Where to begin! This post will be quite long because I am trying to catch up on the weekend posts because for the past three days I have been in Sukkothai. Now that may not mean much to anyone of you guys at home but here it is a big thing. Sukkothai is the first kingdom of Thailand, so it is a very important area here. We left at 9 am Saturday and came back a little before 3pm on Monday (we got the day off because of this). So first thing is first, the bus ride was five hours. You may think that it would stink to be on a bus winding through the mountains, but it was actually the highlight! I loved riding in the a/c and getting to see all the different views. We stopped at a few places along the way, which made the time go by so much faster. Our bus driver was so nice; only spoke two words of English; hello and thank you. Once we arrived in Sukkothai we headed to the information center, then museum (couldn’t take pictures inside, sorry). But it was incredible; they had all these exhibits and artifacts from digs all over the place.

 First Visitor Center

 Map of the Historical Park, we were on the outside for that day the following day we went inside.

Outside view of visitor center

The first tram we took

After that and then traveling around the outside of the historical park, in blistering heat, we got to check into the guest house and change out of our sweaty uniforms! When I say blistering, I mean like as hot as Dante’s seventh circle of hell in which it feels like a desert with raining fire.  I thought Chiang Mai was hot; coming from 105 degree in Sukkothai to this 95 degree weather was almost refreshing (ALMOST).

Orchid Hibiscus Guest House

Our little porch

View of the surroundings

Opened the door and this is what we see!

Our Swan towels :)

The bummer of the trip was that I had some nasty stomach pains and just never felt like eating. However little I did eat it was comparably better in Chiang Mai. Oh and on Sunday night when the others were around drinking and hanging out me and one other girl opened the gate of the resort to step outside and see the lights. What we didn’t see at first was the two dogs charging us from down the street. But when I noticed them I informed the other girl that we should probably get our butts inside before they got to us. So we jumped back into the resort and closed the gate. But I guess I was a little too eager and landed on the concrete in the wrong way. Meaning I scraped a chunk of skin off my toe. What is ironic about this is that it was the same toe that I hit the week before and tore off half my toenail. Yea my left foot is not meshing well with Thailand. I also just remembered that I am taking a dance class in which we are on our feet all the time! Oh why couldn’t it have been an unimportant appendage!? 

The second day, Sunday, we went in the historical park and rode around in the trams visiting temple ruins. We also climbed up to a Buddha statue in the 105 degree weather in skirts! My breathing was really bad and it felt like the air was getting thin and hard to breathe as we went. But of course I was thrilled to be there and was the first one to start climbing; haha the line leader in me; just like at the tiger kingdom I was the first one to dive in! So after that we saw some more ruins and then eventually made our way back to the resort to change and relax. 

Group shot once we arrived 

 In front of ruins

 First ruins I saw, incredible

 Chilling over the green river

First Temple at the Visitor Center

 That was the door

 My first Buddha picture

 In front of the largest concrete Buddha here

 This was the beginning of the hike, may not look like much but oh it was! 

 I may look calm and relaxed but that was just for the picture, the second it clicked I was panting 

 Buddha at the top

View from the top

 Another stop to see ruins

 My face shows how hot I am 

 Aren't I the spitting image of the female Buddha?

Of course I get the tram with the books!

 The last stop of the day

 I asked if we were allowed to go inside, but of course for safety reasons we weren't, what a bummer! I would have gone in first!

 Ta-Da!

 They have such beautiful trees here

 Side view

We headed to dinner at a Thai place and I thought I would try the macaroni and chicken. But whatever you think is American here tastes completely different. The macaroni and cheese I ordered turned out to be more like a macaroni goulash with sausage. Pretty usual to have your order completely warped here. But after dinner I was still not feeling well so I went back to our room to lie down in the a/c. At this resort there was no wifi, so we were without it for 3 days. People were itching for internet. I just wanted to have a TV in the room to watch movies, but I proved to myself that I can survive with TV or internet!

This whole trip has been a full of firsts for me. I have even surprised myself at times at just how willing I am to try new things. Most of the notions I had thought about Thailand were totally off. Every day there are new surprises.

Now we have returned to Chiang Mai and I’m sitting in my apartment writing and relaxing. I didn’t realize it but I actually was excited to come back to Chiang Mai. Only one more week of the Thai Dance, we are still learning one new dance in two days before the final performance and then we have a week off! 

More to come as the adventure continues!