Yesterday morning our tuktuk arrived on schedule at 9:30 am. We confirmed the price with the driver, a nice man, for a 4 hour tour of all the temples and monuments both inside and outside the historical park of the old city of Sukhothai. Like Angkor, there are wats (temples) and chedi (shrines) scattered all over the place for several kilometers. All of them are in less than mint condition but they are 700 years old.
Along the roads are fields. Some farmers have just planted a new crop of rice.
There are Buddha images all over. It's hard to get an idea of the scale, but there are some big ones.
A standing Buddha.
Anita is standing beside this seated Buddha to give some idea of the scale. These columns would have supported a roof over this building.
Nice flowers.
Another wat with 3 huge hollow columns. Most of the structures are built of dry laid brick with a thick surface coating of stucco to hold it all together. Now, most of the stucco has fallen off, leaving the underlying brick or sandstone blocks exposed.
In between the temples are many moats and baray (reservoirs), all neatly rectangular and hand dug. The effort that it took to build this city was huge.
I like these huge tree roots.
Anita is still working on her traditional dance.
More moats and chedi.
Tuktuks here are a little different. They are driven from the back and have a bench seat along each side at the front. It's a little unnerving driving through traffic like this but luckily it's not that busy around here.
We're in front of a smaller chedi supported by stone elephants.
As strong beasts of burden the elephants represent the ability to support Buddhism for thousands of years.
A massive Buddha inside a wat with no roof anymore
This is the same Buddha image as above. Many people come to pray and make offerings to these Buddha images.
One of our last stops was to climb up to the wat at the top of this hill. The stone pathway is 700 years old.
Our driver loaned Anita a parasol to protect her from the sun. By this point it was 1 pm and we found out later that the temperature reached 38C (101F). It was extremely hot.
Here we are at the top. There was a French woman there who took our picture and then we took hers. For most of this tour, there weren't huge crowds of tourists and often very few or none. There are so many interesting sites that the tourists get well spread out. We've shown only a few of the many wats and chedi that we saw on our 4 hour tour.
This is the view from the top of the hill with our tuktuk waiting at the bottom. We were so glad we didn't try to do this tour on bicycles. After a few more stops, we got back to our guesthouse about 1:30 pm. We gave our driver a little extra because he was a good guy. At the guesthouse, we hit the shower and then drank water all afternoon (plus some beer). We were very dehydrated.
We had met a retired American couple from Florida on the bus to Sukhothai and then discovered they were staying at the same guesthouse. We also ran into them during yesterday's tour. They invited us to join them for dinner in New Sukhothai last night. We split the cost of a sorngtau (pickup truck with benches) to New Sukhothai, about a 20 minute drive, and went to the Dream Cafe there. It was recommended in Lonely Planet and was very good. We had a good time talking with them and we actually stayed out until 10 pm. Almost unheard of.
This morning after breakfast we walked into the village and back which took about an hour. Since then we've been organizing for our flight to Bangkok in the morning and then Bangkok to Hanoi in the evening tomorrow. It's only supposed to be 92F today but it still feels a little warm. Love AC.
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