Thai food 🥘, Thai temples and rusty bikes 🚲
After 10 days in Chiang Mai we headed to Bangkok. But as it is a more than 15-hour bus journey by bus 🚎 (and because it is a really nice city) we stopped for a couple of days in Sukhothai.
On the day we arrived we pretty much did nothing, apart from homework (groan😒) which is understandable when you have just gotten off a 7-hour bus!
Sukhothai was the first capital of the kingdom of Siam in the 13th century, (another way of saying Thailand 🇹🇭) and in the 14th century Ayutthaya became the capital in its place. The main thing to do (and in my opinion, the only thing to do 😜) is go and visit temples, in ruins, as none of them have been renovated. And, to make things a bit more fun, you can go around the park where all the temples are by bike.
So, as the title says, we rented bikes and yes, it was just 30 bahts the bike, (less than 1€) and as the title says (again) they were a bit old and rusty, (but not quite enough to fall apart in the middle of the road, 😜 Just kidding!) We went around the temples for the day. I personally thought that the temples were a bit boring and I could not wait to take a shower; as even though it is winter in Thailand, the temperature goes up to about 30–35 degrees Celsius every day !!!🥵. The bike riding was fun though!
Because the temples were in ruins, none of the stupas, the roofless pillars or the murals around the temples had any gold on them left, apart from a few buddha statues who had their fingers ✋🏼or their toes 🦶🏼patched with thin, delicate sheets of gold. Speaking of Buddha, he is represented in temples with 28 different postures. I also know Buddhists believe that Buddha should not be represented outside of temples (apart from in a home shrine ⛩) and that it is wrong and disrespectful to have him as a tattoo or an ornament for decoration. In their opinion, it is very shameful to be higher than the Buddha, so if you are praying in front of a statue which is on the ground, you kind of have to lie down on the floor, and sometimes even that is not enough! (Most of the time, the statue is placed on a huge pedestal covered in gold, so, in that case you are ok.) 😜😄😂
The next day we took a 7-hour bus 🚌 (again 😡) to keep heading towards Bangkok and stopped to spend the day 🌤 (and the night 🌙✨) in Ayutthaya which was, as I said before, the capital of Thailand before Bangkok. The city was pretty much the same thing as Sukhothai (but without the bikes 🚲.) In my opinion, for the third time, now that the bikes were gone it was in fact, very boring. The funny thing is, that in Ayutthaya there is a well-known buddha head stuck in the thick roots of a tree 🌳. So it is kind of hard to be lower than it! Whether it is possible or not, there still is a guard 💂🏾♂️that sits there to make sure than everybody does it right. I even saw a man who stood up to take a picture and the guard firmly told him off! 😁😂
So to cheer us all up from the fact that Eleonore had just spent a quarter of her birthday in the bus, we all went to the night 🌃market…
Now, we had already been to a huge night market in Chiang Mai (which was great) so I was pretty excited. Before Chiang Mai I had never been to any night market, and I can tell you that the two I have been so far both had really good atmospheres and most importantly sold really good food 😋😁! As I kind of struggle with spicy stuff 😬 I just stuck with the classic, chips. But to spice it up 🌶🔥umm sorry, cheese it up a bit, I asked for some kind of weird cheese powder they offered along with BBQ and paprika powder. And surprisingly chips with cheese powder was a success, the taste was very much like the cheetos crisps we had in South America! I also got a cute octopus 🐙 pancake and to my greatest delight, passion fruit. When you are in Asia, it is about 15 times cheaper than in France or in England (for example: in England with 1£ you can buy 1 passion fruit whereas here in Thailand you would have at least 10! To sum it all up, the market 🛒was great.
A few moments earlier you might have noticed that I mentioned Eleonore’s birthday! 🎂 The bad news is that unfortunately some of it (too much to my liking 🤢) was spent in the bus. However the good news is that you can go and see Raphaël’s blog for more details about how we (mostly mum & dad though 😜) made it up to her in Bangkok, our current location now (for those who were not up to date! 😁)
Thank you to everyone who has or is reading this, and yes that means you, I know you are reading this right now, for taking the time. I really appreciate it and don’t hesitate to put a little clap down below and follow me if you do not already 😜.
Thanks again and see in 2 weeks (yes unfortunately I am not writing next week😥) ……
Apolline 💜💜
