Sad to leave Chiang Rai, I caught a bus to Sukhothai. Sukhothai is the original capital of Thailand, back when the Kingdom of Siam began in 1238. (Thanks, Wikipedia). After that, it was moved to Ayutthaya in 1351. So, despite being the original, it was only around for 100ish years. Still, wanted to see it.

The bus left quite early in the morning - 6:30am, which meant I had to be up at 5:30. It was supposed to get me into Sukhothai at 1:30pm. My plan was, see the ruins, see some more in the morning, be back in Bangkok for the evening. That all quickly fell apart. First of all, we stopped at this crazy weird rest stop for lunch, despite only being about 1 hour from the destination. It was like this resort in the middle of nowhere, and we were all encouraged off the bus to eat. I didn't want to get stranded, so I stuck close to the driver. Constantly, monitoring him to see when he was going back to the bus. They made a pretty mean Khao Soi though.

So, after the 1 hour jaunt, my 1:30pm arrival time was now 4:00pm. Because, in this country it is impossible to have anything run on time, the people included. That pretty much killed my half day, as I didn't see the point to drive out there and pay admission to have an hour to look around. Instead I ran into, I swear this is true, Mr. Taiwan in the bus station. Mr. Taiwan is not from Taiwan, but he does run the hostel I was thinking about staying it. He offered to drive me there, so why not? It was a very cheap, but very plain hostel. Still, he was nice, and it was only 1 night. I decided I'm going to get up super early to get to the Old City when it opens at 6:00am, so I can knock it and another set of ruins out in 1 day. He said it couldn't be done, I would need 2 days. They clearly don't know how I travel - challenge accepted. I asked them to book me a sleeper bus ticket for the following evening, rented a motorcycle, then went out to the night market. It's a very small market, but I did share a table and several beers with some French guy whose name escapes me. He lives in France with his Korean wife. His wife's inlaws are visiting, so she told him to get out of the house for a while. He took that to mean, get out of the country for a little while. In truth he says he's been to Thailand many many times. He actually had a lot to say about what Thailand was like back in 1960. But per his words, in places like Sukhothai, nothing has changed. I can believe it. Anyway we had a lot of beer, and I went back to the hostel for an early day.

The advantage of getting there at park opening, is that like the buses, all Thais are late - including ticket clerks. There was a security guard, and since it was 6:00, he let me go in for free. Score! I have nothing much to say about the place except there are a lot of really, really old buildings. I'll let the pictures speak for themselves. It's divided into 3 zones, and I managed to finish zone 1 and 2 before any ticket people showed up for work. Unfortunately by the time I hit zone 3, it had become late enough in the day that someone arrived. I had to pay 110 baht, but meh, I got two freebies already. Zone 3 was actually my favorite, a lot of old temples that the forest has started to overtake. Also I found a big line of army ants, and I missed with them by putting rocks on their path.

With Sukhothai finished before most people wake up, the other thing to see was a bigger deal. Si Satchinalai was the "sister city" of Sukhothai, and it has its own set of ruins. It's a 60km drive north, so I saddled up the bike, and saw a really big buddha on the way. While smaller that Sukhothai, I found that this place was much better. Not a tourist in sight, I got full reign of the place. Also it was like Zone 3 in Sukhothai, in that it was pretty much a lot of old temples in the forest. Really felt like something out of Zelda. So I'm glad I made the trip, even though it only took about an hour to finish. So, back I went, and at around 3pm, turned in the bike, and asked about my bus ticket.

"Oh, you can't book those. You have to go to the station."
"ARGH! Then why did you say you would do it?"
"I suddenly choose not to understand English."


So I had to pay to get to the bus station, and drug the worker from the hostel with me. The ticket was still available, and had him ensure it was a sleeper ticket. He said yes yes, you can sleep on the bus. More on that later. So I went to get a drink, and this guy just knocked off. I don't know where he went, but I walked around the station for a while to try and find him. No clue. I figure he'll survive in his own country, and left.

Now I had 7 hours to kill before my bus. I went to Phra Mae Ya Shrine, pretty much the only tourist attraction in the city. It's pretty. The guy working there sold me a big can of Coke Zero for 10 baht, so I like him and his shrine a lot. Other than that, I just chilled out. I've never had such a large amount of time with 0 to do, so I made a list of things I learned about being stuck in a rural Thai city with nothing to do:

• Google, travel sites, etc often incredibly inaccurate. Specifically the movie theatre, electronic store, and temple I wanted to go to simply did not exist.
• If you don't move, you sweat. God, the weather here. Without even the little wind from walking, your face becomes like a river.
• Tripadvisor is for the desperate. There's a lot of stuff on there, but most of it is incredibly mundane and stupid. In fact, 99% of it is stupid.
• Bathrooms and power outlets are like winning the lottery.
• People think you are lost. In fact, everyone in the city is like "We have foreigners now?"
• The sun is your enemy. If he can see you, you are losing the game.
• If you're outside, you'll get dehydrated and not realize. Especially when you're tired and on "autopilot". Occasionally sit down and drink a bottle of water, even if you don't think you need to. You'll notice yourself thinking much more clearly afterwards.
• Kids are fearless. At Phra Mae Ya Shrine, one just walked up and poked me for no reason. When I poked him back, he looked shocked and ran away.
• Its hard to stay clean. Seriously, I wouldn't want to be next to me.
• Spread out your dumb activities. When you think "I'll go to the pet shop, then to 7-11, then look at the market", do those things with 30 minute or longer breaks inbetween them.

So basically I walked around the city and sat on a bench by the river for a long time. I finally found a coffee shop with Wifi and electricity, so that let me download some TV to watch later. I went to the station, got on my bus, and quickly realize this is definitely not a sleeper bus. God damnit. I managed to sleep for about 5 hours anyway. This bus was to arrive in Bangkok at 5:30am. Because nothing can run on time, it actually arrived around 4:45am. What the hell, guys? I went back to my old hostel to pick up my luggage, but since they weren't open yet, I fell asleep on the couch to round out my crazy tour across north Thailand.

And now, pretty much moved into my apartment, I had a crazy first day at work. Like, really crazy. But, that's a story for next time.