I rode on rickety rickety bikes

So the past 2 days I have spent looking around temple ruins. Lots and lots of temple ruins. The first lot were in the old city of where I'm staying now. I rented a bike and cycled round them as that seems to be the in thing to do, although it is small enough to walk round the main ruins area. This was a collection of various temples. Lots of raised platforms, coloums and buddha statues. There was one temple that was in what is called an Ankor stlye, which means it has Khmer influence, from Cambodia (like Ankor Wat). Sukhothai old city is very well maintained. They even rebuild bits of it reguarly. It's in what can only be described as a park. The grass is cut short and everything is very well maintained. I think it takes a lot of the atmosphere away. Although all the buddha statues still manage to maintain an air of peacefulness and serenity. I nearly skipped the last temple because I was tired, hot and sweaty, but I'm really glad that I didn't. It was definitely the most impressive. It was a huge statue of a buddha, basically enclosed in a huge stone box, about 15 meters high, with a gap in the the front so you could go in. Very impressive. It was here that a Thai couple wanted to take my photo with their son, he looked about 7ish. Kind of weird. I wonder how they would explain it (... here are the wonderful, temples... and here is this pale, sweaty Western girl we saw...). Hmm.

Yesterday there was the hugest thunder and rain storm in the evening. The sky got really dark really quickly and it was very windy. The rain absolutely pounded down. I managed to get out in a lull in the rain to get to a restaurant for dinner. It was a kind of odd, almost an english bar style, and they were playing Neil Young and America. Really good, really spicy red curry though.

This morning I got up early and got a bus to a historical park with more ruins. I rented another bike, which looked a lot like it would fall apart and the breaks were not very reliable. To get to the ruins and park from where the bus dropped us off you had to cross a very large river. The means for crossing this river was a huge boarded, metal wire suspended bridge. That moved quite a lot when you walked on it. It was kind of ace.

I much prefered these ruins. They were a lot more wild and more in the jungle, although there were still workers all over the place trimming things and mowing lawns. It didn't look like the ruins got quite as much maintainance as the ones in Sukhothai, which I thought made them feel older. Although I think they were from about the same period, about 12th/13th Century I think. My favourite temples were on the top of a hill. A very steep hill that I was not impressed about cycling up (and was a little scary cycling down). It was also further up the hill, up lots and lots of steps. It was my favourite because it seemed to be the least touched or well kept. There were rocks scattered everywhere and enclosed by the jungle on all sides. This park was also great because there was hardly anyone there. I was often the only one on a particular temple ruin, and when I was cycling round sometimes I was the only person in sight, just me and the jungle and king of open plains with long grass. It was lovely. The wildlife in the area was also wonderful. There were white cranes everywhere, it appeared to be a kind of nesting site for them. I had to walk, rather apprehensively, underneath lots of their nests to get to one of the temples. There was a lot of bird poo everywhere and the smell was terrible. There was also some amazingly coloured butterflies and some huge dragon flies. There was what can only be described as a swarm of dragonflies around one of the temples. It was amazing to see so many.

One thing I did wonder about these ruins, it would have been nice to have a guide to ask, was why they were all temples! They are city ruins but there are only temple ruins, at both places. I have to wonder how many temples are really necessary in such a small place and whether they needed other things, like houses or something? I guess maybe the other buildings were made out of perishable materials.

I'm travelling back to Bangkok tomorrow. Going to try and get the 9am bus because it will take about 7 hours or something. But I think it will be a more efficient way to travel than the train.
xx