The ruins of Sukhothai

24-25 November 2014

We left the hotel and walked to the bus station for our first bus trip in Thailand.  We were only going 1 hour north to Sukhothai (literally meaning Rising of Happiness...I love this!) to visit ruins dating back to the mid-13th to late 14th century.  This makes these ruins older than the ones we saw in Ayuthaya.  As soon as we arrived at the bus station a bus was loading to Sukhothai, so we boarded immediately.  The bus didn't seem too bad for a 1 hour ride considering it only cost us 43 Baht ($1.30) each.

We made it to Sukhothai, but now we have to go about 20 minutes east to get to the Historical Park where the ruins and our hotel is located.  So, we boarded another bus to go there.  It was kind of crazy that this bus cost us 30 Baht for the short trip, but there was no other options.

We took the 15 minute bus ride and walked to our hotel.  We didn't know what to expect since the hotel we booked didn't have any reviews online since it was pretty new, but the price was right and the pictures looked nice, so I took the chance.  It seems the chance was worth taking!

Looks great from the outside!

Towel swans welcome us to our room.

Pretty nice room.

After a little rest in the room it was time to head out to the ruins.  We rented bicycles for the standard 50 Baht ($1.50) per day to ride around town and to the ruins...I love when we can ride bicycles around towns!  Today, since it's already after 1:00 PM we headed to the northern part of the historical park that only has 3 ruins, but 3 very impressive ruins.

First stop, Wat Phra Phai Luang:

First "Walking Buddha" we have come across, although he is not there anymore.

Next, the very impressive Wat Si Chum complete with a 50 foot tall seated Buddah.

Next stop is Wat Sorasak where we saw elephants for the first time:

Lastly we visited Wat Chang Lom...another temple with elephants:

On the way back to the hotel we stopped for dinner and walked around a fresh market:

That's me in the bottom left corner.

Dried fish?

Edible flowers?

Oh...we passed this beautiful scene on the way back to the hotel:

The next day we woke and went down to our free breakfast...which is of course included in our $27 USD a night hotel room!  We then headed back out on our bicycles to do the main part of the Sukhothai Historical Park.  This time we decided to do something different.  We rented an audio tour for 150 Baht ($4.50) that will explain different sites throughout the park.  We visited at least 10 sites today so I am just going to share the highlights:

Noen Prasat:

On the way to Noen Prasat we talked to the "tourist police"

Listening to our audio tour with Noen Prasat in the background.

Wat Mahathat...the largest Wat in Sukhothai:

Wat Sri Sawai:

Great detail

More great detail

Wat Traphang Ngoen:

Wat Sa Si:

Taking a break:

More Pad Thai for Tim

One last ruin, Ta Pha Daeng Shrine, thought to be the oldest in the area, before calling it a day:

We return to the room to find new origami towel art:

Tomorrow is another travel day.  We have a 5 hour bus trip to Chiang Mai.  We are not looking forward to the bus ride, but we are looking forward to exploring a new city!