Dec 18th, 2016
As much as I loved my luxurious stay at the JW Marriott in Phuket, it wasn’t much of a cultural experience. My next stop was Sukhothai which I saw a picture of, in all places, a Microsoft Windows Desktop Theme. After a little research, I found out the name of the place and discovered it was a UNESCO World Heritage site. Sukhothai (means the dawn of happiness) was the first capital of Siam 800 years ago in the 13th Century.
It was a bit off the beaten path which made it even more enticing, better yet, there weren’t chains of hotels charging inflated prices. My hotel was less that $35 per night and it included breakfast! A lot of history to see and it doesn’t cost a fortune! Sukhothai seemed like a place I would like.
As I flew in, I could tell that there was a lot of agriculture in this area. When I landed I was surprised to see that corn was being grown next to bananas, in fact, they seemed to be growing about everything including mangos, melon, rice, dragon fruit, sugar cane and morning-glory (with the greens used extensively in southeast Asian cooking).
When we arrived at the hotel, I was surprised at how quiet everything was. Even when we went to the Historical Park, there were people but most of them appeared local who were there to ride their bikes around the park. I had been to similar places and always found it a challenge to get pictures without a tour bus of people trying to do the same thing. There were a few instances of self-absorbed people spending way too long trying to get the right pose for their selfie but overall, for the busy season, it was pretty quiet.
The other nice thing was that until January, the park is free in honor of the late King Bhumibol Adulyadej who passed away in October. I have noticed that most of the Thai people are wearing black or wearing black ribbons in honor of him.
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