Start of the journey

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The Train

We left Bangkok on Monday evening - the 9pm night train to Phitsanulok, to catch the 6am bus to Sukhothai (one of the old, destroyed capitals of Thailand, circa 1300). We were too short on our planning to get a first class cabin, so for $10 each, we got the fan-powered 2nd class. The train car, a vintage 1950s teal and chrome design, consisted of a single big room, with rows of beds on each side, lined up parallel to the direction of the train.  lena and i each had a top bunk facing each other, and shared the single rotating fan mounted on the ceiling between us. i strapped my backpack to the dubious rack in the middle of the car, nuzzled my guitar in its case, and slept a miraculous six hours under the most trying of conditions - the train shaking mercilessly while going straight, rattling whenever another train passed in the opposite direction, sharply braking at stops, and changing the direction of movement several times during the course of the night. it made for some strange dreams.but it was clean and on-time, and that's pretty good. We arrived at Sukhotai at 4:30 in the morning, and shared a bench with a middle-aged buddhist monk for about an hour until it was time to head to the bus station. an uneventful tuk-tuk and a bus ride later, and we were in New Sukhotai.

The Guesthouse

As a spur-of-the-moment decision, we followed the Let's Go recommendation and landed in the Baan Thai guesthouse. At the end of our night train desert, the hostel proved to be every bit the oasis it appeared. For <$1 they washed, dried and folded all our laundry. for $7 we got our own neat little cabin with a bathroom and shower, and lizards running around our walls. They cooked all our meals for about $1-2 each. An old thai woman that cooked at the guesthouse gave me a bunch of Muan Kaew and Thu Rian fruit to try. (As it turns out there are at least 30 varieties of fruit here that i have never heard of before, which is a terrible omission.) She cooks a mean masaman curry too. Another $10 for bike rentals for the day, and the hotel owner set us on a path to the old city.

The Bike Ride

We set out of the hostel to a nearby buddhist temple (wat), which was to lead us off the beaten path (we passed at least 3 7-11s on the way, so that part of the path was already quite beaten). We crossed a little bridge over the local dirt river into a different world.

Sure, Bangkok had shown us some of Thailand's uniqueness. But with the prevalence of Coke, McDonald's, designer labels, and Jack Johnson's latest chart-topper, it felt pretty normal. Not until we crossed that bridge did I truly I feel like we were on a real adventure.

We rode past house after house of a Thai village, following the green banks of the even greener river as we went. Everywhere we passed, people smiled and kids yelled "Hello!" Mini temples and shrines adorned many of the houses. The pace was pretty slow - mostly moms hanging out with the kids and tending to the house, while the dad's are out working the fields ohwhatevah. Some sorry-looking villagers sat up to their waist in the river (either cooling off or looking for giant snails). Cute straight dogs ran around everywhere. And avian-flu-infested chickens. A cornucopia oflife.

After the village we passed rice paddies and fields filled with long-eared cows. As we were clearing the last of the fields, we suddenly saw a heap of reddish stone, like a bunch of bricks haphazardly left behind after an aborted cambridge construction. i turned to lena - "there's your ruins."  and then there they were. a big pointed tower, surrounded by stone elephants.  in the middle of a field, just past the farmland. it was a  culture clash worth writing home about.

The Old Capital

The architecture was quite remarkable, and unlike anything i've ever seen before. Bell-shaped towers with a long, pointed handle extending far into the sky. Great buddhas in every buddha position guarding the ruins from decay (or perhaps just convincing them to accept decay and not cling to life so tightly). The park of Old Sukhotai is really well-kept, and practically empty. The huge, sparsely planted trees have bright red and white flowers, and the remains of the different temples are surrounded by colorful bushes.

Next to one of the temples sat 2 monks, cooling off under a large tree, posing themselves for the "life of the buddha" calendar series.

Being in the presence of something 40 times as old as you is inherently impressive and humbling, but in our case it was also accompanied by a real sense of tranquility - our path from the new to the old through the unfamiliar seeped harmony the whole way through.

The Day's End

As we approached New Sukhotai on our way back, the wheels of our bikes lost the remainder of their air, and so the remainder of the ride, in 100-degree heat and 100% humidity was torture that even a guantanamo guard could appreciate. fortunately there were a couple of stops with kind strangers helping us on our way - the aforementioned buddhist temple in which people gave us free water and attempted to learn english, and KFC, with a very asian-looking Colonel Sanders on the walls, and very american popcorn chicken - never fails to satisfy. buoyed by the food, we made our way back to the hostel and spent the rest of the day in suspended animation. That included eating some great food, meeting a dutch teacher named Josta, and drinking lots of beer.

On To Pai

Next destination is Pai - a mountainous stop on the hippie trail surrounded by hill tribes, a lush forest, and cool-headed mountain peaks with strategically placed temples.