Ruins, Ruins, Monkeys and more Ruins (Sukhothai, Lopburi, and Ayutthaya, Thailand)

Dec 13: Chiang Mai to SukhothaiToday we hopped on a bus from Chiang Mai to Sukhothai. The bus ride was extremely uneventful (except for when I thought my bladder was going to explode. Phil thought it was rather humorous. I did not.) and rather long (around 6 hours or so). We got to Sukhothai just in time to find a hostel and go out into the city to look for some food. We ate some delicioussss fried chicken (perhaps it was because we hadn't eaten lunch?) and some fried pork with broccoli (our first time having it...it was amazing and has turned into one of our favorite dishes) We headed back to the hostel for a beer or two and some games of rummy.

Dec 14: exploring old Sukhothai
We tried to start the day out early, and were relatively successful. We had some bfast at the hostel, and then hopped on a songathew to old Sukhothai, where the ruins are located (about 14km away) . Once there, we rented some bikes and started on our bike journey through the ruins. Sukhothai was the capital of Thailand for about 140 years in the 1200's. Many of the ruins are excavated, and some have been restored. We had a very enjoyable day biking around the three main areas (minus the scorching heat in the middle of the day. We offset this with an ice-cold Chang at lunch). The afternoon was extremely pleasant--it was much cooler and the way the light hit the temples made them extremely beautiful. Around 4, we dropped off our bikes, grabbed a well-earned iced latte and hopped back on the songathew to new Sukhothai We were delayed for about 30-45 mins on the way back, so our driver could fill up his vehicle with school children. Back at the hostel, we relaxed for a bit and headed out to find some food. We went back to the food stalls we had seen the night before, and got some more crispy pork and a noodle dish. mmmm. Then, more rummy, a bit of skyping, and bed.

Dec 15: Train to Lopburi (monkeys!), then AyutthayaToday we hopped on a bus to Phitsanulok where we switched to a train and headed off to Lopburi (a stop on the way to Auyutthaya). Lopburi is a small little city, with a few ruins, most of which are completely overrun with monkeys. Why? Nobody knows. But they are everywhere. So we hopped off the train at Lopburi, a little anxious about the monkeys (somebody told us they had been bitten!), dropped off our bags, and headed to the ruins. There were monkeys everywhere (even in the streets!). We cautiously entered the ruins and snapped some pics--old monkeys, baby monkeys, fighting monkeys, stealing monkeys (one lady left missing a flip flop, and we saw other monkeys jumping on people trying to get stuff out of their backpacks). We fed the monkeys some cucumbers, and luckily left without loosing any of our possessions and without getting bitten (success!). Then we searched for some food at the local night market, and waited for our train to Ayutthaya. We got there rather late, found a hostel, took a nice long shower and headed to bed.
Dec 16: Exploring Ayutthaya
We got up pretty early, ate breakfast at the hostel and found ourselves some bicycles. We bought a 6-ruin pass, and spent the rest of the day trying to see those ruins (and in the process saw many more!). Ayutthaya was also an old capital of Thailand from 1351 to 1767, and repelled 23 attacks from the Burmese, until the Burmese finally won, burned the entire city down and decapitated all the Buddha statues. The city is huge, and there are ruins scattered everywhere, in between modern buildings. We biked and biked and biked all around the town, until we ended up very far away at a rather lame temple and had to take a break from the heat. We headed back to the city, dropped off our bikes and had some delicious Pad Thai and Laad Na from some street vendors. Then, we headed to the train station and waited for our train to Ransit (which was 1.5 hours late! arg!) to see Nathan. Once in Rangsit, Nathan was nowhere to be found, so we hung out with a bunch of the other exchange students (they were having a party, since it was most of the students' last night) until Nathan came home, and then we collapsed and fell asleep.