Monday, November 18, 2013

Sunny Sukhothai

As we ventured further south, the tiny hints of cooler weather we experienced in Chiang Mai were pretty non-existent. Though technically we are at the end of rainy season and beginning of "winter" here, this born and bred temperate west/northwest gal just can't get over the fact that she can still wear shorts and a t-shirt and still sweat in the middle of November. Regardless, hitting up Sukhothai Historical Park was well worth it before the long van ride to Bangkok. We started early in the morning with a visit with a Sukhothai expert, who showed us all the sites we would see on a model map.


As my Thai professor said, "He is an encyclopedia on Sukhothai, but unfortunately for you, this encyclopedia is written in Thai." Our professor graciously translated, though, and we had enough background to appreciate the ancient temples. First we wandered over to a modern temple to admire the murals, some of which featured the current king of Thailand and his family participating in Buddhist community activities.


The first old Sukhothai temple we visited was the famous "Big Buddha" temple, as the Buddha image is so large they suspected that it was built first and the temple constructed around it. It is considered good luck to make a wish and then touch the downward facing pinky finger of the Buddha's enormous hand. The long, curvy fingers are a trademark of Sukhothai style and a good insight into the perceptions of beauty at the time. 



The next stop was a temple featuring a walking Buddha image, and was known as the temple of the rock bridge as that was the path you had to use to get up to this forest temple. The workout was worth seeing the large Buddha image up close and for the view from the hilltop. 



Next we headed back to the main historical area, the heart of the old city, to see the many temples there. So many large Buddha images, both walking and sitting, and dozens of chedis, the pointed structures that house important Buddhist relics. The main chedi has a distinctive lotus flower spire.


The oldest temple thought to be at Sukhothai is actually the only one that faces south instead of east and is built in the Khmer styles of Cambodia and Angkor Wat. This is indicative of the Khmer influence on the region and how the ancient kingdoms were not so isolated but interconnected. 


Our final stop was a temple that overlooked a body of water with Thai longboats on it. It was very beautiful and peaceful in this area of Sukhothai, and I thought it was a little sad that we didn't have more time to explore, but we had a tight schedule in Bangkok and so needed to get on our way!


We did not get into Bangkok until late, so we went to bed as soon as we could to be ready for a full day! If any of you keep up with international news, you may have heard that there is political unrest in Bangkok right now and our visit happened to fall in the middle of it - protests and demonstrations and the like. I can assure you that I never felt unsafe and as a school tourist group no one bothered us. I will give you more details on that in a later post, so good night for now!

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