There we go. It’s time for the sum up of leg one of my trip in South-East Asia: Bangkok to Chaing Mai and back.

First stop Ayyuthaya: I arrived late at night. By this time there was no taxis to town anymore and the ferry had stopped running as well. After a bit of a walk, crossing a high way bridge and alike I finally arrived at my chosen residence. The night over I was entertained by the music of the graduation festivities of a high school near-by. After getting up I rented a bike and got on the way to explore the different ruins. Ayyuthaya was heavily destroyed in a war with the Burmese in 1767. The Burmese soldiers obviously took a certain pride in their job, as they literally grounded most parts of the city. Nevertheless the ruins are impressive. Most famous of all is probably the Buddha head which is held by the roots of a tree (see pictures). It is smaller than I had imagined it to be, but these things tend to be I guess (everyone who has been in the Louvre knows what I mean). The sleeping Buddha however, which I only bumped into by accident, is huge. In the evening I hopped on the train again and travelled to Lop Buri.

Second stop Lop Buri: Lop Buri is the famous monkey town. While I must say that the horror stories told in the Lonely Planet (more on this infamous book later) are clearly exaggerated, I did get a minor shock when opening my window before going to bed, straight looking into the face of a monkey. Well, I do admit, the face of the monkey was behind a metal fence, but nevertheless. This also explained the weird metal fence in front of my window, which I had wondered about before, when arriving in my room in the early evening hours. The next day I spent walking around Lop Buri, which is a pleasant small town and of course I went to the one temple, which is some kind of the head quarter of the Lop Buri monkeys. I waited a good fifteen minutes in front of the Buddha statue hoping to get a good shot of a monkey climbing on the Buddha, but even with hundreds of monkeys strolling around, none felt like doing me this favour. In the late afternoon I took the train to Nakhon Sawan, where I changed to a bus (the bus station is practically located at the other end of the city from the train station) to drive on to Kampaeng Phet.

Third stop Kampaeng Phet: I actually went to Kampaeng Phet because it sounded a little more interesting in the guide book than Phitsanulok. Well, maybe I also decided to go to Kampaeng Phet because the Lonely Planet did not tell me how to get there from Lop Buri and I felt like I should do something not explained in detail in the book. In any case, I think it was a good decision. The ruins of Kampaeng Phet are mostly spread in a large deciduous forest. Additionally the buildings were all build by brick and then plastered. By now they are weathered down to give an impression somewhere between Serra and Giacometti. I stayed in Kampaeng Phet for a night and then travelled on to Sukothai.

Fourth stop Sukothai: Sukothai is maybe the most impressive of the old ruin cities. It is nicely presented in a landscape of grass and ponds, which allows for stunning views of temples being reflected in the water. Possibly the most famous statue of Sukothai is the Buddha with the golden hand. The gold consists of small gold leaves which believers stick to the statue when praying. They do so in many places, including the sleeping Buddha in Ayuthayya, however in the case of the Buddha in Sukothai the gold is limited to the actual fingers which creates a nice visual effect. I stayed two nights in Sukothai and then took the bus early in the morning to go on to Si Satchanalai.

Fifth stop Si Satchanalai: The Lonely planet says that Si Satchanalai is similar to Sukothai but less touristy. I am not sure what they are talking about as the statement seems to imply that Sukothai is touristy. Ankhor Wat in Cambodia is touristy, the Pyramids in Egypt are touristy, but Sukothai certainly is not. I saw maybe 10 other Falang, white foreigners that is, there. To be fair, in Si Satchanalai it was only 3. Anyway, I should not rant about the bible. After you get off the bus close to Si Satchanalai you can rent a bike and then you will be challenged to cross a rather long rope bridge. But once you have managed to do so, you will see some stunning ruins. I personally was lucky and spend my day in Si Satchanalai with a group of children monk visitors who were taking pictures with their mobile phones. Call me silly, but kid-monks are simply the best photo-op in the history of photo-ops. Si Satchanalai does not have a place to stay, so I continued to Lampang after I had spent the day.

Sixth stop Lampang: This is a really cute and sleepy northern Thai city. It is quite popular with Thai tourists to relax, but does not really target foreigners. The town still sports a large number of traditional stilt houses. In between those one finds a large number of temples, some of which are quite impressive. I skipped riding a horse carriage and got a bicycle instead. Funnily enough I met quite a lot of people in Lampang who speak English reasonably well. I say funny, because in the towns further South which primarily target Western visitors most people did not speak any English at all. I was so happy to finally get a chance to talk to some Thai people that I spent most of my day doing that and then travelled on to Chiang Mai.

Seventh and last stop Chiang Mai: The northern capital of Thailand, as people call it, is a bit more relaxed than Bangkok. The central part of town is surrounded by a square-shaped moat. I stayed in a German hostel some travellers along the way had recommended to me, which slightly reminded me of a place in Pattaya recently described in Der Spiegel. (Those who have read the article, will know what I mean.) The first day I spent criss-crossing by foot through the inner city, looking at many of the temples (Chiang Mai seems to have an infinite number of them). The second day I got a bicycle and drove once around that central part of the city and exploring some more remote sites such as the foreigners graveyard. There one can find a statue which proclaims loyalty to queen Victoria by all her subjects of all races. What a remarkable relict of imperialism in a country which was not colonised. While I spent my first night in Chiang Mai at a temple festival, where a school band played the music (the band was more remarkable because of their costumes than the music), the second night I went to see some proper Muay Thai. One can not help feeling a bit bad when one eight year old knocks another eight year old out. Eventually it was time to return to Bangkok and I did so by night train. In this train I saw another example of Thai business spirit. The restaurant of the bar is run by a private contractor and because many tourists travel on the train which are happy to spend good money they have a special targeted program to get foreigners to stay drink and dance in that bar. It really reminded more a disco on rails than anything else.

The next morning I met up with my brother and eventually after a lengthy breakfast we got on our way to Cambodia. But as they say, that is another story…