We used our favourite Ayutthaya tuk-tuk to get to the bus station to catch the bus to Sukothai. We were somewhat bemused to find that the bus station was not a proper terminal but consisted of a couple of rows of dusty seats under a shelter beside a dual carriageway (that local people using cars, bikes and motos frequently and without any fear opted to travel the wrong way on). All the signs were in Thai and our ticket seemed to bear only a passing resemblance to the bus we thought we had booked. Surprisingly, however, the bus came, we recognised the name and started our six hour trip. The journey itself, through the wide wet lands with glimpses of mountains in the far distance, lacked memorable features (particularly for Tony who put on his iPod and slept through most of it).


Helpfully, the bus terminal in Sukothai is actually a proper and obvious terminal . Less helpfully it is nowhere near Sukothai, either the old or new cities. This leaves you at the mercy of taxi drivers as you have no real idea if your feigned decision to refuse to pay them that exorbitant price and instead walk to town holds any water. We finally negotiated a price (twice that suggested by the guest house we were going to) and a couple of kilometres down the road, still with no sign of the city or our guesthouse, we realised that we could never have walked the whole way with our packs!


The guest house lies down a narrow road beside the river, off the main road in New Sukothai. It has a pleasant garden and a large shaded area with tables and chairs. There is a real family atmosphere with staff of all ages including the new baby, at the centre of lots of attention. The dogs are also part of the scene. Our accommodation is in a ‘bungalow’ but I confess it looks more like an upmarket shed to me (although it still lacks hand-pulled Leeds Best; I can give them a few tips there if they want).


It would seem that Sukothai is a much wetter area than the others we have been in recently. The plant growth is much richer and there is a moist atmosphere all around even though it is not actually raining at present. This was confirmed as we went to bed the first night and realised that we were completely surrounded by numbers of frogs humming, croaking and barking at incredible volume . Our shed has mesh windows which do not give much sound protection and we have had to get used to this cacophony just by our ears as we lay in bed each night.


We’ve been out a couple of days exploring the temples. Sukothai generally predates Ayutthaya and there are several temples that show the link with the even earlier Khmer culture (like we saw several years ago in Angkor Wat in Cambodia). This was a time of transition between Hindu and Buddhist religions and the early temples show signs of both religions. We have been able to spot architectural links and knowingly nod sagely to each other, ‘oh yes, typical 13th century transition Khmer architecture, don’t y’know’. Although many tourists cycle around the Wats, we opted to walk between the sites, mostly without any other tourists to speak of. It’s strange that such a unique and beautiful spot should be almost empty. We’re not sure if this is always though because there seem to be facilities for many more people, perhaps it is jam-packed full at other times of the year!


We’ve been using the public bus to get between the old and new cities. These are converted flat bed lorries with benches running down each side and often another in the middle. The system is that buses wait and passengers get on the first bus in the line until such time as the driver considers it sufficiently full (or occasionally other waiting drivers in the queue of buses insist that they move on and give them all a chance to collect some fares) . Only then do we get going. On our return the first day we were surprised to be picked up by a bus who set off with us as the only passengers. After a few desultory tries at recruiting new fares in the old city the bus sped away. A few kilometres down the road however, we drew up in a line of buses outside a large school; it was clearly school closing time and the driver wanted to fill his bus with more fares. ‘Just five minutes’ he told us confidently. Unfortunately the system works against this. The school kids know that the bus won’t go until it is full, and anyway there is a line of buses waiting. As a result they mill around jumping on and off buses, devouring vast quantities of food and drink from the roadside stalls that set up all around the school entrance. The protestations of the bus drivers have little impact; only the couple of buses who have a severe Mum-like woman to collect the fares are able to increase the pace of filling and no bus will go until it is as full as possible with a significant number of kids hanging onto the open back . We’re not sure that British parents would be willing to accept this level of H&S! We were finally full after about half an hour of waiting and continued our journey back to our guesthouse in the new city.


Today as we walked around there were several bouts of gentle rain. Of course the rain is warm and acts as a freshener to the general atmosphere. Somehow, however, the rain also seemed to bring the whole area into focus; the temples standing within their pools and lakes, the lush green trees, the bushes and the rice fields all around seemed to make more sense in the rain. As we walked along under our umbrellas, the rain seemed totally right, the missing component from all our earlier walks.


Later though, having taken the bus back to town, the sky clouded ominously and the wind whipped up. In a matter of moments the heavens had opened and we were in the midst of torrential rain. This was taken totally in the stride of locals who continued to go about their business. For our part however, we were sadly trapped in a bar and unfortunately had to stay for more beer! The frogs around the shed loved it though and set up an even more cacophonous chorus that lasted all night!