Sukhothai, Ayuthaya & Cujo

Sukhothai was Thailand's first capital. It means Rising of Happiness. This is not something we felt as the bus pulled into the station. Summoning optimism, we concentrated on organising our trip to the ancient kingdom, which flourished from the 13 th to the 14th century - its architecture and religious art being considered the most classic of Thai styles. To celebrate this, we've checked into a hotel, opposed to a guest house. Andy was desperate to find a T.V. (...I don't think he meant a Lady Boy...) so he could wake me up at 2am to watch some obscure football match. There is A/C and a fridge too which is unfortunate as it's been cold from the past 4 days (I'm actually wearing my fleece, rather than carrying it around with me). This is no good - our bronze tones are fading.

A World Heritage site (not another one?!), Sukhothai Historical Park includes remains from 91 sites within a 5km radius. A load of very old Wats stuck together, basically. Pity it was raining - again! The light is very bad in the following photos, so you'll just have to use your imagination. Wat Si Chum contains a famously photographed 15m seated Buddha, which was rather impressive. Other than that, the various other wat remains showed various other Buddha images...a bit difficult to be enthusiastic, as we were soaking wet and a bit chilly (a bit like you lot at home have been for the past 4 months). The only splash of colour was this beautiful waterlilly pond. Focus on the pink there...

Anyway, did I mention that Sukhothai has no soul? The Book seemed to suggest there were days worth of activity to be had. There isn't and the weather's still terrible. And there is nobody here. Tomorrow morning we are heading on down to Ayuthaya. It sounds sort of similar from what I can tell, but maybe it will be a bit warmer? It sits 86km North of The City of Angels...a.k.a. Bangkok! How exciting. Will we feel just like Leonardo Di Caprio in the opening scenes of The Beach? Apparently though, that's not the real Khao San Road...they actually filmed it in Manilla?!

The bus to Ayuthaya was a bit of a nightmare as half an hour into the journey, the air con packed up. It didn't help that the technical problems faced by a long-haul bus (supplying food, drink, sorting out luggage, tickets etc.) was faced by two ladies of limited intelligence. My first clue to the limitations of Woman 1. was realised straight away. As we learn in Phnom Penh, it's always best to check three times that you're on the right bus (and so are your bags).

"Ayuthaya?" I asked, as simply as I could on approach.
Blank look into the distance.
"Ayuthaya??!" I persevered, determined to catch her empy gaze.
"AY-U-THA-YA??!" wondering if she might be a little hard of hearing.
Eventually she met my stare and said,
"THAI-LAND!!!!"
Good, I'm glad we got that one cleared up.

Then we had the business of getting the backpacks on board. We weren't allowed to put them in the luggage spot, Woman 1. would much rather we tried to enter the Hobbit-sized hole side door, wearing our packpacks. It soon became apparent that perhaps our Western-sized asses AND our packs weren't designed to squeeze into the space afforded by the Hobbiton doorway. Woman 1. thought it would be helpful to push us through the door, i.e. force our shins into the steps). She was stronger than she looked and she held me fast for a while, until I made my discontent known.

It looked O.K though - the bus was almost empty! I spied two seats with loads of legroom and attempted to make for them. Except Woman 1. was stood in my way. She was also stood in Andy's way - a difficult feat for a 4'11'' 7 stone native woman of 60. She stood there for so long, it became clear she has already decided which seats she wanted us to have...except she stood so close to us that we couldn't actually manouevre to get our packs off. She was desperate for The Tickets. Almost as if there was some vague chance they might enable her to spend the day at a chocolate factory. Judging by Woman 2. I can only say I'm glad she wasn't collecting the tickets. Considerably larger than most Thai ladies, this one for sure would have killed to spend the day at a chocolate factory.

So we settled into the journey which was due to take us "about 5 hours." There have been few exceptions to the equation :

Stated journey length + 2 hours = actual journey time.

Except on those journeys where it takes three hours more than anticipated. We had already established a Lumines tournament (which was to last the 7 1/2 hours) when the A/C packed in. At this point there were various attempts to explain why, the most popular involving Woman 1. holding up an ice-cube for me. The following 7 hours involved a Benny-Hill style montage of both women opening the two small air vents in the roof the bus. This was closely followed by longer periods of closing the air vents (presumably to see if A/C had righted itself?) and Andy sneakily prising them open once more.

Upon approaching a bus station, I felt a toileting urge come upon me. At this point, it was stiflingly hot on the bus and as I tried to squeeze my way past Woman 2. she asked me where I was going. I would have thought that a Farang clutching a toilet roll with an air of desperation and a slight sheen to the skin would have been enough of a clue. She then pointed at a box situated at the bottom of Frodo's house and said I had to go in there. I said that I was too hot and I couldn't possibly go in there. I only managed to go a few steps before I was stopped by a man asking me where I was off to. I patiently relayed my response at which point he pointed back at the Hell Bus. "No, I'm not going in there." At this point him and Woman 2. entered a great debate. There was lots of eye-rolling and lots of dialogue involving "Farang." I don't even think the man was anything to do with the bus. I left them to it and snook off in search of a Death Loo. I knew that my 3 Baht would not ensure a beautiful, clean convenience, but at least I wouldn't pass out in an unspeakable manner on board bealzibub's version of the National Express. (Enter the classic Divine Comedy tune "...when your arse is as wide as a small country."

Back on the bus, we were then omitted from the complimentary iced-drink round. Woman 2. gleefully handed out shimmering cups of Pepsi to every other passenger with a smile. I couldn't help but smile when we reached our second stop of the day and she reached for the bus loo roll and made a run for it. More fun was in store when we reached our stop. Without any warning we were approaching Ayuthaya, Woman 1. started attempting to lug our rucksacks from the back seat. We were far too busy packing up PlayStation/ travel pillow (absolutely invaluable, thanks a million Paula!!) / snacks / drinks ("Am I bovvered, I've got my own!") /books and squeezing my oedematous Cornish pasties into my all-of-a-sudden-too-small boots. This activity caused much further consternation in the eyes of our fellow travellers and once more we heard mutterings of "Farang, blah blah blah."

But all this didn't matter! We were now in Ayuthaya! An amazing city, apparently, "not to be missed!" said The Book. A place which represents "the kingdom's true historical apex," would surely bestow us with the magic of a bygone age. Turned out to be dog-infested hole of a city. As I laid in our (quite decent) guesthouse room, I glanced through The Book whilst I waited for my pasties to diminish. There in black-and-white was, under the "Dangers and Annoyances" section the following statement:

"be wary of the local dog packs. They won't take any notice of you unless you cross into their territory which will trigger a shrill chorus of barking, exposed fangs and even biting."

Lonely Planet : Thailand (11th Ed) 2005, p195.

As a caninophobe in recovery (I really have made much progress since entering SEA three months ago), this did not make happy reading. What had we done? Andy reassurred me that The Book was often a bit over the top in its scaremongering tactics (it can be a bit like a parent in literary form). However, when we exitied the guesthouse for our evening of fun, there was a notice on the door saying "Beware of the local dogs. They often bite people." Oh my God, this was really happening.

Feeling quite sure we had to spend no longer than one night in this trecherous place, we swiftly made plans to see the sights in a couple of hours that evening.

We crammed ourselves into the smallest tuc tuc ever made along with a couple of Swiss people and a Spanish chap (humour abound). I was in no mood for small talk and must have looked really ignorant - it really is difficult to not speak to someone when is such close proximity with them. We were dropped off by some temple ruins, which was truly terrifying as it was pitch dark. The ruins themselves were lit up, but we were blind to the surrounding ground. There were indeed about a million dogs surrounding the temple. How do you know when you're in their territory anyway? Well, I took a couple of tentative (and rubbish) photos and looked for the sanctury of the tuc tuc. Anyway, I only went and walked straight into a ferral dog! I closed my eyes and awaited my fate as I carefully stepped off his paw. I could feel its fetid breath on my leg, its mangy fur bristling with menace. (It would be O.K. I reasoned. It had my 3 rabies injections - a quick journey to Bangkok and I'd be in possession of that final life-saving booster jab). Then it happened...the dog just turned and walked away - not even a yelp, a bark or a growl. Quivering somewhat, I returned to the tuc tuc and relayed my tale to the rest of our group. Nobody said a word. Even when I reasurred them all I was in fact O.K. and they needn't worry - still silence. Fearless weirdos.

You only have to look at this picture to see what I'm on about. We soon determined what they class as their territory when I made Andy go and take a closer picture. I've never been so glad to get back to our guesthouse and it's definitely back to the drawing board with the old 12-step recovery programme. Now these beasts obviously don't just go for us farang - they attack locals too. The reason they're such a problem is the age-old Buddhist philosphy of not killing anything. Sounds O.K. in theory, but from what I can tell, they don't seem to mind keeping animals (and humans for that matter - has anybody read any Thai prison stories?) in inhumane and degrading conditions. A good example of this is the selling of tiny birds in tiny cages in the grounds of temples. You can 'buy' a bird and then set it free - to bring you good luck. We actually saw an advert at the cinema which shows Richard Gere at temple and he uses his Mastercard to buy about a hundred birds for this little girl whose brother needed good luck. Well I say shame on you Richard, for promoting this practice. At least they didn't get the hamster experience, I suppose.