River View Hotel Sukhothai

... that in Sukhothai.<br><br>On this particular day, lots of different schools were on a field trip and hundreds of children in brightly colour coordinated uniforms were running around the temples counting statues of elephants and Buddha. It was a fun sight and the actual highlight of the day. They were extremely shy and they would shout "hello, whats your name" but never give us an answer when we asked back. We even saw a few little girls trip over as they starred at me ...

... town.<br>While roofs caved in long ago, and those that once worshipped and meditated here are long gone, the ruins remain full of enchantment to enliven the imagination. I found the Buddha statues particularly fascinating - at once both haunting and humbing. Some appeared to radiate more light than their surrounding brick walls and weathered columns, and simply clicking a ...

22 June 2009<br><br>We got up early. this date, for another day of travel to Sukothai in Central Thailand. We departed Roi-Et at 0800 hours. The scenery along our route was mainly farm lands with a few scattered villages along the way. Crops were rice,rice and more rice, plus some fruit and vegetable.<br><br>We arrive in Sukothai at 1700 hours, tired and hungry. We took the Thailand Travel ...

... still can't understand why they wanted to be in pictures with us... strange. After about 2 hours of cycling and sightseeing, we were picked up by the hotel manager, we headed back to the hotel for a lovely refreshing dip in the pool. In the evening we used the free bicycles from the hotel and cycled to the nearest 7-11 store to stock up, back at the hotel we had a lovely meal and used the free wireless internet to catch up with home.

... turned on. You were obligated to buy from them now. Food was good and it was cooler than in the sun. After lunch we decided to ride to the temples outside the city gate. It was hot, dusty and hard to peddle the Dudley Do Right bicycles. I can say we got our cardio and crunches in today with no problems. I know we rode at least 10 miles in between the outside temples. We had to ride in the sun, on a major highway, uphill, both ways. We get to one Wat and its 300 ...

... a book and some lunch as there's plenty of shade. It was there that we bumped into the lovely Matthew from New Zealand. He is a on a 3 week vacation before heading off to university to begin his degree in Business. Apparently in New Zealand they still have a grant system which he says is enough for him to live on. He is also entitled to an extra grant because he is of the indigionous people of that region (it wasn't Maori ...

... I found the guest house from Lonely Planet, it was cheap. The driver had a hard time finding it. It took like 20 minutes. As I was leaving later, I found out that I could have just walked; it's only about 500 meters away from the bus station. Anyways, it was very basic but only cost 200B. After a quick shower and change I headed to the ancient city. Walked to "downtown", if it can be called that, and caught a sawngthaew for 20B from close ...

... zumachen, so war es dann recht ruhig in der Stadt. Die Nacht war dann mal wieder nicht so ruhig, weil wohl einige Leute glaubten, die Gasse vor dem Hostel waere eine Moped Rennstrecke. Am naechsten Morgen hiess es dann aber mal wieder mit dem Moped auf Tour und nach Old Sukhothai zu den Ruinen. Die Ruinen hier liegen weitaus schoener als die in Ayuttaya, alles ist viel ruhiger, die Tempel nicht direkt an der Strasse und es sind kaum ...

... gifts come wrapped in unappealing packages so I let him do his magic and surprisingly, for the next 10 minutes, my eyes actually felt better.<br><br>Two villagers came to visit. One of them said that he can heal me, but<br><br>only after dark. For a piece of paper with my name written on it, along with 5 baht, he will cast a spell on me tonight (thankfully I did not have to be present) and my eyes will be cured by tomorrow morning. My local eye doctor, who ...

... then cycled for another 20 minutes before climbing a steep stone hill path in Uma Thurman/Kill Bill stylee to find another temple at the top of a hill. <br><br>There were temples all over the place, it was really cool. <br><br> <br><br>Like every other day we've had in Thailand so far, the sky was grey and cloudy, but at least we ...