Sukhothai

After taking the bus from Mae Sot to Sukhothai, I had one of my most unpleasant experiences yet in Thailand.

When we arrived at the Sukhothai bus station it was pouring rain and dark outside. Instead of walking, I decided to take a tuk-tuk to a guesthouse listed in the guidebook. Said guesthouse (Ban Thai) was full, so my tuk tuk driver offered to take me to a nearby place. He dropped me off and immediately another Thai man grabbed my bag and started toting it up the stairs of the guesthouse, which appeared to have no office or entrance but just stairs and rooms. I protested, took my bag back, and asked to see a room. The tuk tuk driver led me upstairs to a room on the third floor, opened the door, but did not turn on the room light. He said, "100 baht, okay?". I turned on the light to find a nasty nasty room -- dirty sheets, water all over the floor, and rats running around. Ugh. I left as quickly as possible to the protests of the tuk tuk driver and guesthouse employee.

Luckily there was a very nice guesthouse across the street for the same price, and with clean rooms. But I will be much more wary of pushy Thai men from now on.

Anyway, Sukhothai was beautiful. The old city is about 12 km away from the new city (where I spent the night) and is a world heritage site filled with 11th and 12th century wats, buddhas, and buildings, many of them restored by the Thai government in the early 1960s. I wandered and peddle-biked around the city all day, taking photos, avoiding large tour groups, and gawking at the sheer number of amazing old structures. The most impressive architecture lies within the city walls, but many half-forgotten wats lie outside the city in agricultural and secondary forest areas. Here are a couple of pictures from the day in Sukhothai old city: