Phitsanulok and Old Sukhothai
We were moving southbound again and another 8hr journey on the train. The thing I like about the train is that meals and snacks are included with your ticket purchase. The quality of the food is better than you would expect too.
Phitsanulok is one of the major travel hubs in central Thailand. The city itself is not a major tourist attraction for foreigners as most would simply use this as a stopover before continuing to Sukhothai. One unique aspect to Phitsanulok, however, is that it's the only city in Thailand that still is allowed to have residental house boats along the river.
The other notable attractions in the city are the Wat Phra Rattana temple and night bazaar. The temple monuments were quite nice but were heavily surrounded by market stalls all over the temple grounds.
Hehe the tuk tuk owner's dog riding with us to the temple. Don't lean out too far buddy!
Cool looking door
What's the meaning of leaving small figurines by the tree?
Main entrance
Looked nice inside, especially the chandeliers!
Before we entered the main temple hall, there were Buddha statues that lined up against the wall. None of the statues are exactly the same and they wrap around the entire temple. I believe there are other major temples in Thailand that do this as well.
It keeps going
On purpose or unfinished work?
I wish I had a panoramic function to take this corner shot for the full effect
More statues to the end
After attending the weekend walking markets in Chiang Mai, the night bazaar here was rather lackluster. There were the typical cheap clothing and accessories that could be found in any market to be honest. So nothing really to see that was original to Phitsanulok. The massages there were super cheap though at 100baht/hr!
This is a coffee shop
Cool setup. Didn't realize that there were fish in here until we a couple of people throwing bread into it
Lights along the bridges and riverside
Seafood pancakes made on this huge griddle
We finally did our day trip out to Sukhothai to see the old city and it's ruins. Our hotel was only a couple of min walk to the main bus terminal so that was very convenient. It was also a relief that the route uses A/C coach buses instead of the local city bus. It was pretty hot already and we'd be in a pressure cooker if we had to hop onto one of those things.
The bus takes an hour to reach the Sukhothai bus terminal in the new city and from there you would need to take another bus to reach the Sukhothai Historical Park (located in the old city 12km West) We got there within a short half hour ride. After grabbing a bite to eat we proceeded to the gate. The tickets were 100baht each but after 4:30pm it's free. We had 20min to kill so we walked around and suddenly the rain began to pour 😦 Hoping that it was a quick isolated shower we just sheltered ourselves at a nearby cafe to wait it out. An hour passed and the downpour declined to a light drizzle. By now it was past 5pm, but the timing worked out as it gave us a great chance to see the ruins during sunset.
The temple ruins wasn't on the scale of Angkor Wat but still looked very cool.
A rainbow after the rain. Actually there were two rainbows. The second one on the left was rather light.
Notice the gold fingernails?
One of our favourite shots
It seemed like the sky just ripped open to reveal this cloud of immense light. Looked like a gate to heaven if you ask me!
Now we head to Bangkok to meet up with a couple of friends.
Aaaadventure!
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