{"id":266,"date":"2023-12-06T04:51:18","date_gmt":"2023-12-06T04:51:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aerowalsh.com\/cr\/?p=266"},"modified":"2023-12-06T07:04:26","modified_gmt":"2023-12-06T07:04:26","slug":"tues-5th-dec-sukhothai","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cr.aerowalsh.com\/?p=266","title":{"rendered":"Tues 5th Dec – Sukhothai"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

My first full day in a single location in Thailand. We were in Sukhothai, north of Bangkok. I took a lot of photos today, which I relate to the high quality of the day. Sukhothai region has 600k people living but it is villiage-like in comparison to Bangkok. The sky is less polluted too. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I am becoming accoustomed to living out of my yellow suitcase, and although I am comfortable with my choice to bring 10 books, I am glad it’s not more than that. Declan gave me a satchel to wear under my t-shirt, and this is where I keep my passport, a debit card and some larger pieces of cash. I carry this with me nearly all the time. <\/em>Smaller cash and my credit card and phone live in zippy pockets on my pants. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The way Thailand moves itself is endlessly fascinating. When driving, there is a constant fluidity to what lane each vehicle is in, weaving in and out and around. This is due largely to the variation in vehicles: pedestrians nervously untethered from side walks, ricketedy push bikes, spluttering motorcycles, slovenly tuk tuks, food carts on wheels, trucks that more resemble moving palates, school buses with a crowd of young kids sitting cross legged on top, mini vans, huge tour buses. All have to compete to use a single lane road. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The morning was spent cycling around a historical park, home to many temples, some of which I took a photo of and are below. We then had a picnic lunch prepared by a lady that ran a cooking school and it was divine. The food was exactly how I imagined ‘authentic’ Thai food, and I could have sat there all day and feasted. Long eggplants were simmered to squishy, fleshy morsels. A chicken mussaman curry had a subtle sweetness and slow chili release. Fried chicken looked simple but was mouth wateringly seasoned, and adorned with a sticky chili sauce. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

After spending all morning with the tour group, I was eager to do explore by myself. I opted out of going to the ceramic shop with the group and instead walked around town. When travelling on a guided tour, it’s such an easy experience. All the guests speak English, the hotel owners speak English, no one walks anywhere. Also, I am finding that many of the tour participants are afraid of the food and water and are comfortable eating in tourist restaurants. While this is all fine for half of the trip, I prefer to spend the other half a bit aimless and with no expectation of English or organised transport. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

When I was just walking around town by myself people looked and smiled at me more. I found what looked like an empty coffee shop (it wasn’t a coffee shop). I spent five minutes in an endless loop trying to order a (sweet) iced coffee. The victory was when I showed a picture of coffee on my phone, which the owner then went and ordered for me down the road where the drinks stand ended up being and brought it back for me. The shop (more of a shack) had no other customers, and was populated by a grandmother, grandfather, mother, and seven-ish year old daughter. The grandmother, roused by the sight of a customer, jabbered to me in Thai for another five minutes presumably encouraging me to buy some chicken skewers (which they actually did sell). When she accepted I only wanted a drink, she settled back down at the front of the shop with her daughter, where they fanned themselves and talked to other stall holders for the next hour while I watched Sukhothai relax into the early afternoon. This is the happiest I will be for the entire trip.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the evening, we went to a small night market. I am absolutely thrilled with the insanely delicious sweets. I don’t eat dinner, but I do eat much dessert.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Where is Sukhothai?<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Accommodation in Sukhothai.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Tuk tuk travel. I’d prefer to walk everywhere but this is not preferred but the older English holidayers on the tour group. Our accommodation was about a 30 minute walk into town, and it’s all been extremely flat so far. The only downside to walking is that sidepaths are not common. I end up cautiously sticking to the side of the road on high alert.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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This bell was rung by townsfolk when they had an issue they’d like to share with the ruling king. <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Turtles and eels are sold in little bags to be released into the pond for good luck. They are them recaptured and resold. This proves actually to be one of the more sustainable practices I have seen in Thailand, where most elements of life are wrapped in plastic.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Another day, another elephant monument.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Big Buddah, little life.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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After all morning with the tour group, I went off by myself in search of a Kopi. <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Kopi, or whatever it’s called in Thai. Thank goodness for mobile data.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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My haven for an hour in the hot middle of the day. The young daughter was doing her school work in the back, stopping every now and then to put a chicken skewer on the charcol as a snack.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Temples we saw by day, lit by night.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Night markets: roti freshly rolled and filled with chopped banana and egg, wok fried in butter, and layered with condendensed milk. I may never eat savoury food again.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Small coconut cakes filled inside with sweeted taro. This has the sweet salty deliciousness of warm balls at chat thai.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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When I am done sampling every sweet thing from the street vendors, I rejoin the less adventurous at the tourist restaurant and am excited when the tour guide presents us with…<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Silk worms and crickets!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Thailand.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":272,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-266","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-holiday","category-summer-2023"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cr.aerowalsh.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/266","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cr.aerowalsh.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cr.aerowalsh.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cr.aerowalsh.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cr.aerowalsh.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=266"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/cr.aerowalsh.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/266\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":275,"href":"https:\/\/cr.aerowalsh.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/266\/revisions\/275"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cr.aerowalsh.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/272"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cr.aerowalsh.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=266"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cr.aerowalsh.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=266"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cr.aerowalsh.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=266"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}