Backpacking Southeast Asia

After spending one night in Ayutthaya (a fairly eventful night, as I'll explain), and touring the ruins around the city, I hopped on a bus and headed further north to Sukhothai. Sukhothai was also an ancient capital, and the ruins here are much more well preserved than Ayutthaya's. But first, my night in Ayutthaya.

I was having a meal at Tony's Place, the guesthouse I was staying at in Ayutthaya, and one of the cooks, an older lady, told me there was a party happening later that night at Chang House across the street. I had nothing else to do (obviously), so I decided to check it out. It started off quite slow, three Thais were playing American covers (Beatles, Clapton, classic rock stuff), and I was sipping a beer in the corner. Actually, the night before in Bangkok, I found a bar with a couple Thais playing basically the same covers, and they were fantastic. But back to Ayutthaya. Slowly the place started filling up with foreigners (the Thais call us farang), somewhere around 60 people, and it was getting rowdy. A guy sitting at the table in front of me saw the maple leaf on my bag and it turns out he as from Kelowna, but he hadn't been home in a couple years. He had met an English girl in Australia, and they were travelling with her brother. So I'm sitting there with two Brits and a Canadian, arguing about the superiority of hockey over football (soccer), and a mic started being passed around and people were doing some karaoke while the Thais played up front. It eventually became known that I could play guitar, and when I absolutely refused to sing, they very publicly urged me to get on stage and play something. The whole bar is egging me on at this point, so if I don't do it, I look like a total pansy. To make a long story short, I went on stage and played a couple songs (instrumental) to a bunch of drunk travellers. It probably helped that we were all drunk, because they loved it and I got a huge ego boost out of it. Good times!

On to Sukhothai. When I got off the bus at 1130pm last night, there was one other backpacker at the station that had arrived from Chiang Mai, which is further north. He was a German guy named Alex, and we ended up sharing a room (only $2 each!) and touring the ruins together today by bicycle. Probably one of the best days so far, just cruising around a rural area exploring ancient temples and ruins. I got sunburnt, but it was a fun day. I have a ton of pics and I really wish I could post a whole bunch, but this site only allows a certain amount per month. These hardly do it justice, these ruins were amazing and we spent five hours going through them all. Here are a few:

This was one part of Wat Mahathat. A wat is a Buddhist temple. Wat Mahathat was huge in itself, but only a fraction of the ruins in Sukhothai.

One part of the Sukhothai National Park.

A row of Buddhas.

This was in one of the Wats on the outskirts of town. It was huge.

There was no way I could pass this up. Poo Restaurant in Sukhothai.

I'm staying in Sukhothai for one more night, and tomorrow morning I'm leaving for Chiang Mai, the major northern city. I'm planning on doing a trek, and I'll spend about a week there before I head into Laos.

Thanks again for the comments. Go Canucks Go!