Sukhothai

After a long journey by train, bus, and tuk-tuk, we finally arrived at our hotel Sila Resort in New Sukhothai late at night. The hotel owner was so kind and had sent us the tuk-tuk. And since we hadn't had a proper meal other than nuts and snacks, she ordered some food for us through Grab (similar to Uber Eats), even though the reception was already closed. The next day, she explained to us how to get to the temples and where to find a nice evening market there.

After an amazing breakfast (by the way, they have Maggi here 😄), we took a tuk-tuk to Old Sukhothai. We rented two good bicycles in front of the Historical Park, which allowed us to explore the temple complex. And we were very impressed! In one of the temples, several young people were practicing a dance, probably for the Chinese New Year's festival. Together with the music, the temple complex had something magical! We learned that the different hand gestures (mudras) of the Buddha statues have different meanings. In the evening, the market opened, where we could indulge in food while enjoying the sunset view of the temples. The Buddha statues in the golden light were stunning. We returned to the night market in New Sukhothai by tuk-tuk, which was also huge! We walked back to our hotel with a bag full of delicious melon pieces. There, we learned that the official New Year in Thailand is on January 1st, like ours. But the Chinese New Year is also celebrated here with great enthusiasm, as about 16% of the population consists of Chinese people. This falls on January 22nd, and the original Thai New Year is on April 13th! The animals follow the Chinese zodiac, so the current Year of the Tiger will change to the Year of the Rabbit on April 13th. In general, the hotel owner said that the Thais celebrate everything... that also explains the many Christmas trees and snowmen that are seen everywhere as decorations 😬 We then showed her pictures of the current snowfall in Germany and explained how to build a snowman, which she found funny ☺️

The next day, we took a minivan-shared taxi back to Phitsanulok, and from there, we took the train (this time express with air conditioning... still takes 6 hours 🙃) to Chiang Mai.