Friday, April 5, 2008. In the morning we loaded on the bus after an uneventful night in the hotel to go to the one place I was most excited to see in Thailand: Sukothai. It's a city of ancient ruins which has been certified by UNESCO as a world heritage site. It was built by the Thai king Ramkamhaeng in the second Thai dynasty, and dates back to the 13th century in what had been a distant Khmer outpost. Ramkamhaeng was a warrior king who came to dominate the central plains region of Thailand in this time and made this his capital city. The city was abandoned and was rediscovered in the 1800s by a French explorer. It was during this period that Thai culture was truly born, and this was the origin of the first Thai kingdom. Ramkamhaeng was credited with actually creating the Thai written language during his empire. The buildings are khmer-style and you can clearly see the difference from the mainly Lana architecture we have seen so far. It was incredibly hot- stiflingly so, and I already had a sunburn.
Before getting to Sukothai, we had some driving time to go. First we stopped at a museum for pottery which would have been interesting if we had a guide who actually guided the tour, giving us background and information instead of just dropping us at a small pottery museum. From reading the signs and looking at two excavated kilns I found it interesting, but you're left wondering why we were here? I actually read the signs and according to Marius, who saw similar kilns in China recently, these kilns were ahead of their time because of the way they were shaped: a small egg-shaped structure with a fire at one (closed) end, the cooking pottery in the middle, and an exhaust fume pipe at the other end. The cross-breeze of heat from fire to exhaust allowed hotter temperatures and this is what made these kilns an advancement. Again, I got no background, just a guide who was eager to show us into the "chops" to look at the pottery being sold on the street.
After copious encouragement from Nan to go into the chops, we were back on the bus to drive to Sukothai after a stop for lunch at a hotel and had far too much time, again. I was able to buy stamps, though. And the buffet was really delicious- they had this fish curry which I think was the best thing I've had in Thailand so far! It was awesome. Totally awesome. Fish balls which appeared to be battered and fried but the fish was completely fish-less tasting and it was firm, meaty whitefish. Spicy sauce with chilies, really really amazing. I had more of that.
After lunch we drove a while to Sukothai, me with the ipod cranking, as per routine. Sukothai is historically and culturally significant for Thailand as it is the real beginning of an independent Thai kingdom and culture. The Khmer empire was spread across much of northeastern thailand and brought its hindu influence, but 1300s marked the emergence of Thailand itself. The khmer referred to the thai as "siam" which eventually gave it its name. It was during this time that Theravada buddhism achieved its new expression, and the first images of buddha were finely cast in bronze. There are many buddha images, of course, all over thailand, but the sukhothai style is distinct. The main temple complex in the ruins is Wat Mahathat. My guidebook specifically says to avoid coming at midday in the hot season since it's brutal, and lo and behold we were here at prime heat hours of 2:30-4pm. It was freaking hot. Over a hundred and full sun. I started to joke with the other people in the little tram we drove around the main part of the complex (near Mahathat and Si Sawai) about jumping into one of the pools of brown water in the park (probably full of tropical snakes and other ghastly things like leeches). Fortunately Sherol had extra sunblock with her, I had to liberally slather more on.
Top: L-R: overview of the main wat Mahathat complex, closeup of a remaining carving at Mahathat.
Bottom row L-R: closeup of buddhas at Mahathat, me with a buddha in a smaller wat ruin, and a view of the ruins with a buddha.
***** Below L-R: Sukhothai carvings: a 5 headed naga, some figures on the base of a chedi, and a carved doorway.*****
A bit farther into the park we got to its next most famous monument: Wat Si Sawai. Its 3 pillars with heavily carved stone actually typify the khmer style and the monument was actually built as a hindu temple to the god Vishnu and later converted in the sukhothai period to a buddhist temple, it was named Sawai after a prominent carving of the god Siva which was once on the structure. This illustrates the depth that hinduism has influenced buddhism and Thai culture. The structure is really beautiful, we see another similar structure tomorrow- but this is very ancient and incredibly beautiful. I waited and waited until everybody got out of my shot to take the one below, which made me the very last person on the tram, everyone waiting for me. But i think it was worth it... Too bad 3pm light is just about the worst time possible for photography.
We left Sukhothai after I bought a hand-emboidered heavy piece of fabric which I'll have made into a skirt at home- made by the local people. It's really heavy- won't be for summer wear, but it's really incredibly done by hand. I paid the woman 650 bhat for it (about 21 bucks). Back on the bus, I sucked down 2 bottles of water like a fish while the air conditioning from the bus dried much of my completely drenched body and finally my clothes started to dry and unstick themselves from my body. Gross. I would pay a thousand bhat for a shower...
The drive to the next destination was not too long, which was good since that shower was so needed... We drove south from sukhothai to the town of Phitsanulok. The hotel we stayed at this night was the least nice- it so far they have been about that I experienced in CR- basic, some really amazing and occasionally one that's not quite so good. This was very old, very outdated and just a bit grungy. My view overlooked an industrial section of the town, and it was not very convenient to walk anywhere, so I wandered a little bit at night, but eneded up in my grubby room working on this page and getting an early night to the Stars channel airing a really bad scary movie with a haunting teenage ghost killing people. The final stop before the hotel was the most famous wat in the area: Wat Phra Si Rattana Mahathat (yah, say that 3 times fast) which is famous because of its immense golden buddha which was cast 3 times with the lost-wax method before being cast a third time which yielded what is renowned as the "perfect" image of the buddha. Apparently, wo be a "perfect" image of lord buddha, the visage must be a picture of serenity which evokes his achievement of Nirvana, with lips, nose and eyes just perfect. This one is known for its serenity, in the seated position, with the left hand palm-up which is supposed to channel negative energy away from ones' self so that one can let the negative energy go.
The famous "perfect" buddha image, a little dragon outside the wat,
and our porter who did everything for us: Pon, who was the cutest guy ever.
He spoke not a syllable of english, but smiled and smiled, got us our water
twice daily, passed out our hand wipes daily, got us on and off the bus, kept
count of us, and even held my hand as I crossed the street just before I snapped
this picture of him in the street waiting for Nan to return to the bus from
the casting chop- he spied me snapping the picture and thus posed. He was so
cute I wanted to keep him. I came up on him at the hotel in Phitsanulok later
tonight washing the bus and he was in nothing save a pair of shorts and he was
tattooed over his entire trunk in the traditional thai style.
Then behind the wat was another stop at a bronze-carving place which was okay, but I was much more interested in going into the little habitat for rare and endangered thai birds just behind it. So while everyone else headed into the chop to burn another allotment of too-much-time-lest-we-leave-without-spending-money-to-buy-more-crap, I paid my 50 bhat to a good cause and M&I came with me. Inside, though no photography was permitted, the birds were in small (sadly) cages, but the more people who give their 50 bhat, the better it will be be for these rare birds. For John, I kept a list: white headed bulbul, cockatiel, parakeets, asian fairy bluebird, helmeted, great, wreathead, rhinoceros and oriental pied hornbills, magpie, eurasian jay, lesser necklaced laughingthrush, green broadbill, purple swamphen, common flameback, indian roller, lesser green leafbird, black naped oriole, footbill. The guide guy came out shortly after checking us in and brought a parakeet who could talk, let me hold him on my finger, then brought out a cockatiel who would put its head down if you stoked his neck feathers. Both jumped right onto my hand, and then crawled up my arm onto my shoulder. I loved them. I have a few goodle images of the really amazing birds they had:
Above: L-R: the black naped oriole, a great hornbill and a helmeted hornbill (they are HUGE birds- HUGE, like 6 foot wingspan)
Below L-R: green-billed malkhoa; an indian roller and one in flight (they are known as "flying jewelry, you can see why- wow, this was a beautiful bird);
On the left is the magpie, and the right is the Asian Fairy Bluebird who was
gorgeous.
Before bed, I opened the really bad wine we all bought for 100bhat a bottle at the side of the road just after leaving the Myanmar boarder, had a glass and decided it was better off to the Thais who seem to actually like this crap and went to sleep in my grungy twin bed.
