and
stepped inside, sitting with feet pointed away from the Buddha. It was
incredible. The Buddha completely filled the small, open-roofed room
and the chanting echoed around the walls in the most amazing way. We
ended up just sitting, wide-eyed, taking it all in for quite some
time. We also sparked a western invasion. Those just arriving saw us
there and were more willing to come in to take pictures. They were
respectful though, so it seemed okay. There was one monk leading the
chanting, with a woman, another monk, and two men in white clothes
(novice monks?) following his lead. We were mesmerized, but about to
move on when the chanting changed a bit, so we stayed longer still and
then they stopped. What now?! They all stood up, stretched and then
turned around to say hello. They spoke no English, so as far as we got
was hello. The woman reached into her bag and gave us each a Buddha
necklace and then a paper (all in Thai) and then I think she told us
to visit the place indicated by the paper, but really who knows? It
was a great experience.
We got an ice cream and sat in the shade for a while, reading in the
guide book more about Buddhism and what different icons/symbols meant.
Apparently the Buddha image we just saw was in the pose where he is
striking down evil or temptation because his right hand's fingers were
pointing down (towards where Mara, the evil one, is). Interesting.
Next we retraced our steps in want of food. We decided to eat at the
mobile food stalls that had set up chairs and umbrellas, instead of
hitting up the classy restaurant. It took some finagling, but we
ordered pad khao muu (fried rice pork) for Robert and kway tiaw tom
pak (veggie noodle soup) for me. Spicy for Robert and no meat for me.
I also got a sapparot pan (pineapple shake), which came from the
vendor three spaces down, who I had declined earlier. All around, a
tasty delight, but a little too hot for the middle of the day.
We hopped a bus, this time for only 20B, back to the new city. Nothing
memorable that night, probably more street food. ;)
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