as our christmas present to each other, luke and i went on an adventure to sukothai. it is a 5 hour bus ride south of here. the main attraction is a huge historical park with 700 year old ruins from the old 'golden age' capital of the north. other than that the town of new sukothai is just a river and guesthouses. on our first full day we traveled from our guesthouse in new sukothai to old sukothai by a strange form of "bus" unique to thailand. kind of a pickup truck, kind of wooden in the back, interesting as always with thai transit.
once in the park area, we rented a couple old cruiser bikes to ride around the area. my bike had an amazing lack of brakes, that i realized once we got going. the bike rental people directed us to the ticket area. the prices had just increased in december 08, which was kind of a bummer because it cost more than double what we thought, but oh well, it is christmas and it was really cool and worth it. the place is quite big, with a little road through it. there were lots of big old trees, grassy well kept lawns, and moats and ponds everywhere (this was their source of water for the kingdom back in the glory days). except for the occasional tour van of german tourists, it was quiet and nice - very park-like, especially for thailand! the ruins are really big and really really old. it is amazing that some things can be standing for that long. a few in particular were mostly whole and there were several large buddhas in tack. lots of photo opportunities.
some of the old bricks looked like meteorites because they had lots of swiss cheese holes in them. in other parts there were rock stacks all over - kind of like the trail markers you see when hiking. i am not sure of the significance of these. at one point i was within a little ruin area and i wanted to take a picture of some nearby stacks. luke was sitting down inspecting something on his foot, and i was backing away from him. of course we are in a field of rocks, so i backed into a giant rock that i proceeded to fall backwards over, caught the back of my knees on it, and landed flat on my back in a pile of mungy grass. i think luke was worried that i might get up and start crying, but actually i was laughing at myself for being so stupid! the only thing i took away was a few scrapes on the backs of my legs.
it got really hot in the afternoon sun - probably about 90 degrees - so we took a couple breaks because we were feeling sluggish. on one of these breaks we saw the most horrible, sad dog ever! it was walking on 3 legs because one appeared to be really really badly broken. it was bent at the knee and twisted inside and it looked like he had no thigh muscle from not walking on it! eww. poor thing. i don't think he was in pain though, and he was getting around alright on 3 legs.
after lunch, we decided to explore more ruins outside the confides of the actual park. there were some on the map, so we took off on a southerly road. this turned out to be the coolest part of the day! we saw a couple really big ruins that were in fields between neighborhoods on this cute and quiet rural road. it was hot and sunny and peaceful! and it contained a huge field of my new favorite plant that looks like a feather! they are similar to cattails in that they grow in marshy places. they are on a tall green stem and at the top is this huge feathery wheat-like growth. very cool. i picked one that became the tail on my bike. this was the last part of our day with the bikes.
we took another "bus" the 12 km back to our guesthouse in new sukothai, which proved to be a more treacherous ride than in the morning. there were about 5 of us in this thing, and a large dog up the road. it was a main road and there was no one to pick up, so the driver was barreling down pretty fast. the dog was in the middle of the road and decided to cross our lane just as we approached. i was sure he was a gonner. the driver did not even slow down one bit. in some places there are as many stray dogs as there are squirrels at home, so people don't seem to care too much. anyhow this dog made it past our wheel by the skin of his teeth - we must have brushed his tail. i was braced for a big thump that luckily didn't happen. then we proceeded to stop at a school on the main road where gobs of middle school kids stood, just getting out for the day. after a long wait and lots of lollygagging for no reason, they finally started getting into our bus, and getting in and getting in....at least 50 kids must have piled into that thing - up front with the driver, shoulder to shoulder on the seats and hanging off the back! they only had to pay 5 baht each, where we had to pay 20 (which is still less than a dollar!)
that night we "explored" new sukothai, which involved sitting by the river for a bit, unsuccessfully searching for bubble tea, and then playing cards with some german girls at our guesthouse (not much to do in this town!). the previous night involved playing cards with some guys from belgium.
after some debate what to do the next day, we had the great idea to rent a motorbike (instead of taking the local bus) to get to another park of ruins 60 km north. this turned out to be a great idea. it took one hour to get there along a beautifully scenic and sunny route. farms fields, some giant wats. after driving through a rural part of a developing or emerging country, you can really understand why natural disasters are so devastating in places like thailand. some of the houses we saw appeared to be barely standing! since it is never winter, they are not airtight and don't require special materials. some places we saw along the way were an amazing patchwork of 13 pieces of recycled tin roof, random mismatched pieces of wood and other bits. anything they can afford, reuse, or get their hands on. most have a really amazing setup that i like. the bottom floor is open air - a workshop, food stall, chicken coop, kitchen, motorbike garage, or any other use you could imagine. upstairs is enclosed and where the family lives.
we found the entrance to the second park (it was not really marked well...) and went to the information building. here we got a map and found out that our other ticket was not good here and we had to pay another admission charge! (this went along with the recent price hike!). it was less than the other park though. this place was a little quieter and really nice. wonderful park atmosphere and lots of ruins in mostly the same style. we even saw a crab! it was just in the middle of the grass, walking all sideways and far from water! the coolest place at this part was a pair of wats at the top of a hill. they were completely engulfed in the forest and you had to climb a big stone staircase to get there. it smelled like fall here because there were sooooo many leaves on the ground! it looked and smelled like fall but was actually a hot summer day - and christmas eve at that! we hung around here and ate a snack enjoying the view down the hill and the smell of fall. we made it back to return the bike in time to catch the 3 pm bus back to chiang mai. we arrived home at 8 pm on christmas eve.
our friend lucy is house sitting for a couple weeks while her friends are on vacation. se we went over to the house and hung out with them and did a secret santa gift exchange for christmas! yay! it was fun and felt very festive. i got a cute and colorful scarf and necklace - thanks loz! on christmas day we watched the movie elf and went out for a thanksgiving style dinner. luke and i are staying at the house with lucy, and 3 of our other friends went to bangkok for new years.
early in the morning on december 23, grandma marie passed away in her sleep. after a long battle with lung cancer and lots of medicines and oxygen, she is finally in a better place. i feel bad that i cannot be at home right now, but i am thinking about everyone, especially mom and grandpa. i think it will be quite a relief once everything is said and done. the last couple weeks were especially hard because grandma was so out of it and couldn't talk or barely eat. the funeral was on the 26th, and was apparently quite nice. lots of people were there and a procession of about 25 cars went to the church. i will miss you grandma!
