Sukhothai - the old temple town

Early start into the day - since it was supposed to be hot (as usual) and we had a lot on our itinerary. The tuktuk took us down to Old-Sukhothai where all the ancient temples are and dropped us of right in front of what seemed to be the only bike rental around,. Interesting enough Thais only pay about 1/10 the price of foreigners to get into the temple area (Something I would see a lot more the next days). The first wat was Wat Mahatat, which is the biggest of the temples and was build in the 13th century. Between the destroyed pillars and chedis there were some still intact Buddha figures - decorated with some yellow flowers and yellow ribbons they looked quite impressing. I was totally attracted the moment I stood in front of the wat.

One after another we made our way through several other wats, among them Wat Si Sawai, Wat Sa Si, Wat Trapang Thong, Ramkhamhaeng Monument. They all had something quite special to them, Either some hundreds of years old trees with roots winding across the ground, small lakes or other amazing details.

After spending a couple of hours in the central part of the area, we took the bikes to the northern section. The complex around Wat Phra Phai Luang was very much destroyed and one needed a lot of imagination to see how beautiful it might have been once.

In the western area was just one main wat, which was Wat Si Chum. It is known for the 15 m high Buddha statue inside. This one was truly astonishing. The hands of the buddha were golden - it must have taken thousands and thousands of pilgrims each adding a little tiny portion of gold to those large hands.

It was well after noon by now and we really needed a break, since the sun had been shining on us for hours and my friends already had quite a reddish colour... We had a delicious rice meal and some nice real italian coffee afterwards. The owner of the coffee place also has a guesthouse in town and got stuck in Sukhothai about 15 years ago. Wow.

Around 4 pm we again got on our bikes to venture to some wats further away and right after returned the bikes. Since the travel guide proposes to definitely stay for the sundown, thats what we did. We met another couple also enjoying the fine views and the finally really calm atmosphere. Later on we all met at the night market - unfortunately this time there was nothing there from that spectacle we had seen the night before. So we went into a bar, enjoyed some nice food and finished the night on the roof top terrace with a cold Chang beer.