Ayuthaya, Sukothai and Chiang Mai

We since the last blog Aaron and I first travelled to a Ayuthaya 85 km north of Bangkok. This city has tons of wats (or old temples or ruins) constructed between 1350-1700 and was the old capital of Siam. The wats were really neat to see and explore. The city was so full of history. We also took a boat tour as the city is an island with three rivers joining around it. The night tuk tuk tour was cool as all the ruins were lite up at night. It was GORGEOUS.

After two days there we were pretty "wat"ed out and headed to Sukothai. Unfortunately our english speaking NOT english understanding hotel guy misinformed us the bus was three hours so by the time we got to Sukothai 7 hours later we didnt have as much time to explore as we had planned for. We did make it to Sukothai historical park and rented bikes to bike around the main park for about 2.5 hours. It was a much nicer setting for the wats than the city background of the other wats weve been to.


We now are in Chiang Mai and leave tomorrow. I love this city! We just got back from a three day trek through the mountains (although in our standards with the Rocky Mountains they are more like really large hills). There were 11 of us...two from Korea, two from France (smoky the bears), three from Holland, two from England (the Vontraps) and us. The first four only spent the first day with us. We couldn't have asked for a better group! We basically slept three days straight laughing so hard we cried. Great people and their singing and song making abilities were unreal :)! The first day we bamboo rafted down a river. Our guide was crazy and soaked everyone continuously. After that we hiked a few hours to our first camp which was beside a really nice but freezing cold waterfall. Our hut had wood floors to sleep on and mosquito nets to sleep under! Our only complaint was that the waterfall was too loud to sleep :). Had a great time with our guide Pie who had a thick odor of Thai whiskey for the entire trip but was such fun and really nice guy. As for his guitar playing and singing skills...let's just say he's no Eric Clapton. Second day we hiked four hours to a Karen hill tribe village. The shamen there is over 80 and has never left the village! He asked our guide if an airplane is bigger than his hut and boy did his jaw drop when he learnt that the planes can fit over 200 people in them!! We felt really bad for a woman there 23 years old. She was too poor to come up with the dowry (two pigs) and so couldnt marry earlier...now that she's over 20 she wont ever get married and has to wear a white skirt unlike the bright skirt all the married women wear. I wanted to bring her home to Canada where she didnt have to be an old maid at 23! The third day we hiked 2 hours and went elephant riding. It wasn't very much fun as I felt bad for the elephants the entire time.

Today I took a Thai cooking class (Aaron wasnt interested!! Nuts I know!). It was on the outskirts of Chiang Mai in a gorgeous facility part of a gated community. The chef is really famous and has a tv cooking show here. We learned how to make a homemade curry paste (with mortor and pestle) and five meals: panang curry pork, a fish dish, a curry chicken dish, spicy thai salad, stir fry and sticky rice and coconut pudding. I dont think I have a hope in hell of recreating them in Canada but I will try! Thats it for now, next up the islands!