Two hikes in Sukkothai

Two bike hikes in Sukhothai

Kevin and Nell 

First of all, a description of the classiest resort we've lucked into on the trip and something quite different from roadside guest house we originally booked ( Thanks Naga Travel!), the The Legendha, the Disneyland of a southeast Asian resort. Soft plucking Music (that you often hear in Chinese food restaurants back home) greeted us as we walked over our very own little bridge crossing the creek (complete with water features).  The grounds of the compound were beautifully kept, by landscapers who worked in the dark of night to keep the lawns free of leaves.  When a sudden shower occurred, they put on shower caps and kept working. The rooms were quite tasteful.  We even had a pool! The resort is geared towards the French (we have found that typically restaurants and hotels will be geared towards a certain nationality.) To date, we've lucked out and avoided being stuck with fellow Americans but have had less luck avoiding those fun-loving Germans,.). The French  flocked there by the hundreds! That's a gross exaggeration, but there were lots of French families and they certainly enjoyed a good dip in la piscine.  I love me a good banana hammock on a sixty-year old homme."Lifeguard, could you turn off the pool lights, please?"

For dinner, the hotel put on a great buffet, a wide range of authentic Thai dishes (and at the end ,oddly, spaghetti Milanese ) complemented with entertainment, an authentic Thai dance performance that involves more hand movement than footwork.  Strangely enjoyable even though one Japanese tourist felt that the best shot he could get was standing directly in front of the stage. His family, of course, took pictures of him taking the pictures. 

Spent a good  part of yesterday biking around  the Sukkothai (spelling varies on whim of writer) Heritage  Park somewhere about 700 miles north of Bangkok.  Sukkhothai is often considered the poor cousin to the other UN  National heritage sites in the region like Angkor Wat and Ayutthaya but its reputation is undeserved. It is truly a park, a beautiful and very flat place to bike and appreciate the extensive and beautiful ruins. At this point in our travels we really appreciated the lack of effort the biking demanded and the rewards of finally understanding what this temples, ruins, wats stuff is all about. 

Late in the exploration of the central areas of the park we came across a lovely sight. Approaching one of the major sites, we discovered it overrun with a herd of those strange water buffalo- like cows (Nell says they are "Brahma crosses" that we've only seen from far away previously.) 

The shepardess  was sound asleep under a ruined wall and  a rebel faction of the herd took the opportunity to sneak off down the perimeter road of the park. luckily the shepard woke up  and gave them a good talking to in the "caw'caw" sound that distinguishes the Thai language.  Order and obedience was soon restored but watching this little episode of  "The Real Housewife of Rural Thailand"  made us nosy about what it would be like to live here. We already have a good idea about life in Bangkok. Life there is a constant rush of shopping, eating, looking for places to eat,   littering, buying cheap clothing, buying designer outfits,  hooking, looking for hookers and, of course, sweating profusely.  We wondered what happens away from the urban sprawl and away from the main roads.

We resolved to stop sight seeing and spend the rest of the afternoon and early evening exploring country roads behind our resort.  Immediately beyond the elegance of the "Lengendha" resort was a whole world of ordinary life...who knew? The streets were a warren of narrow concrete paved lanes  on which all houses opened. As people put-putted their motor bikes home from work (we assume) the socializing began..old men smoking cigarettes and swaddukaying (greeting)  passerby's, a clutch of women chattering with babies on their hips or cooking in pots for sale to the neighbors. The schoolchildren "hellogoodbyed" the white guys on bikes wearing those silly grins. In  several places we encountered a soundtrack to this congenial scene--Thai music blaring from inside houses,,a lovely rhythmic music based on drumming and plunking.  Dogs napped in the middle of the road, oblivious to the traffic around them.

What was so nice was that there wasn't the squalid litter of more urban areas and throughout Cambodia. The houses, many very crude , others well- maintained and sophisticated and all in the typical thai stick house mold--a lot of life goes on under the house. Yards were filled with the stuff of life--car parts, drying clothes, chickens, grandparents. 

We found ourselves saying "I could live here."