Day 8 Chiang Mai - Sukhotai - Bangkok

OMG today (or should I say yesterday) was such a long day. It's 1:50am on Thursday, Feb 16th and I'm back in Bangkok on Khao San Road sitting at an internet cafe typing away.

I got up at 6am to get dressed and pack my sleeping clothes, and hugged Nanda goodbye. She said she is going to miss me, and I know I am going to miss her too. Nong (I had been misspelling his name as Nank all this time) picked me up at 6:30am to take me to the bus station. I thanked him profusely for all his help during my brief stay in Chiang Mai and said I was going to recommend him to anyone who visits Chiang Mai in the future.

The air-con bus is quite nice -- the seats recline and it's very clean. The only problem is that I was the only non-Thai speaker, so I had to use my advanced sign language skills to communicate. All I know is that it is 5 hours from Chiang Mai to Sukhotai, and as we made additional stops along the way, I had to guess if it was just to pick people up, or if they were scheduled stops when I can go to the toilet. I was so afraid of having to pee when we weren't close to a bathroom that I had been purposely not drinking fluids. 'Cause when I have to go, I have to go NOW. Okay, too much information...

I slept much of the first few hours, but decided to enjoy the view outside for a while. It's not much of a view off of the highway, but we passed some interesting homes. As we pulled into the Sukhotai area, there were ruins scattered here and there, with homes and massage stores and convenience stores right next to them. When we got to the Sukhotai bus station, I was very eager to start my tour. A man approached me offering a tour of old Sukhotai, which was perfect because I only had a few hours to see the whole place. I first had to go to the tour company booth, where I checked my bags and bought the ticket for the next leg of my trip. What I didn't realize was that Sukhotai t0 Ayuttaya is another 5 hours, and Bangkok an additional hour away! Ai!!!! I decided to scrap Ayuttaya and spend 4 hours in Sukhotai, catching the 5:45pm bus out toward Bangkok.

The guy who approached me was Nim, the driver, and his young wife was my guide. Well she said she was my guide, but essentially what she did was sit with me in the back of their pickup truck outfitted with benches and a roof and say, "The next wat is !@##$%. We wait for you here. Take your time." Not much of a guide, and not a great command of the English language, but she was very nice. The ruins are truly amazing. What an amazing kingdom Siam was in its heyday! I took tons and tons of pictures, and my CF card ran out of space. I guess I took too many movies during the elephant show yesterday. I'll have to find a place to download my photos onto a CD so I have room for more pics. Kind of hard to do that at 2am though. Anyway, the ruins are spread out quite a bit, and most tourists rented bikes, following a map from one ruin to another. Being in Chiang Mai for the past few days, I forgot how hot it is in central Thailand. I would guess it's about 95 degrees, and the sun is unrelenting. There are occasional spots with a nice breeze but it's still really, really hot. At one of the ruins, I happened upon two Japanese tourists with their Thai guide who was speaking Japanese. Really broken Japanese, but he was very diligent about using very polite Japanese. I pretended not to understand but had a huge Dumbo ears to eavesdrop on his explanation. Nim and Kyo showed me old Sukhotai inside and outside the walls, and even took me to the museum where I learned even more about Sukhotai's history and alot more about Buddhist doctrines. Very interesting!

We headed back to the bus station and I bought more Yakult yogurt drinks to make change so I can make a phone call to my bed and breakfast to secure a reservation. Nong told me that for 1B, I can talk for 3 minutes... but I guess that's only for local calls because I got through "hello" and the phone cut me off. I had to buy more yogurt drinks to make more change and try again with a 5B coin, and we got further in the conversation but got cut off before I could give my name. Aaaarrrrrghhhhh!!! Simple things like making a phone call can be so difficult! I had to get ANOTHER drink to get a 10B coin (I'm sure the girl at the convenience store was wondering why I don't just buy them all at once) and got my room set aside for me. Whew!

The bus from Chiang Mai to Sukhotai was pretty much empty, but the second bus had assigned seats and was pretty packed. But these seats had foot rests and the seats reclined even more, so I was comfortable... at least for the first 30 minutes. The ruins of Sukhotai were lit up and looked even more dramatic in the evening than they did during the day. When we passed the ruins and there wasn't any more to see, I wasn't sure I could deal with another 5 hours on the bus, no matter how comfortable it was. We got a little snack pack (a custard cream bun and a yogurt drink, of all things!) and made a pit stop at a sketchy looking food court. Part of our bus ticket had "meal ticket" on it, and I figured out that everyone was using that to get their noodles or curry dish. I settled on the chicken curry with bamboo shoots (that's my favorite) and took a glass of water, but decided not to drink that and bought a bottle of water just to be safe. I slept slept slept as much as I could to pass the time, and we arrived around 12:30am. I got assaulted by tuk-tuk and cab drivers offering me rides, but I made a bee line for the metered taxi area. I will not take a tuk-tuk in Bangkok again (they rip you off, and the air is so horrible here that your face turns BLACK after being in one for an extended period of time). My cab had a huge "I love Farangs" sticker indicating that the driver spoke English, but he must have been having an off day because he didn't understand much of what I was saying. He understood "Khao San Road" and took me back to the familiar backpacker ghetto.

The Tiptum B&B front desk guy recognized me from before and asked me where my friend is! It feels like home here. I was eager to take a shower and head out in search of some internet, so I can see if my Angkor tour guide referred by Chris Park wrote me back. Unfortunately, he politely said he was unable to guide me but recommended someone else. I emailed the Angkor Tour Guide Association (or something like that) asking to book his referral, but I don't think I will hear back before I have to leave for the airport. I hope his buddy comes to get me at the airport tomorrow morning, because I have no hotel reservations and no idea where I can find him!

I can't believe I have been here a week already. It seems like a lifetime ago that I left Chicago and I almost miss the cold weather when I am wilting in 90+ degree heat. Sorry no interesting food stories today (you guys seem to like that more than my Buddha info). In fact, I am starving right now! Maybe time for more crickets!?

Next time, I will write you from Cambodia!

hugs & kisses,
asami :-)