Sukhothai

Took the bus into Sukhothai yesterday from Mae Sot. Packed like sardines in the bus for the 3 hour ride. I think the bus was supposed to hold about 20 people and we easily had 30. An old lady on one knee and a rooster in a cage on the other!

When I got into town, I walked around a bit checking out the town and looking for a bicycle to rent. One guesthouse I stopped in had a very nice Thai guy named Ex. He had studied for a year as a highschooler in Seattle, so he was very appreciative of Americans, though he said he doesn't see many in Thailand, which I've noticed too. I've been here nearly 3 weeks now and have seen boatloads of Germans, Dutch, french, canadians, aussies, swiss, swedes, you name it, but only 7 groups of Americans. Very interestingly, 2 groups from Alaska (seeking warm weather), one gal from Bellingham (bro's old haunts in nw washington), and then one group for Breckenridge, one gal from Winter park, and two different groups from the republic of boulder. This sampling makes sense considering when I was back home and I had a mom-son shopping day in Boulder, literally everbody we talked to from Rei to Target to the pharmacy to the boulder travel store to boulder mountaineering to best buy had been to SE Asia. I remember us telling dad how surprised we had been about that when we got home, so it makes sense I've seen a few fellow coloradans around.

Anyways, Ex went and grabbed his scooter and he took me out to a lake with a nice view of the mountains. (I made sure to ask for a helmet for sister whitney...whitney's neighbor in Seattle had thought we were brother sister b/c we apparently look alike, but now I am thinking I'm related to whitney b/c I am able to sleep through the roosters. In the rural towns, the cocks start crowing at about 4 or 5am. All the tourists complain that it wakes them up...some use earplugs, but I sleep right through it, no problem!) After that he took me to a couple of bars run by a friend and a sister. So chang beers and food were on the house. He also wanted me to drink what americans would drink, so he brought out 8 shots of tequila and limes to share between the two of us. He wanted me to make a toast to home for each one, so I toasted Mcdirrrty, sherman, yosh, and stringbean my fellow tequilla-ers.

Today I rented a bike and biked to the Sukhothai world heritage site. You can go for a two dollar bus ride and rent a bike there, but I opted for the exercise b/c it was only 16km. A canadian couple at breakfast were trying to convince me to ride the bus saying I'd never make it in time to tour the place. We left at the same time, and I was finishing up a chicken on a stick and smiling at them when they arrived (it was flat so I could really fly even if the bicycle was the same size as the one I had in the 5th grade and the bus had many, many stops along the way) It's a big confidence booster too when you're hammering away on the pedals and passing scooters. Some of the scooters here are loaded with people and aren't very powerful. My out of shape asthmatic lungs are never too happy when I push it b/c the air here is far from clean with smoke from random fires and since all the cars here have no emission standards, but it's worth it, the thais have the greatest expressions of surprise, then smiles when I pass them though.

The historical site was quite cool. Lots of huge collapsing temples and buddhas. Sukhothai was the first capital of Siam. The best way to get around to see all the sites of this ancient city is to just bike around. Makes me wonder if in 500 or so years if people will look back on cities we have built this century. Somehow I don't think so. We seem to be at an age that we tend to destroy old buildings that we don't need, or just rennovate them. We don't abandon whole cities like people use to. We're too limited on space and we have the money to tear down or rennovate. I mean wouldn't it be crazy if in 500 years people came to manhattan or paris or dubai to walk amongst abandoned collapsing sky scrapers and marvel that back in the 20th and 21st centuries humans could build such things.

I toured the main center of the city, then I went to some of the wats and buddhas further out. Though less impressive, I liked those better, b/c there was more jungle growing around and no people at all and I got to bike through some nice rural areas to get to them (the main city center was crawling with thai tourists everywhere on the monuments)

An interesting thing with Asian people, with women and girls in particular...they like to have there picture taken with me. I'm not sure why, I like to pretend it's because I'm really, really good looking (think zoolander) or they are mistaking me for some movie star or something, but most likely they just want a photo with a goofy, large white guy wearing a baseball cap. Several times when I was working for RMNP, when i was hiking the trails, the japanese women would ask for a photo. They stand next to you and then give the peace sign. Always very polite...and shy when they ask. Then when I was touring the temples in japan, lots of the highschoolers touring them as well would ask for a photo with me. And a couple times in switzerland, japanese tourists asked for pictures with me. So I figured it was just the japanese, but today 4 different thai women asked for photos. They don't give the peace sign, but instead, very timidly and awkwardly put their hand on my shoulders.

I've had a bit of change in plans. I was originally going to go from here to Lopburi and then Katchanaburi, but Ex was telling me that his guesthouse has a big feast and party on new year's eve. I've been trying to decide where I want to spend new years. I imagine bangkok would be crazy, somewhat similar to what conerd and gibby will experience in manhattan. But I'm not sure if I want to be there. Might be difficult to find a place to stay and it's much harder to meet people so although I would be in the streets will millions, I think I would feel a bit lonely. Lopburi and Katchanaburi are very small, so I figure not much would be going down there. Of course the best place would be down in phuket or ko phangnan where the huge full moon parties are, but that's pretty far from me. So I've been open to what I wanted to do, and this thing at Ban Thai guesthouse sounds cool. I guess there's a Mr. and Mrs Ban Thai award given out with a free trip to Ko Samui Island for the winner. DOn't know what i could do to win, gotta figure out some talent or something, but it would be fun. So as it's the 28th, I think I am going to leave early tomorrow for a national park that's not to far away. camp 1 or 2 nights there then come back here and proceed from there to lopburi, etc.

Also, I ran into the problem that I knew I would have with leaving much later for Asia than initially planned. Originally I was going to be here mid october during the start of the dry season. But b/c work, my roommates, work trips were all so good, I stayed longer. Which means I will be pushing the edge of the wet season. Originally I was going to explore n. thailand, than burma, then laos, then island hop in the Philippines, and then come to S. Thailand with it's magnificent beaches and islands. But I was looking at weather stuff, and it appears as though may is rainy in south thailand (rainy not only means the beach is less inticing, but it clouds up the water for scuba and makes the rocks to slick for the spectacular rock climbing over the ocean in Krabi and Railey. I think I can dance around it though by going straight to south thailand after laos and then going to the PI b/c it's dry there til the end of may. This causes a little bit of backtracking with travel, but that's ok. b/c originally from the philippines I would fly to bangkok then travel down through the south of thailand and eventually just cross into malaysia. now if I go through south thailand, I will have to go back north to bangkok then fly to the philippines, then fly back to bangkok and train back south down to malaysia. There are flights from southern thailand and KL, malaysia, but there are over 3 times more than from bangkok b/c of the high competition there, and I think you can get overnight trains and buses from south thailand to bangkok for like 12 bucks. But I'll still be checking flights anyways.