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TRAVEL BLOG ENTRY
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So my bus ride here was uneventful, except that I have realized that no matter how easy a bus ride is, I am going to be incredibly irritable at everyone around me. The Thai couple in front of me was canoodling (yes. that is the right word.) and jokingly hitting each other on the head - basically messing around and moving around a lot. So that pissed me off. The girl's chair was squishing my legs and she ignored me when I asked her at least twice to move it up. On top of that she was very very large and very unattractive, so I was just generally pissed off by her existence in my life. Yes. Very trivial, I am aware. I think the buses in Laos destroyed me forever. So I got to Sukothai and took a saamlaw (truck thingy with benches) to a guesthouse that the women at my guest house in Chiang Mai had recommended. It is very nice... I paid a little more than I should have for the two nights (a whopping $9/night) but I have a hot shower, it's in a quiet part of town, and there is a pool, which is tiny but I might go try it tomorrow anyway. Tomorrow I am going to check out the old city of Sukothai which I believe was at one point a Thai capital.
Ok. So I finished I, Claudius, which was excellent. I got up on Monday morning and took the bus to the old city of Sukothai, an old Thai capital, powerful during the 13th and 14th centuries. The bus technically costs 10 baht but they charge tourists 20. It's still only a little more than fifty cents so people just ignore it. When I got there I rented a bike for the day for the same price as the bus... haha. So I rode around on a bike, which as usual has the most uncomfortable seat possible and is too small, looking at the ruins of old temples. Although they weren't as impressive as Angkor (and what is?) they were completely different, most of them having been Buddhist temples originally, not Hindu ones. I also decided that the walking Buddha images are very effeminate. The rules for building Buddha statues are that there is no evidence of bone or muscle, that the earlobes are long, and that the arms reach the knees. I think there are a few more, but I don't remember. A sitting Buddha means he is teaching or meditating. If he has both hands in his lap it means he is turning the wheel of law. If he has one hand pointing towards the earth it means he is subduing demons. Buddha walking depicts him on his return to earth from heaven, and standing depicts him bestowing blessings or taming evil forces. Regardless, the most common ones are Buddha sitting, but the walking ones I find very amusing. (I mean no disrespect - I just find them very funny.) So I biked around and looked at these temples, stopping to have lunch (some sort of balls on a stick... pork I think with sweet and sour sauce and a bag of chips... deliciously unhealthy!) until about 2 when I gave up and decided I was templed out. So I took the bus back to town. A woman got on when it was just me on the bus and she sat down practically on me. I will never get used to the fact that most people in the world do not have the same concept of personal space as I do - it just makes me SO angry. And it shouldn't. Perhaps I should try meditating sometime. So I got back to the city, had a cup of coffee and started reading Claudius the God. I hung out at my guesthouse, read, and had dinner before passing out early.
Tuesday morning I got up and got on the VIP bus to Ayuthaya... I actually fit in the seats!
previous travel blog entryComments or Questions for the Author
tim dog says:
Hi,Eliza, I have been reading all your journal entries. I especially liked the one about cockroaches. We used to have a cotest when I was a Peace Corps volunteer to see how many we could kill each night in our latrine. The" body count" as they used to say in the Vietnam was always pretty high. Best,Tim Dog
blue sky bill says:
I never made it to Sukothai, but did get to Ayuthaya. I recall another Buddha pose: two hands pushing frontwards means, if I remember correctly, Buddha bidding family members not to fight.