So the next big step for us was leaving the beaches... I know it sounds a bit odd but going to a more remote town actually set in stone that we weren’t just on a 3 week holiday in the sun. Unfortunately leading in to Thai New Year we missed out on the cheap flights so we decided that we would have to bus it for at least 1 segment to save on money. We decided to do the 6 hour bus ride from Bangkok to Sukhothai instead of the 14 hour one from Phuket to Bangkok which at the time made sense. So from Phi Phi we had to get the 1.5 hr ferry to Phuket, then the 1 hour mini bus to Phuket airport so we could fly to Bangkok. Then in Bangkok we have 7 hours to burn before our late night bus left so we decided to do some shopping at our beloved MBK. Obviously Jason wanted to get some DVDs and was unstoppable even thought we agreed 10 would be the max for this quick stop.
Managed to get back to the bus stop to get our bus, which we were slightly sceptical might not be the best bus in town after seeing some of the bombs driving around. But we were greatly surprised and ready for our overnight trip that was very cheap ($20 for both of us) and would save us a night in a hotel... well that was until we found out that against the advice on the lonely planet somehow the Thais had managed to shave 3 hours off the bus trip and we were supposed to arrive in Sukothai at 4am... stranded and of course we hadn’t booked accommodation. The bus trip wasn’t that bad other than the Thai Soap opera (with no subtitles) Jason was keen to watch as the TV was blaring and right in front of us but managed to get a few hours sleep.
As we arrived in Sukhothai of course someone was awake to try and flog us something so we managed to get to a hotel and get some more sleep so we weren’t totally out of it for the rest of the day. The hotel provided free push bikes to tour the town which we thought would be a novel idea not considering the hot weather and the fact that Jason hates exerting himself. So after 30 mins of cycling through this dead town we went back to the room and chilled in the air con. Jason had managed to secure us another scooter for the next day to go and look at the National Park where all these famous ruins and Wats were supposed to be but were on over 20 kms of land which most people bike around but after the previous day’s bike experience - Jason would only settle for a powered bike... which I must admit made us the envy of a lot of people when we were there!
Headed up to the National Park and well considering this was the main attraction of the town, we were somewhat disappointed. The ruins, Buddas and Wats were very pretty but there was no historical information about them and we just didn’t have any attachment to them. We saw at least 3 sections of the 5 that were around but it also got to the point where they had labelled a few bricks in the ground as a Wat and well we weren’t thrilled especially after driving around in the blistering hot wind. So we headed back to the room and arranged transport out of Sukhothai to Chiang Mai the next day which was another 5.5 hour bus ride.
