11-17 (Friday)
After breakfast we walked to the local bus stop where we boarded bus #1 for the long distance bus terminal. Once we got there we had to wait about 45 minutes for our rattle trap unair -conditioned bus to pull out for Sukhothai, the ancient capital of Thailand which flourished between the 14 and 16th centuries. The name means the Dawn of Happiness. Artifacts show that the Thai Alphabet and language originated there around 1238. It covers 6,596 square kilometers and is located 327 kilometers north of Bangkok.
As many of the buses in Asia do, we tried to drum up business along the way stopping when and wherever anyone wanted to get on or off. it took about two hours for us to arrive at the Sukhothai Historical Park. Some girl met us when we got off the bus and wanted us to rent a bicycle to tour the park. This would have been fine if it were cool outside but it was too darn hot so we hired a tuk tuk to take us around. It reminded me a great deal of the Ankor Wat complex. We even went outside the park and drove a long way to the foot of some mountains where we got out and hiked up a hill to get to a 12.50 meter tall standing Buddha. The whole tour took three hours which we ended by visiting the museum.
We were sitting under a tree waiting for the bus to arrive at 3:30. Some girl came and sat down next to us. The next thing we knew she was up flagging down the bus for us. This time the bus was fairly nice and it was air conditioned! It was already almost full. I sat behind Joyce - both of us were next to guys on such a narrow seat that our butt cheeks hung off. Finally people began getting off and we got seats that we could fit on. The return trip also took about two hours. We caught a local bus to the railroad station then walked to one of our favorite restaurants for dinner. We were really glad that we took this trip.