Day 67-70: Chiang Mai

Finally, a chance to rest! We have finally made it to Thailand's north, to the city of Chiang Mai. I expected a mix of old medieval-style city and quiet hill station. I did not expect this town to be the Bangkok of the north!

We arrived and just have taken it easy. Exploring the Night Bazaar, doing laundry, watching the rest of The Mindy Project (note to others: season 1 is really funny, season 2 is decently funny, and season 3 is a bit more serious than we'd prefer), and relaxing.

We only stepped out to explore the city for the Sunday Walking market. This is a market unlike any other we've encountered. This market takes over the entire old city.

The architecture here is really like no other we've seen. It's a bit like LOTR Rohan. This area of Thailand was under the "Lanna Kingdom." What does that mean? Uhh.... look, something shiny!

The structures are all built in teak rather than in stone. It's way more 'woodsy' in it's appearance; however, I'd say it's actually more beautiful. As we came across various temples, the temples all had small wind chimes hanging off every one of their rooftops' awnings. We also found an amazing crumbling stone-built 13th century temple that was incredibly different from what we saw in Sukhothai. It had stone dragons guarding 4 of the paved over steep stairwells up to the Buddha at the top. A crumbled stone spire rose from the top of the Buddhas, crested only by the filling moon. To top it off, we came at such a time that all of the child-monks were passing by. When I say child-monk, I mean Buddhists monks under the age of 18. At least 30 of them crossed us while we were at the temple. Man, when I was under 18, all I could care about were the physical things of this world: butterscotch pudding, cartoons (as seen by my 3rd grade calendar, where every Saturday had 'Cartoon Day' clearly labeled on it), and weird stupid girl problems. I certainly wasn't contemplating letting go of the physical and searching for Nirvana - unless you mean the band.

We then high-tailed it out of the old city, with some small shopping interruptions. The city became absolutely chaotic! It was filled with hill-tribe people selling things; street performers and beggars in the middle of the narrow lane ways, and throngs of people creating walking rage in every direction. There were so many people that we got into a full sweat. Never have I been at a place where the temperature was warmer at night than it was during the day.

Cool town and just a bit more to go before we leave Thailand.

Day 65-66: Sukhothai

We have somehow made it this far through Thailand without visiting any famous temples. In a land where Buddhism is everywhere, the absence of these famous temples in our adventure is really surprising. My desire to see 'ancient' Thai cities and temples only increased after our horrible trip to Ayutthaya, where we departed having seen nothing but deceit!

The city of Sukhothai is very similar to Ayutthaya. The main difference is, as far as I have poorly understood and re-twisted my daily Wikipedia history lesson, that the Khmer empire had a seat of power in Sukhothai whereas it didn't in Ayutthaya. Other than that, the two seem to be sister cities. Both were founded roughly around the same time in the 13th century. Both formed the foundation of the country of Thailand. Both have some pretty cool ruins. Same, same but different.

Sukhothai is a much  nicer city than Ayutthaya. The ruins are quite spread out, so you can opt to rent a bike to see them more effectively. I have no idea what happened to my bike riding skills but I completely got smoked on the bicycle by Pallavi. This bicycle defeat didn't just come while we were at the ruins. It came also both nights we were there, when we borrowed bicycles from our guesthouse to bike down the street to get dinner. As I was riding the bicycle, which looked like something straight from my Grandma's 1960s cupboard, I kept thinking, it's not me, it's got to be the bike. No, it's not the bike, Sarah. Okay self, well, maybe it's that the seat's too low, so I can't get effective momentum to propel myself at great speed. No, it's not the seat, Sarah. Okay, I've gotten more pathetic in my bike riding since my old POS bike (may she rest in peace) from college. It's just as sad a story as that.

The ruins were different from ones I'd seen in the past. Like many old cities, the religious structures were the only remnants; however, I'd never seen so many Buddhas. The main temple must have had a minimum of 5 Buddhas and there must have been at least 6 temples in the main area alone (there were at least 3 areas). The Buddha adds just a different mystic to the ruins. Plus, as Pallavi added, where did people live among so many temples?

Ancient temples in Thailand. Check.