Rambling around the Ruins
Yesterday I was up at my usual 5:30 AM and I biked around the Sukhothai ruins. I will try to figure out how to get some pictures up at some point. I decided to go to the ruins outside of town first, because I wanted to bike through the jungle while it was still cool. I was the only farang out there, which was nice, and mists were rising from the ground. Sukhothai is surrounded by these lovely lush hills.
I'll only give a few highlights of the day, but it was another of those days that felt like a lifetime. I went to Wat Chum as the sun was rising. It is a 45 foot tall Buddha in a square enclosure that faces the east, so that as the sun was rising its chakras appeared to be illuminated.
My favorite ruins were about 4 kilometers out of town. They were overgrown wats and chedis, ruins in the literal sense, but covered with lush plants. One involved hiking up an ancient stone path to the top of a hill, affording a beautiful view of the countryside.
At another of the ruins I saw beautiful birds with long plumes for tails and a moth that was bigger than a humming bird. As I was biking along the road, I heard this strange flute-like melody (dryads? Thai-ads?) which I actually think might have been the bugle call of the nearby Sukhothai Boy Scout camp.
The main ruins are in a beautiful manicured park, and I realized that I had been at Wat Mahatat during the monsoon-- it had seemed to be in the deep wild with branches falling and lightning clapping overhead. Mahatat is the main ruin so I realize how lucky I was to have the place to myself (this morning, I also had it to myself bright and early).
I also tried my first mangosteens, which are a reddish hard-shelled fruit with a milky fruit for an interior. It is very tart and also a little sweet, and I can't really describe the flavor other than that it tasted a bit like a banana, a pear, a lemon and a pineapple all in one, but not really.
Late in the day, I also got my first plastic baggie of soup. In the markets, the soup is ladled into plastic bags to take home. It was a green chicken curry, very spicy and like everything I've eaten, very tasty. Probably the best part was that everybody seemed so excited that I had a bag of soup. I got the impression that not many farangs eat the bags of soup.
And in the evening I met a Portuguese traveler named Rui, who had been traveling around India for the previous six months and is a psychologist back in Portugal. We shared a Beer Chang and talked about travel, philosophy, and spirituality. It was great to meet another friendly farang, which leads to my next post...
I'll only give a few highlights of the day, but it was another of those days that felt like a lifetime. I went to Wat Chum as the sun was rising. It is a 45 foot tall Buddha in a square enclosure that faces the east, so that as the sun was rising its chakras appeared to be illuminated.
My favorite ruins were about 4 kilometers out of town. They were overgrown wats and chedis, ruins in the literal sense, but covered with lush plants. One involved hiking up an ancient stone path to the top of a hill, affording a beautiful view of the countryside.
At another of the ruins I saw beautiful birds with long plumes for tails and a moth that was bigger than a humming bird. As I was biking along the road, I heard this strange flute-like melody (dryads? Thai-ads?) which I actually think might have been the bugle call of the nearby Sukhothai Boy Scout camp.
The main ruins are in a beautiful manicured park, and I realized that I had been at Wat Mahatat during the monsoon-- it had seemed to be in the deep wild with branches falling and lightning clapping overhead. Mahatat is the main ruin so I realize how lucky I was to have the place to myself (this morning, I also had it to myself bright and early).
I also tried my first mangosteens, which are a reddish hard-shelled fruit with a milky fruit for an interior. It is very tart and also a little sweet, and I can't really describe the flavor other than that it tasted a bit like a banana, a pear, a lemon and a pineapple all in one, but not really.
Late in the day, I also got my first plastic baggie of soup. In the markets, the soup is ladled into plastic bags to take home. It was a green chicken curry, very spicy and like everything I've eaten, very tasty. Probably the best part was that everybody seemed so excited that I had a bag of soup. I got the impression that not many farangs eat the bags of soup.
And in the evening I met a Portuguese traveler named Rui, who had been traveling around India for the previous six months and is a psychologist back in Portugal. We shared a Beer Chang and talked about travel, philosophy, and spirituality. It was great to meet another friendly farang, which leads to my next post...
posted by Franz K at 5:19 AM
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